“I've always been very artistic. I am an only child and I was homeschooled, so I used to fill a lot of my time with different crafts. The thing I did the most before was digital art of characters and comics. When it really changed to painting landscapes was when I was diagnosed with medulloblastoma, because I was unable to use my right hand as a result. I can move it, but it’s not accurate—everything works, but just not well. Everything on the right side—arm, hand, leg, eye, tongue—was affected. While recovering from surgery and treatment, I wanted to do something to fill my days. I watched a lot of Bob Ross on TV, and wanted to try it myself. I don’t really remember it being frustrating to paint with my non-dominant hand. I think it was more frustrating to have my dominant hand not do what I wanted to, and not being able to make art at all. So I learned to paint with my non-dominant hand. I was told by my doctors that if you have never done a skill before, and you do it for the first time with your non-dominant hand it is easier to learn- and I saw this happen! So, I can paint with my left hand, but I cannot write or draw. My brain has already learned how to write and draw with my dominant hand. I'm very slowly retraining my right hand to do the things that it did before. It’s a slow process. … It's still a work in progress, but the things I love, little by little, I’m getting them back. If you never try you’ll never fail, but also, you’ll never know if you don’t try. The subject of my paintings is either sometimes I'll see a landscape photo, and I’ll want to try painting that. Other times I just paint from imagination or memory or a color combo I like. I also paint New England a lot from memory, since I’m from the Western Mass., Springfield area. Just hikes I’ve taken, places I've been. I go with what I remember or what really sparked my imagination or my childhood feelings. I feel like a lot of the places around New England with the old stone walls and trees don't really get a lot of attention and deserve some appreciation.”