A New Life in Oregon
2022 arrived like a long-awaited sunrise after the longest night imaginable. Four years had passed since I locked "the Monster" out of our lives—four years of cancer recovery, COVID survival, single-working-motherhood on a university salary while he contributed nothing to our children's expenses. Four years of court battles, creative explosions, and the slow, deliberate work of rebuilding not just my art practice but my entire existence. When the Court finally granted my youngest son and me "move-away rights" to leave California for Oregon, it felt less like a legal victory and more like permission to finally breathe.
Looking back, those four years contained multiple lifetimes of experience. Cancer had taught me about mortality and resilience. COVID had shown me how to adapt and find joy in constraint. Single motherhood had revealed reserves of strength I didn't know I possessed. The ongoing financial strain of supporting two boys without any help from their father had forced me to become resourceful in ways I never imagined. The endless legal battles had taught me to document everything, to fight strategically, to never give up on what was right.
Through it all, my art had evolved from personal therapy to intentional manifestation tool. The mood boards that began as experiments in hope had become sophisticated works that bridged the gap between fine art and life design. They were no longer just helping me envision a different future—they were actively creating the path toward it.
As the possibility of relocation became real, my mood board work entered a new phase of development. I began refining pieces specifically for professional presentation, understanding that these works had commercial potential beyond their personal significance. The fusion of found natural objects with carefully crafted ceramic elements had evolved into a signature style that spoke to others' longing for authentic beauty and intentional living.
Some pieces were developed with gallery walls in mind—compositions that could translate the intimate scale of personal manifestation into statements powerful enough to command attention in professional spaces. Others were refined for corporate environments, where the combination of natural and handmade elements offered respite from the sterile predictability of office aesthetics.
But equally important were the pieces I was framing for our future home. These weren't just decorative objects but talismans of our journey, reminders of how we had transformed broken pieces into something beautiful. Each framed mood board would carry the energy of our California struggle into our Oregon freedom, serving as daily reminders of our resilience and creativity.
My brother and his family had relocated to Oregon in 2020, drawn by the state's natural beauty, more manageable cost of living, and sense of possibility that California increasingly seemed to lack. Their reports of life in the Pacific Northwest painted a picture of exactly what my youngest son and I were craving: access to authentic nature, community that prioritized substance over status, and the space to reinvent ourselves without the weight of our complicated history.
When the Court's decision came through, granting us permission to follow my brother's family to Oregon, it felt like the universe finally aligning with our carefully manifested intentions. All those mood boards featuring Oregon's volcanic landscapes, towering forests, and mountain vistas were about to transform from aspiration to address.
We chose Bend as our destination, drawn by its unique combination of outdoor recreation opportunities, thriving arts community, and family-friendly atmosphere. Here was a place where my son could grow up with real mountains as his backdrop, where I could continue developing my art practice surrounded by the kind of natural beauty that had always inspired my best work.
The move in May 2022 felt like stepping through a portal into the life we had been visualizing for years. Suddenly, the natural objects that had seemed exotic treasures in California were everywhere—the perfect stones, the weathered wood, the feathers and pods and fragments that had populated my mood boards were now simply part of our daily landscape.
The phrase "we've never looked back" isn't just a figure of speech—it's a conscious choice we made from the moment we crossed the state line. Oregon offered us something California never could: the chance to be known for who we were becoming rather than defined by what we had survived. In Bend, my youngest son wasn't "the kid whose parents went through a terrible divorce." He was simply a bright, creative child discovering mountain biking and rock climbing and all the adventures that come with living in one of America's premier outdoor recreation destinations.
For me, Oregon meant artistic freedom in the truest sense. Without the constant drain of legal battles and the emotional weight of living in the same geographical space as "the Monster," my creativity exploded in new directions. The mood boards that had begun as survival tools became celebration pieces, works that captured not longing but arrival, not hope but reality.
The move to Oregon coincided with an unprecedented period of artistic productivity. Freed from the stress of court proceedings and financial uncertainty about basic survival, I could finally focus entirely on refining my craft and developing new bodies of work. The fusion mood boards that had served as manifestation tools were evolving into something larger—a comprehensive artistic practice that bridged sculpture, collage, and environmental art.
Working with Oregon's abundant natural materials felt like coming home. The volcanic rock, the pine cones shaped by mountain weather, the river stones polished by snowmelt—these weren't just found objects but collaborators in creating work that spoke to the authentic relationship between human creativity and natural beauty.
"Move-away rights" might sound like dry legal terminology, but for us it represented something magical: the right to choose our own story, to write our future in a place that supported our highest potential rather than perpetuating our deepest wounds. The Court's decision didn't just grant us permission to relocate—it validated our right to prioritize healing, growth, and authentic living over the convenience of maintaining toxic proximity.
Every morning in Bend, waking up to mountain views that stretch beyond the horizon, feels like living inside one of those mood boards I created during the darkest days of our California struggles. The difference is that now, instead of manifesting a distant dream, I'm simply documenting the beautiful reality we created through persistence, creativity, and the unwavering belief that we deserved better.
Oregon didn't just give us a new address—it gave us a new life, one where my art could flourish without apology and my son could grow up understanding that sometimes the bravest thing you can do is leave everything familiar behind in pursuit of something true.
