Small Canvases, Big Joy: introducing my first ACEO collection

There's a version of my studio practice that collectors know well — the large-scale pieces, the fiber optics, the resin pours that take days to cure, the pieces that hold entire seasons of my life inside them. those works are labor intensive in every sense. they ask a lot of me. physically, yes, but emotionally too — each one carries something real, and by the time it leaves my studio, I've usually poured a piece of myself into it.

I wouldn't trade that process for anything. but I've been craving something else alongside it. something smaller. lighter. a place to just play.

That's where ACEOscome in.

If you're new to the term, ACEO stands for art cards, editions and originals — tiny original works, 2.5 x 3.5 inches, the same size as a trading card. Small format, but not small in spirit. Artists all over the world use them as a way to experiment, to try new techniques, to make work that doesn't have to carry the weight of a gallery wall or a five-figure price tag. It also brings art to everyone as they are more afforadable option than the larger works that not everyone has access to.

For me, they're becoming something like a creative safe space.

there's no pressure in a 2.5 x 3.5 inch space. No need to plan for months, no client conversation about scale or placement in a home, no wondering how a piece will read from across a room. Just me, a tiny surface, and permission to try something I've never tried before — a color combination I wasn't sure about, a texture experiment, a shape pulled from the desert or the ocean that I want to sit with before I ever consider it for something larger.

This collection is where that exploration lives. some of these little pieces are studies for ideas I might eventually scale up. Some are just what they are — small, complete, and made purely because it felt good to make them.

What's different is the feeling behind the brush. These were made lighter. faster. with more laughter in the studio and less holding my breath.

I think that's important to say out loud, actually — that an artist's practice doesn't have to be one thing. It can hold both. The deep, effortful, emotionally taut work and the quick, joyful, low-stakes work. One doesn't cancel the other out. If anything, I've found the ACEOs are making me a better painter on the large scale too, because they remind me why I fell in love with this in the first place — before there were collectors, before there were price points, before there was a business attached to any of it.

So this is me, stepping into something new. a little nervous, mostly just excited. These small pieces are personal in a different way than my large ones are — less about a finished statement and more about an open door.

Tis first collection was my first time ever painting cats. At first I thought, a small scale cat couldn’t be too hard. And it would be better to try it there than on a large canvas. What I didn’t anticipate was the small size actually makes it more difficult, and changes the tactic when it comes to painting an identifiable subject vs abstract. I learned a lot, and had a lot of fun with them.

Because I am also a lover of all things that glitter, I also used Mica pigment to add a shimmer. Mica is a natural glittery substance that doesn’t put microplastics into our environment. But is just as sparkley.

You can find my first ACEO collection, Sparkling Shores, on my eBay. As that is the standard place to sell ACEOs via live auction. Each auction lasts 7 days.