Soft Offerings

Some pieces begin with deep intention. Others begin in the most unexpected places, like the back of a quirky antique store.

Soft Offerings started as a little spark of curiosity during a spontaneous visit to one of my favorite hidden gems: a massive, wonderfully chaotic thrift and antique shop affectionately known as The Garage Sale Co. While wandering the maze of old treasures and forgotten relics, I stumbled across a dusty box containing a full vintage china tea set.

I don’t know what it is about old tea sets, but they’ve always felt magical to me, like tiny invitations to pause and connect. So I bought it.

For years, that box sat in my garage. I never had the space to display it properly or use it in my kitchen. But I could never bring myself to get rid of it. I think deep down, I knew it was meant for something—someday.

That “someday” came when I started experimenting with the idea of creating a painting that held both softness and structure. I pulled out one of the delicate teacups and a matching plate, and (using my husband’s Dremel tool) I cut them apart with care. (One of the perks of being married to an engineer: if I dream something up, he usually knows how to make it happen… and already owns the tool to do it.)

What began as a playful, creative experiment started evolving into something much deeper.

As I built the composition, I suspended the teacup mid-air and surrounded it with preserved blossoms from my garden, yellow Lady Banks roses and pink snapdragons which had gone crazy this year, along with clear quartz and yellow calcite. The piece took on the feeling of an altar, or a sacred ritual. Something quiet, personal, and reverent.

The soft celestial sky behind it felt like memory itself, hazy, beautiful, and just out of reach. Suddenly, I wasn’t just playing with materials anymore. I was creating a visual prayer.

Soft Offerings became a tribute to the kind of tenderness that survives breaking. A meditation on what we still give, even when we don’t feel whole. A reminder that even cracked porcelain can hold beauty, and that even imperfect offerings can be sacred.

Soft Offerings has been in 2 shows now. And each time many people came up to me to tell me they loved the “Alice in Wonderland” painting. While that wasn’t my original intention of the piece, I always love hearing what others take/feel about my work. And Alice In Wonderland is a fun nod towards play, which I personally know I need more of. As I tend to be a very serious person.

I love that this painting started with joy, curiosity, and a little thrifting adventure—and grew into something that now feels like one of my most vulnerable and meaningful pieces.

So I ask you, gently:
What parts of yourself have you still offered, even after breaking?
What beauty have you cradled, not in spite of your tenderness, but because of it?

This is your invitation to remember: you don’t need to be whole to be worthy. Your offerings don’t need to be perfect to be powerful.