My Story

I think my story really begins with my mom. From the time I was little, she always encouraged my sister and me to create. One of my earliest artistic entrepreneurial efforts was the two of us setting up shop on our camp dock, trying to sell hand-painted flower pots.

I fell in love with painting in high school, but I was never someone who could settle on just one creative path. After graduating, I studied interior design, where I was introduced to color theory, design, and even took my first pottery class. It was the first time I realized I wasn't just drawn to painting I was drawn to making things with my hands. Texture, color, and creating something from nothing.

Like many people in their twenties, I spent a lot of time trying to figure out what I wanted to do with my life and who I was. I switched to pre-nursing, but even then I couldn't stay away from the arts. I signed up for photography and marketing classes, and before long I was transferring to SUNY Plattsburgh to earn my Bachelor of Fine Arts. Once again, I couldn't choose just one medium. I explored photography, sculpture, and painting; at times even trying to combine all three.

After graduating, I moved to Maine to intern at Maine Media Workshops, working in gallery administration, art management, and location and talent. From there, life took me in a direction I never could have planned. I fell in love, and although from the beginning I knew it wasn't meant to last forever, it shaped who I became. That is the reason I moved to Uruguay, and looking back now, I think that may have been the first time I was consciously trying to capture the world around me in color, or maybe when I see those photos now that I took then, I realize it may simply be just the way I experienced it. A lot of my time there was spent alone, not knowing the language, and observing the world around me.

Later I found myself living in the Caribbean, where I actually took my paints and easel with me. Eventually, I felt the pull to come home, but I think a lot of that Caribbean color stayed with me. I returned to Lake Placid, New York, where my family is, wanting to put down roots. There, my path shifted once again. I shifted away from the arts and pursued graduate studies in Fitness and Wellness Leadership, obtaining my masters degree and further built a career focused on helping people live healthier lives. To which I still do today.

Somewhere along this path, and transition from the arts to a career in health and wellness, I stopped making art.

For nearly a decade, I only painted occasionally, usually life paintings of my dog, Maggi that were left unfinished.

As I've gotten older, authenticity has become more important to me than achievement. I've spent a lot of time recently asking myself what it means to truly live as the person I've always been and honoring every part of my story that has shaped me instead of trying to find the person to be. When I think about what five-year-old Traci, selling painted flower pots off the camp dock, would be most proud of today, the answer is simple: my art and my dogs!

I am reminded by all of this, my story, the path that lead me here that my art isn’t just something that I do, it's part of who I am, and for me to live authentically, that is to be an artist. Living without art in my life felt like living disconnected from my own soul.

Step Into Life Studio grew from finally giving myself permission to honor that little girl and from experiencing life with and without color and trusting the way I see the world, and to create from a place that feels completely authentic to me. Removing the noise of everyone else. Every painting, every hat, and every piece I make is a result of this journey I call my life.