“Stories from the Trails: Unlikely Adventurers” is a project that has been calling my heart in a way I knew I could no longer ignore. It melds together some of the most important aspects of my life: being an artist, an avid mountain/outdoors explorer, an advocate for those living with cystic fibrosis (CF) and a storyteller, being particularly drawn to telling the stories of invisible struggles that are often not well understood. After all, we all experience struggles and setbacks in our lives and perhaps by being open about these hardships, we can all relate to one another a little better and further perpetuate kindness, compassion, and empathy towards each other.

Living with CF is complex, all-consuming and heavy. You can do all the right things and yet still not have total ability to control the outcomes. Chronic lung infections, plummeting lung function, hospitalizations, home IVs, double lung transplants, an intense daily treatment load, and a heavy burden of baseline symptoms (to name a few) are some of the ways that cystic fibrosis threatens our ability to adventure outdoors in the ways that we would like. Despite this (or perhaps because of this?), CF has a way of weaving resilience, kindness and fierce strength throughout the people it impacts, something that makes the losses even more palpable and unfair.

Each painting in this series will feature one trail, hike, run, trip, or outdoor accomplishment, juxtaposed with the story behind it and a photo that depicts the reality of CF at the time of the adventure, illuminating invisible illness and the forced resilience and grief that’s woven deep below the surface and often isn’t recognized unless somebody is brave enough to talk about it. These stories will remind us how important it is to understand that there is more to everybody’s story than is outwardly visible.

These are the stories I want to tell: the stories from the trails of incredibly resilient (not by choice) human beings that are simply doing their best to do the things that bring them meaning and joy.