I’m Theresa

I paint fish in unusual circumstances.

My oil and cold wax paintings, copper plate etchings, and collagraph prints help me tell my stories of resilience, self-determination and hope…and helps bring awareness to Lyme disease…something I have been navigating through since I was seventeen.

I grew up in Scranton, Pennsylvania

My decision to pursue art as my career came very early... like at eight years old or earlier!

That was a given.

I eagerly went on to art school and received my degree in fine art from Tyler School of Art, in Philadelphia, as well as a teaching certification in art education, but two things happened.

First, after graduating, I knew everything about line and texture and negative space and color theory, and how to stretch a canvas and even how to thread a loom, but knew nothing of starting an art business. It wasn't in the curriculum.

Second, even if I had all of the tools to start working as a professional artist, I don't know if I would have been up for the challenge.

Somewhere along the way, my body and my brain started to turn on me. I began experiencing an unimaginable list of weird and unexplained symptoms that would come and go, intensify and change, stop me in my tracks and take my breath away. I felt like a fish out of water. Life became unpredictable and scary.

It took decades before I found out that it was Lyme Disease.

Treatment was long... but I felt my body and mind gradually coming back. Rising from the fog and quicksand that I was always trying to navigate through every day... and back to the energetic optimistic person I knew I was meant to be. The one I fought so hard for and never gave up on.

It was like a renaissance...a rebirth. I approached my art with the energy, spirit and knowledge that the young graduate, me, just couldn't.

Making art became a way for me to express and record my journey. A way to let others know that they are not alone in their struggles. My way of saying that life is worth fighting for...believe in all the possibilities...just keep swimming.