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semi•ARTISAN Jewelry

Philomath, ORBrand · Jewelry

Therapy Fund Art didn’t start as a business idea. It started because I was overwhelmed. In March of 2020, my therapist told me I needed a cathartic practice. I had too much stored in my body. Too much unprocessed grief, memory, and history. A full canvas felt like too much commitment, too much pressure. So I chose small wooden circles. Tiny surfaces. Something I could finish. I painted pieces that reminded me of my father. He had big dreams of taking me to Montana to go Agate and Sapphire hunting. He had dreams of starting a family jewelry business at a time when I was too deep in survival to recognize what he saw in me. I wish now I would have taken that risk with him. After His passing in 2018, and one and a half of the hardest years of my life, I picked up a tiny paint brush and I painted emotion in miniature. Landscapes that reminded me of the man who took me all over the forests of the Pacific North West and whose heart was as big as the Big Sky Country he came from. It was manageable. It was honest. It was how I could begin facing his absence. People admired them as I shared them on social media. They suggested I turn them into earrings. So, I did. Not because I was building a brand — but because it felt natural. When interest grew, I suddenly had a house full of earrings and a growing list of interested buyers. So I needed a way to move them out so I wouldn’t feel overwhelmed again. That’s how Therapy Fund Art was born. It was aptly named. The art funded the therapy. The therapy fueled the art. The purpose was always healing first — income second. I also recognized that the only way this was going to be sustainable is if I produced an income to pay for all of the supplies as well.