Though she’d always loved art, it wasn’t until four years ago that she got serious about it. That’s when she discovered encaustics (painting with hot wax). “I walked into an art supply store in Portland, Oregon, where they had a display of this medium I had never heard of,” she said. “The smell and the way it looked was like opening a box of Crayola crayons. I had always wanted something that could give me that texture and depth. I went in all these galleries that had all these encaustics and multimedia. I was in love.