FREE TO ROAR: MY VOICE AS AN ARTIST

Hi. I’m Anna. And I love art.

This came first. — I will never forget; I knew way back in kindergarten that I wanted to be an artist when I grew up. I'd discovered at a very early age that art could bring me to a refuge in the midst of chaos. And somehow, through everything that came later in life, art has always stayed.

It followed me through every hardship, trauma,
uncertainty, and really difficult seasons.
It was the gift God gave me.
It was grace.
It was strength.
It was surrender.
It was peace.
It was joy.

Drawing became a way to escape the chaos around me. When life felt overwhelming or outside my control, I could sit down with a pencil and paper and create something of my own. I couldn't always change what was happening around me, but I could create something on the page. I could always paint on a canvas. I could always learn a new medium. And when I struggled to see worth in myself, I could still make something worthwhile.

When it came time for college, I knew I wanted to do something creative. I considered fine art, but the whole starving artist thing sounded terrible when I had financial security and independence on my mind. So I chose graphic design. And thankfully, I fell in love. I loved the marriage of form and function. The idea that something could be beautiful, but also serve a practical purpose. I loved that I could still draw. I spent the next decade or so freelancing, creating brands, websites, illustrations, and everything in between. All the while, I continued drawing and painting, exploring fine art and developing my own visual voice.

And then in 2016, I got gut-punched by life.
My dad died of cancer.

We had just a couple of weeks with him after they found it.

Something in me changed. After losing him,
I desperately wanted to begin building a legacy that reflected his.
I wanted to make an impact.
I wanted to help people heal in the very places
God was showing me I needed healing, too.

As I grew closer to God and began pursuing healing in my own life, I started wondering what it might look like to surrender my creativity to Him, too.

Not just what I could make with the gifts He'd given me, but what He might want to do through them. That became part of the heart behind ANCHOR 13 STUDIO, the nonprofit I founded to help individuals heal trauma through the creative arts while pointing their hearts towards Jesus.

Through leading workshops, public speaking, doing outreach, and creating art, I've had opportunities to help people heal. I saw how God was the healer and I was simply a facilitator of space, supplies, and pointing hearts to Him. I've seen how creating can give someone a way to express what they haven't found words for yet. How an image can hold something deeply personal without requiring someone to explain every part of their story. I've learned that art isn’t what heals someone but that it is through creating, they can find the healer. God is the healer. I always say, "God is the Maker of our hearts, and therefore He is the Healer of our hearts."

And God led me to tattooing through my passion for serving trafficking survivors, and I am so grateful to have a career where my art can change someone’s life.

But through every season, every change, and every new way I've found to create, two things have remained constant:

1). God is still with me.
2.) I’m still an artist.

For a long time, I thought I needed to be healed before I could help others heal. So I tried really hard to be healed. What I didn't understand then was that I was trying to heal while living in circumstances that required me to keep surviving.

God carried me through those times in the hours hiking in His creationg and the hours I had spent expressing what I couldn't always say or didn’t have words for. Sometimes words felt too vulnerable. I learned that images could speak more clearly than words.

And that is where I need to pause to remember and recognize something important.
Art was never what was carrying me.
God was.

And while I'm no longer living in that same place of survival, art hasn't lost its place in my life. I still love creating. I still love exploring new mediums, learning new techniques, and making something simply because I want to.

I've always loved meaning and symbolism. I love when a single image can tell an entire story or communicate something that might take paragraphs to explain. Some of my favorite personal pieces have come from dreams I have had while sleeping and many come from my time studying God's Word.

I think visually, so sometimes while I'm learning something, I begin to see it:

Hearts of stone and hearts of flesh.
Armor and fortresses.
Gardens and battlefields.

I want to create work that acknowledges hard things without leaving us there. Work that points toward healing, surrender, becoming as we journey towards total restoration, and ultimately toward Jesus.

God made me an artist. I am a creative. It's part of who I am. And I am confident I'll be creating in one way or another while I have breath.

---

About six years ago, I had a dream that eventually became two paintings: Be Still & Awaken. I shared the story behind them in my first blog post here. In short: I was a mountain—still, peaceful, protected, waiting. But the mountain was actually a dormant volcano. Something was happening underneath the surface, even though it couldn't be seen yet.

Then it erupted.

A lion who had been quietly watching over the mountain roared, and a lioness emerged from the smoke and roared with Him. I understood it as a picture of waiting on God and trusting Him with the timing of my voice. I painted those pieces years ago, but lately I keep thinking about them because I don't feel dormant anymore.

Maybe some of what I've been learning, healing, surrendering, studying, and creating needed to happen quietly first. And maybe I'm beginning to see why. For a long time, I thought I was thriving. But when you've spent years feeling like you're dying, surviving can feel like thriving.

I know the difference now.

I'm no longer simply surviving. I'm experiencing a freedom I didn't know before.

The freedom to thrive.
To create.
To share what God has been teaching me.
To use the voice He gave me.

I am not dormant anymore.

Art is still one of my favorite ways to communicate.
I still love graphic design.
I still love speaking.
I still love writing.

But art will always be my favorite.

And while art has been threaded through every chapter of my life, I give God all the credit for being the one to carry me through.

I AM FREE TO ROAR.