OUT OF DARKNESS COMES LIGHT

Creating this painting for the Theodore Roosevelt Presidential Library became far more personal than I ever expected.

In preparing for the work, I spent months immersed in TR’s time in Badlands, trying to understand the grief that first brought him here. I kept returning to his journal entry on February 14, 1884 – a single, heavy “X” and the words, “The light has gone out of my life.” That day marked the deaths of his mother, Mittie, and his young wife Alice.

While studying his sorrow, I unexpectedly stepped into my own. My grandmother – our family’s matriarch and one of my closest confidants, died suddenly two days after we shared dinner. During that meal, we discussed this painting, and she encouraged me to include wildflowers, bold and full of life, and she specifically suggested adding the crocus flowers of the Badlands. They are the first flowers to emerge in the spring, a symbol of resilience, renewal, and hope in the Badlands.

Out of Darkness Comes Light became a healing journey for me. Every brushstroke carries the weight of two grief journeys — separated by a century yet bound by the same ache, the same search for light.

The painting itself is split across two canvases placed side by side, a quiet metaphor for the two losses TR endured in a single day. The divide between them is the fracture grief leaves behind. Over time, I came to see those canvases as two women standing side by side. Alice and Millie. My grandmother and I.

The lower half is darker, heavy with sorrow. As the eye rises, light and color slowly return. This gradual transition reflects the belief that even from deep darkness, light can return, which is why I titled the piece Out of Darkness Comes Light.

The colors throughout the work are inspired by the Badlands’ landscape, and the North Dakota wind inspired my motion and rhythm to create brushstrokes that blow the bold pops of violet and pink across the canvas, a nod to my grandmother. Look for the "X", inspired by TR's journal entry.

As with all of my work, this painting is abstract and open to interpretation. I want to leave space for your own story. You may feel darkness. You may see light. Both are true.

To me, this work holds far more than paint.
It holds grief.
It holds healing.
It holds love.
It holds legacy.

As you leave this space, my hope is that Medora, Roosevelt’s story, and this work move something in you. Grief never disappears; it becomes part of who we are. What we do with it is what matters. And whatever you carry today, may these Badlands restore a piece of you – just as they did for Theodore Roosevelt, and just as they do for me.