Where The Ink Ran Out Residency
A Collaboration with ArtQuest @ Greenhill
April 29th-May 9th 2025
Artist’s Statement
Little did I know when I wrote this artist’s statement and submitted it to GreenHill that I would be diagnosed 7 days later with Breast cancer throwing me or a major loop. I had told them…
For the last 15+ years, I’ve started nearly every day with a pen and paper, practicing what Julia Cameron—author of The Artist’s Way—calls Morning Pages: three pages of longhand, stream-of-consciousness writing done first thing each morning. This ritual has been my daily refuge, a place to explore my feelings, sort through what I believe, dream, grieve, and desire. It’s where I’ve worked out what I think, and who I am.
But in recent years, the pages began to feel stale. No prompts, oracle cards, or new pens could revive the spark. Instead, I found myself pulled more and more toward paint—first watercolor, then acrylic, and now abstract mixed media on both paper and canvas. The words had taken me as far as they could. The next chapter needed to be written in color, texture, and shape.
Where the Ink Ran Out is a continuation of that inner dialogue—just without the sentences. During this 10-day residency, I’ll begin each day the way I always have: with morning pages. But this time, I’ll also pay attention to what can’t be said on the page. What feelings resist language? What ideas stretch beyond the edge of the paper?
Using those questions as my compass, I’ll translate the unsayable into 8–10 original works of abstract mixed media—each one a visual meditation, a painted page, an emotional map. This residency is not just about making art; it’s about listening to the silence after the ink runs dry—and discovering what speaks there.
While I did explore what I said I would explore, this residecny and these pieces helped me come to terms with my diagnosis, and set the course for how I wanted to show up in this next chapter of my life. I’m so grateful that I had this time and space to explore my thoughts and feelings in this residency.
Hi, I’m Alisha
I’m an artist, writer, and creativity guide, deeply passionate about using art to spark intuition, connection, and self-discovery. My work spans illustrative watercolors, large abstract paintings, and mixed media creations—each piece inspired by the beauty of everyday life and the resilience of the human spirit.
As someone who believes in the transformative power of creativity, I approach my art not just as an act of expression, but as a way to illuminate the light we sometimes lose sight of in challenging times. Through my paintings and coaching, I aim to inspire others to reconnect with their own creativity, intuition, and joy.
I’m leaning into the power of art to heal, uplift, and remind us all that art can say what the written word sometimes can not.
What Happens When The Ink Runs Out?
I gave this artist’s talk at the First Friday in May 2025 during my residency.
Shop The Collection
Find the piece from this special collection that speaks to you!
This piece began with a phrase I wrote in my journal in 2018: “Forward moving being of divine light.” At the time, it was an aspiration—a declaration of who I hoped I could become. When I stumbled across those words again during the residency, they stopped me. They felt like both a reminder and a message from my past self: You are already her.
I wrote the phrase directly onto the canvas, then layered paint, gold leaf, and thread over and around it—not to hide it, but to honor how that light moves through chaos, uncertainty, and time. Ribbon and string collected from the ArtQuest space were sewn into the piece, integrating the environment into the work and honoring the influence of this temporary studio on my process.
Stitching with green embroidery floss became a meditative practice—a way to trace and highlight the energy I wanted to call in. As I created this piece, I felt a shift. The internal static of fear and overwhelm began to quiet. In its place, a clearer, steadier sense of self emerged: resilient, radiant, and moving forward with intention.
Materials: acrylic paint, gold leaf, ribbon, string, embroidery floss on unstretched canvas
Each piece in Where the Ink Ran Out was created during or in preparation for my residency at ArtQuest at GreenHill, where my intention was to explore what couldn’t be fully expressed through words alone. All works are on loose, unstretched canvas, with a 16x20 area hand-gessoed at the center, leaving an unprimed border around the edges. I love how this allows the raw edges and natural wrinkles of the canvas to create dimension—each one casting its own subtle shadows. These pieces are meant to be framed in a way that honors that softness and relief, rather than flattening them completely. I also pushed the boundaries of mixed media in this collection, using embroidery floss as a connective and highlighting element—stitched into the canvas like a drawn line, guiding the eye and anchoring the emotion.
Shipping Policy:
I’m so grateful you’re supporting independent art! Please note that shipping is not included in the listed price. After your purchase, I’ll send you a separate invoice for the exact shipping cost, which must be paid before I ship your piece. Unlike big companies, I can’t absorb these costs—shipping fine art safely can range from $15 to over $100 depending on size and destination. Thank you for understanding and supporting small business.
Bruised Not Broken is a visual meditation on what it means to endure pain and still remain whole. Painted in deep purples and layered with soft silhouettes of faces, the piece speaks to the tender places we carry—where grief, fear, or physical pain show themselves not as signs of defeat, but as evidence of the body and spirit in the process of healing.
The bruise becomes a metaphor: discoloration not as damage, but as testimony. It’s what happens when you survive something. The purple hues echo that tension—rawness held inside beauty.
Faces begin to emerge through the layers, like memories or emotions surfacing, uninvited but insistent. They remind us that healing isn’t always quiet. Sometimes it demands to be seen.
Gold leaf shimmers within the composition, a nod to the sacredness of what’s been touched by pain. As with kintsugi—the Japanese art of repairing broken pottery with gold—this piece suggests that what has been hurt may also be made more luminous.
Materials: acrylic paint, oil pastel, pencil, and gold leaf on canvas
Each piece in Where the Ink Ran Out was created during or in preparation for my residency at ArtQuest at GreenHill, where my intention was to explore what couldn’t be fully expressed through words alone. All works are on loose, unstretched canvas, with a 16x20 area hand-gessoed at the center, leaving an unprimed border around the edges. I love how this allows the raw edges and natural wrinkles of the canvas to create dimension—each one casting its own subtle shadows. These pieces are meant to be framed in a way that honors that softness and relief, rather than flattening them completely. I also pushed the boundaries of mixed media in this collection, using embroidery floss as a connective and highlighting element—stitched into the canvas like a drawn line, guiding the eye and anchoring the emotion.
Shipping Policy:
I’m so grateful you’re supporting independent art! Please note that shipping is not included in the listed price. After your purchase, I’ll send you a separate invoice for the exact shipping cost, which must be paid before I ship your piece. Unlike big companies, I can’t absorb these costs—shipping fine art safely can range from $15 to over $100 depending on size and destination. Thank you for understanding and supporting small business.
This was the fourth piece I created in the series, and by the time I painted it, a fire had been lit. The words “My body will not derail me from my purpose” are written directly onto the canvas—a declaration, a boundary, a vow. This piece came from a place of fierce alignment. Even in the wake of my cancer diagnosis, I felt a deep and immovable truth: my purpose still stands. My calling is still clear.
Layers of acrylic paint are joined by torn music paper and a shimmer of gold leaf—symbols of rhythm, divinity, and resonance. The music paper, like a background hum, suggests that something within me continues to play, even through disruption. Even through fear. My body is not my enemy; it is my vessel. And my purpose moves through it, no matter the condition.
This piece is not about denial. It’s about devotion. Devotion to the work, the path, and the knowing that purpose can live inside a healing body—not in spite of it, but because of it.
Materials: acrylic paint, gold leaf, and collaged music paper on unstretched canvas
Materials: acrylic, oil pastel, pencil, ink, and torn journal pages on loose gesso’d canvas
Each piece in Where the Ink Ran Out was created during or in preparation for my residency at ArtQuest at GreenHill, where my intention was to explore what couldn’t be fully expressed through words alone. All works are on loose, unstretched canvas, with a 16x20 area hand-gessoed at the center, leaving an unprimed border around the edges. I love how this allows the raw edges and natural wrinkles of the canvas to create dimension—each one casting its own subtle shadows. These pieces are meant to be framed in a way that honors that softness and relief, rather than flattening them completely. I also pushed the boundaries of mixed media in this collection, using embroidery floss as a connective and highlighting element—stitched into the canvas like a drawn line, guiding the eye and anchoring the emotion.
Shipping Policy:
I’m so grateful you’re supporting independent art! Please note that shipping is not included in the listed price. After your purchase, I’ll send you a separate invoice for the exact shipping cost, which must be paid before I ship your piece. Unlike big companies, I can’t absorb these costs—shipping fine art safely can range from $15 to over $100 depending on size and destination. Thank you for understanding and supporting small business.