What I Learned from “The Alchemist” | The Story Behind “They Were Beautiful”

Have you ever take a trip that changed your life?

One of my favorite topics to make art about is the idea of “coming home.” There’s something nourishing about the feeling of stepping into someplace comfortable and nourishing, coupled with that sense of satisfaction after an adventure. (Even if that “adventure” was just a day at work!)

The thing is, though, to come home.... you first have to leave.

The other night I was thumbing through the photo album of a trip that changed my entire perspective. My husband and I were lieutenants, driving ships in the U.S. Navy at the time. We felt so blessed to be able to save while we were at sea for months on end and line up our leave days.

We each took a backpack, and for a month, trekked Europe to celebrate the end of deployments and sea duty - we had each seen so much of the world, but never together. At the same time. On our terms.


It truly changed everything. We experienced incredible German hospitality (#tschuss!). We had encounters with art that blew our minds (mostly by Michelangelo). We fell in love with the way Mediterranean cultures structure almost everything around food. We got lost on donkey trails in Greek islands and found ourselves really thirsty at the end of them.

We also realized while we were on the trip that this was the last thing we wanted to do before we became parents.


Throughout the trip, I took hundreds of photos of doors (if you’ve been to Europe, you know why!). It was fascinating to watch them change as we crossed borders. They were extravant and elegant and weathered and simple. Each seemed to tell a story.

As we flew home, however, I realized the best door of all was waiting for me at the end of this quiet dirt road in Jacksonville, Florida.

(Have you read “The Alchemist” by Paulo Coehlo? Without offering any spoilers, this book inspired the title of the piece and was a connection to that realization.)


But to be honest, I don’t know if I would have appreciated home quite so much had we not taken our chance to go on an adventure. Sometimes it takes seeing something else to appreciate your own treasure, right? So I painted this painting... of a tree on that quiet dirt road.

Sure, we didn’t have to go far to see such beauty... but if we hadn’t, we’d have never known what Milan looked like from the roof of that cathedral. And that in the right light, an understated young oak tree could capture our attention just the same.



“They’re Beautiful, Aren’t They” 36”x72” oil on canvas. Contact me for availability or shop the print!

(Named after the epilogue of “The Alchemist” by Paulo Coehlo. Read it. You won’t regret it!)