A museum of one life,
still unfolding.

Elaine spent the first years of her life in the countryside of Taiwan, growing up with her grandparents. She could doodle before she could write. She drew her grandparents with five legs, sometimes eight, and watched them laugh when she showed them. It became one of those small, inexplicably permanent memories of childhood. She loved making things, but never liked being watched while she made them. Drawings and paintings stayed hidden until they were finished. Through school, she entered art competitions and won awards. For a long time, becoming an artist seemed like the obvious answer to what she would be when she grew up.

Then she grew up. She studied art, graduated with a business degree, moved across two continents, and spent nearly a decade working in high-tech. Somewhere along the way, the childhood plan became quieter. She still painted from time to time, but being an artist became something she used to imagine rather than something she was becoming.

The dreams, however, had always been there. She grew up in a family that remembered dreams and talked about them in the morning. Over the years, she kept noticing the places, characters and strange details that returned — an inner world that seemed to have a life of its own.   Then came a spiritual experience during the pandemic. Another continent. Another life. And eventually, burnout. What followed wasn't so much the discovery of a new direction as the return of an old one. She began painting again. And this time, she stayed.