Tell me about your rings and your jewelry…
I typically will run with my watch. A necklace for Luna (her eldest daughter), a little poppy for California. Always rings, the one on my pinky used to be my grandma’s. I’m constantly looking at my hands when I’m painting and stuff so I like to have rings on. My grandma’s like that too. She’s always decked out in hoops and rings. I love it. I feel like it’s part of my identity now, wearing my rings, all the time, even when I’m painting.
…and your thoughts on running style
I feel like I’m always running in a comfortable t-shirt layer and stuff. I love running in my vintage tees. I have one that used to be my husband’s that I turned into a sleep shirt + sometimes I’ll wake up + just go for a run in it. I typically always wear a hat or a bandana, especially if I have bangs.
When it comes to style even now rediscovering it postpartum, as a kid I most identified with sporty spice. Wearing sporty clothes, huge into nike - I had a nike wristband I wouldn’t take off, combining sporty athleisure with workwear. My career as a sign painter - comfort is important but so is functionality. Pockets are important - finding clothing for women with pockets is so hard, it’s difficult. I need accessibility to pockets - working pockets for my tools, running pockets for my fuel, headphones etc.
Functionality + comfort are huge - whether for work or run - but also affects how I feel. What I put on to wear that day has a huge affect on my mood, my confidence. If I feel good in what I’m wearing I’ll have a good run or a good day of painting. It’s nice how those two parts of my life cross over.
My first love was art. It’s always been a huge way of expressing myself but my second love was sport. I’ve always been more introverted than extroverted and my two outlets were painting, drawing + sports - basketball, running, soccer, swimming. I don’t feel like I’m always the most articulate but when it comes to art + using my body to be athletic that’s always been paramount + part of my identity. A huge way to express myself.
Growing up my family didn’t really have the money to put us in organized sports, so running was super accessible. I grew up in Miami, and we lived in an apartment complex with a lake and a little trail behind it, so I’d run that. It’s always been a source of mindfulness and a way for me to like escape. I grew up with a full house - my (twin) sister, my mom, my grandma, my aunt, my uncle and my cousin like all in one house. So it became my way to just have some time, you know?
And how has your running involved now that you’re a mom?
I feel like I’m rediscovering it now, postpartum. I got really into it like 10 years ago and after I ran the (SF) marathon, I enjoyed it, but I wasn’t like, you know, trying to be like a pro athlete or anything with running. Now I feel like I’m enjoying it again. It’s been a little bit of a love-hate relationship, but trail running has been nice, especially now that we live in the East Bay. Sometimes running along the road can be a little boring. When we lived in San Francisco, I loved Bernal Hill, Twin Peaks…Glen Canyon Park.
Now that I’m a mom, I feel like it’s the only thing that I can do by myself. Like everything else, there’s always someone that I’m taking care of or I’m always with kids or my husband. There’s always little hands somewhere. Sometimes I’ll run with Garrett or I’ll run with one of the girls in the stroller and that’s nice too, but it’s nice to have that time to just kind of focus on myself.
Tell me a little about how you got into painting.
I’ve always been creative and artistic. When I was a kid I was drawing everything in the house. My mom got me a painting tutor in elementary school, this little old Venezuelan lady. She had this patio in the back of her house where she would teach kids how to paint. In high school I started to get more serious with it, and my sister and I ended up going to SCAD (Savannah College of Art + Design). She ended up graduating a motion graphics degree, I finished with a painting degree + so our studio (Double Feature) is our combined forces. Sign painting didn’t happen until I moved here.
When we first moved to SF, I started working at Whole Foods, looking for artist gigs. On my runs, I would notice all these amazing hand-painted signs everywhere. I was like, who’s doing these? Then I found New Bohemia Signs. I just walked in, asked for an internship or apprenticeship…anything really. That was a fun time in my life, working there…so many stories. I also trained for + ran the SF Marathon while I was working there. It was maybe 2015? Running wasn’t as popular as it is now - everyone was like ‘you’re crazy!’ 2016, 2017 maybe I went off on my own. My sister + I started our own design studio + I started picking up painting gigs, design gigs.
What’s your thought process towards personal style?
I’ve been thinking about it a lot more now, like, how what you wear kind of changes how you feel, you know? Spending a lot of time at home with the kids, I can feel kind of blah, and when I leave the house and put on something I feel good in, it totally changes my mood. It’s like, sometimes I just need to put on real pants, some real clothes. With painting I wear a lot of workwear, jeans in my closet that are all painted. I wouldn’t run in those, but I would run in this tee I’m wearing, because it feels light and comfortable and how that kind of crosses over, I think is cool. Especially with running, if I don’t feel good in what I’m wearing, it doesn’t put me in the best head space. Running here, that San Francisco layer is like, super clutch - having something light enough that’s breathable but still warm. Style is a huge part of your identity, how you see yourself, how you express yourself, you know?
Have you noticed how your style changed over the years?
I think it took me like, two years, after Luna (her first), to rediscover my style again. Ollie’s not two yet, and I kind of feel like even some of the stuff that I was like, oh man, I feel good in this when Luna was Ollie’s age, now I’m like, I don’t know if I like that anymore, t’s not my style or something, I don’t know. I’ve just changed or evolved in a different way. Also how I feel in my body feels different now. With Luna I was back to my pre-pregnancy weight super fast and then with Ollie, it was different. At first that was kind of hard but I feel like really strong. Like, wow, I have two kids, and I can still run and, you know, run and keep up with them. That’s like kind of what I want to keep trying to do, show them healthy habits, and one of the reasons why I wanted to sign up for the SF Half. It’s easy, especially with two kids to put all your needs on the back burner, and just have it always be all about them. Balancing that with making sure the house is good, you and your partner are good, the dog has been fed and walked, your projects are not falling apart and all the things.
Couldn’t agree more with all of this.
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