A Gentle Beginning in LALATOWN

This painting didn’t begin as one piece.

It began a year apart.

The girl stepping out of the portal was painted almost a year ago.

At the time, she belonged to a completely different world—a quiet little fantasy background stitched from my imagination.

I didn’t know where she was going or what she was walking toward.

I just knew she was walking somewhere.

Months later, I traveled to New Zealand.

And on the highways, I kept noticing hills dotted with those iconic trees—people call them Christmas trees because they look like ornaments scattered across the landscape.

I didn’t know why they felt familiar.

I only knew they looked like something I had seen before.

It wasn’t until I came home and painted those New Zealand hills—just yesterday—that everything clicked.

The moment I finished the landscape, I realized:

Oh.

I’ve seen this hill before.

It belongs to her.

So I placed the girl from a year ago into the hill I painted yesterday, and suddenly the two pieces finally found each other.

A painting from last year and a painting from yesterday met like old friends who were always meant to cross paths.

A year apart in Earth time.

Perfect timing in LALATOWN.

This is how she arrived.

Not rushed, not planned—

just gently, in her own timing, stepping into the place she was meant to be.

Welcome to my LALATOWN life.

She finally found her hill.

And I finally found the beginning of this story.