2025 IN REVIEW
2025 brought a rekindled engagement with ceramics, as I began expanding the Reef Pods series, developing and broadening my “pod” inventory through variations on a theme. While my Gathering series of small, unglazed vessels—plates and bowls—focuses on calligraphic-like marks on the clay surface and exposes the clay’s natural body color, Reef Pods led me to delve more deeply into color and glazes, introducing new variations of marks, textures, and shapes.
Whereas the Gathering series speaks to ancient worlds, archaeological sites, and nostalgia for the childhood days of my early life in Slavonija, the eastern continental region of Croatia, the Reef Pods series connects me to long summer days on the Adriatic coast and to hours spent swimming and exploring the richness and curiosities of the undersea world. I feel invigorated by this fresh avenue in my work. I see is a deep connection between my paintings and ceramic work, though it is not happening on an intentional or preconceived basis, but rather evolving naturally and organically.
On a more personal note, 2025 was marked by yet another summer trip to Croatia and Slovenia with my family. We visited several major national parks and many beautiful towns along the Adriatic coast, finishing the trip at my favorite location in the Slovenian Alps. We were fortunate to spend time with both my mother and my mother-in-law in Croatia. Looking back, this trip will always carry a bittersweet memory, as baka (grandma) Milica—my husband’s mother—sadly passed away in October, just a couple of months after our visit. I am deeply grateful that she and the children were able to share those moments together.
Visits to my first homeland are always both beautiful and difficult. Like flipping through an old family album, every scene and every location sparks a vivid memory—at once a bright sensory kaleidoscope of childhood and youth, and a stark reminder of time passed.
All in all, 2025 was another year of creating and exhibiting. I presented my work in two solo exhibitions: Origin: Wondrous Worlds at the Robert F. DeCaprio Art Gallery, Moraine Valley Community College, Palos Hills, IL, and Dream Garden at the Geneva Public Library, Geneva, IL. I also showed new work from my Origin Aqueous series in Perfectly Lost at Walker Fine Art in Denver.
I gave presentations about my work and process at both solo exhibitions and led a student workshop on watercolor and mark-making at Moraine Valley Community College.
I was pleasantly surprised to discover a thoughtful, in-depth review of my Origin: Wondrous Worlds solo exhibition, published on Newcity and written by Vera Scekic.
While I don’t hide the fact that the initial sparks for my work come from personal life experiences—childhood memories, a longing for home, a need for grounding, and a sense of being suspended between two places, never quite settled—I rarely think about these themes consciously while I’m creating. Instead, they simply unfold, almost like a visual journal (or perhaps a memoir).
Reading the review felt like a sudden revelation of just how deeply my roots are reflected in the work. I was genuinely moved by Vera’s discerning sensibility and her ability to connect so intimately with the inner life of my art.
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