@imalexaloryn
Writing & Art Became
My Language
I’ve always been able to speak my mind, but writing let me reach somewhere deeper. A psychology teacher once read my work and said, “You didn’t write this.” I had. She told me the person on the page and the person she saw in class felt like two different people.
I Wanted to Be an Artist
In second grade, I told my dad I wanted to be an artist when I grew up. He was honest with me about how hard that path could be, but he also told me I was free to become whatever I wanted. Even then, I knew.
That same year, I prayed the prayer of salvation and received Jesus as my Lord and Savior. I wasn’t raised in church my whole life, but my mom took us for a season before we moved to Nicaragua, and that is where my walk with Him began.
By sixth grade, living in Nicaragua, I had a plan. If being an artist felt uncertain, I could become a designer, perhaps an architect or an interior designer, and still make a living creating.
Van Gogh remains one of my favorite artists, and much of my work draws from impressionism and pointillism. Vibrant color is where my heart feels most at home.
“Honey, you’re not going to make money until you die. Most famous artists don’t.”
A Journal at Twelve
I grew up between two countries, Nicaragua and the United States, and spent most of my years in Texas. My parents divorced when I was young, and at twelve I moved in with my dad. It was a hard season for a little girl, and it was then that I picked up my first journal.
My journal became the one place I could go deeper than I ever did out loud. On paper, no one told me I was too much. I could simply be honest.
Nicaragua
Texas
First journal at 12
Then I Picked Up a Pencil
At seventeen, I took my first art classes in high school and began learning to truly draw. This self-portrait comes from that season. A year later, in 2006, I started college, and my journey as an artist began in earnest.
At nineteen, with no money for a Father’s Day gift, I painted my dad yellow gladiolus, his favorite flower. It was one of my first real paintings after formal training, and it’s the reason gladiolus bloom all through this site. I painted them pink for my brand, but they will always be his.
What I couldn’t put into words, I could put into lines and color.
Poetry Became a Way to Heal
At nineteen, I felt God calling me into ministry, and that is when poetry found me. Poems let me heal in pieces. They didn’t need to be complete thoughts or tie up neatly at the end, and I loved that about them. For years, I shared my personal art and poems under the name Psalm’s Canvas.
Gray I once felt in my life
but now the colors have become vibrant
Design, Faith & Healing
- 2009 Bachelor of Fine Arts & Baptism I earned my degree in interior design and interior architecture, and that same year, at twenty-one, I was baptized.
- 2010 Joshua School of Ministry There I learned to truly read and understand the Bible, walking through every book and seeing how the Old Testament points to Jesus. The program closed a month or two before graduation, but what I learned stayed with me, along with many of the poems I wrote in that season.
- A Turn From Art Therapy to the Word While taking prerequisites for a master’s in art therapy, a teacher gently told me she didn’t think that was what I truly wanted. When I explained that I longed to use the Word of God to bring healing into people’s lives, everything shifted.
- 2015 Associate’s in Christian Counseling (Biblical Counseling) Through Christian Bible Institute and Seminary. Studying counseling revealed how much healing I still needed myself.
- Healing Art & Writing as Therapy That same year, I walked beside my dad through cancer and said goodbye. In that season of loss, art, design, and writing became the way I released everything I carried inside.
Painting Live, Teaching Many
Around 2011, I began painting live during worship services and church events, and for organizations like Adult & Teen Challenge, alongside people overcoming addiction. Many of those paintings I donated to causes close to my heart.
A couple of years later, I opened Psalm’s Art Studio, a paint-and-sip studio where I taught people to paint. I partnered with churches, apartment communities, orphanages, and senior living communities, with classes as small as five and as large as fifty. I also painted commissions, pieces people gave to family members, spouses, and friends, or created for celebrations like baby showers.
That studio was my ministry. It was how I connected with people and shared the joy of creating. In 2019, I sensed that season coming to a close, as if God were gently shutting the door. Today I travel, and I no longer paint live or teach classes.
April 2021
Heart of a Seeker Was Born
In April 2021, after one of the hardest seasons of my life, I began opening the Word and simply listening. God would give me a message, and I would share what was on my heart.
My writing finally had a voice. That’s how Heart of a Seeker began.
Sharing What Helped Me Heal
Writing and art are still my therapy, and today they live side by side. I write, I create, and I share it all here through prayers and honest conversations, hoping you find a little of yourself in these pages and know you are not alone.
Alongside this ministry, I am the creative director of Care Identity and The Kliˈnishen’s Atelier, both under my parent company, Strands of Silver Company. As a designer and brand specialist, I help doctors, clinicians, and mental health professionals across the country launch cash-pay practices, and I create resources and website templates to help them grow. I started the business at twenty-one, and it is the work God has blessed me with. Today, it allows me to travel the world and live as a digital nomad.
Artist
Podcaster
Writer
A gentle note: I’m not a licensed counselor. What I offer is my lived experience, my faith, and the tools that have helped me heal. If you’re struggling, please reach out to a licensed professional.
“Where there is no counsel, the people fall; but in the multitude of counselors there is safety.” Proverbs 11:14