I’ve been using the word intuitive to describe my work for years and I think it’s time to reflect on what that actually means.

It’s an easy word to reach for. It sounds intentional without requiring much explanation. But the more I sat with it, the more I realized it was pointing at something worth examining, not just as a descriptor for my approach to beauty, but as a way of moving through creative work altogether.
So, what does it actually mean?

The assumption most people bring to the word is that intuition is something you’re born with. A gift. An instinct that arrives fully formed and operates independently of effort or experience. And there’s something true in that. Some people do seem to move through the world with a natural sensitivity to beauty, to feeling, to the specific rightness of a thing. I think I’m one of those people. I think you might be too, if you’re here.

But that’s only part of it. And I’ve come to think it’s actually the less interesting part.

I was on-site at the Parrish Art Museum in the Hamptons, providing touch ups and a second look for my client on her wedding day. The space just felt right. Spare walls, filtered light, soft florals tumbling over themselves like they’d grown there. Her dress had the architecture of something considered and the ease of something inherited. Her face was fresh, her hair sleek. Nothing matched on paper. Everything made sense.

That feeling, when disparate things land together and you can’t explain why except that they do, is what I’m always reaching for. And it almost never starts where most people think it does.

I went to Charleston for work. An in-person client preview, one night, in and out. The kind of trip where you have just enough time to remember why you love a place without nearly enough time to do it justice.

I’ve been before. This place has a way of pulling you back. The light is different, softer and more golden than Atlanta, even in early spring. The streets are narrow and are filled with people who have nowhere to be. People here dress well and eat seriously. It feels like a city that has decided what it is and isn’t particularly interested in being anything else. I find that deeply appealing.

This is what one intentional night there looks like. Plus everything I didn’t have time for this time around.