Rachel Bradley

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02/14/2026

Happy Valentine's Day to my rock, my muse, my world. This year it'll be 10 years since we met, and somehow I keep falling for you harder. How lucky I am to get to do this whole life thing by your side ❤️.

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02/07/2026

New friend in progress 🐦

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02/05/2026

"Transience" - 9"x12" mixed media on Bristol Paper.

Some whimsical pastel guppies, because I wanted to create something that soothed and satisfied me.

I've been on quite the journey the past few years. It started as a journey to figure out why I couldn't find my artistic North Star, the great "one thing" that the artists I admire seem to have figured out for themselves. Along the way, I uncovered a pattern of wounds that stretched through every damn area of my life.

I spent a distressing amount of that journey in pain and fear that healing those wounds would take art away from me. Maybe I'd realise art was a toxic byproduct of my yearning for belonging and meaning. Maybe healing my need for validation would sap me of any motivation to create at all. So many maybes. So much doubt.

But my growing baby girl gave me a sense of urgency and a necessity outside of myself. I didn't want to demonstrate to her that her worth is in her output, or that defeats are insurmountable. I kept trying and failing and trying again to determine what role art has in my life when I stop using it as a bandaid for my deeper struggles. And I think I'm finally arriving at a place of peace and honesty in my creativity that I've previously been terrified to allow.

At last, these enigmatic and disjointed thoughts are coming together to say something cohesive. The vague is becoming more specific, and the rare flickers of insight are becoming an integrated constant. And I finally feel a sense of hope and peace that, maybe, my daughter might learn how to trust her heart and her vision in a way that once was a mere fantasy to me. ❤️
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01/28/2026

A little peak at my guppies! Will share the full piece soon.

12/31/2025

New year is hitting differently for me this year.

2025 has been a year beyond words. The little life growing inside me has changed me irrevocably before she's even drawn her first breath, and March '26 will bring the greatest gift of my life. And after years of healing work, I've finally found ways to measure the worth of my life beyond my work.

But the ghosts of those old patterns still haunt me. They mostly lurk out of sight, and I forget they are there. But every now and then, something (NYE and the pressure to make resolutions, for example) brings them back into the light, and they torment me.

They tell me that I'm not a real artist. They say that, if I was, I'd have a clear consistent body of work. That I'd have a dependable process. An iconic style. A clear message to convey. They point to my scattered trail of experiments, their lack of uniting vision, and say they bring nothing meaningful into the world. And, when they *really* gain power over me, they ask me what sort of damage it might do to a young girl to be raised by a mother who just can't seem to find her mission in life, or the peace in her passion.

It's hard for me to share this. I've been told many times that my tendency towards uncertainty and experimentation (and to talk with the tone of someone still figuring it all out) makes it difficult to take me and my work seriously. "Be yourself--but not like that!"

But I have the soul of a wanderer. I question more than I answer. I explore more than I produce. I flow like water between thoughts and interests and opinions, never able to ground myself for long before being pulled into the next thing. I don't force myself on people or the world, but remain open to it, waiting to be invited. And in this world that celebrates the sturdy, singularly-focused, disciplined, driven, masculine approach to greatness and genius, I've come to feel ashamed of my nature.

I still don't know where my art will take me. I still pray it leads me somewhere clear and consistent, that I can model for my baby girl what it means to persist and triumph in one's struggles. But until then, I hope to model honesty and vulnerability, and to keep showing up. ❤️

11/28/2025

The biggest discount of the year over at posereference.com (link in bio). Don't miss out!!

Hope those of you who celebrate had a wonderful Thanksgiving! I feel very full--in the heart and in the belly ❤️😋.

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10/17/2025

30% off of everything in my store right now, which is perfect for spooky season!

I'm so SO grateful for everyone who has purchased something so far. Real talk: choosing to start a family has been an enormous transition for me, and as I've been reimagining what my art and my business look like going forward, it's been hard to produce and put myself out there consistently. Which can be stressful when stacked against the absolutely insane cost of everything pregnancy related in this country. Having you all continue to support my existing work has been my lifeline throughout. THANK YOU, from the bottom of my heart.

Link in bio/head to posereference.com. sale runs until Tuesday. I love you guys, seriously ❤️

07/22/2025

Today's your last chance to get 30% of everything in my store! Head to posereference.com (link in bio) to check it out!

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05/22/2025

Just a quickie

I've been doing a lot of imaginative work lately and felt an itch to study. It's been a while since I painted some glowy skin.

Super proud at how quickly this came together. Speed is not my priority, but I've always been painfully inefficient. It was a satisfying market of progress that this one came together in just a few hours!

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05/09/2025

It's been aaaaages since I redrew an old piece! First image is the redraw, second is the original from 5 years ago.

This is a study from Balboa Park, San Diego, which I visited in 2020. The original took me longer than it might appear. It was one of my early ventures into heavy stylization, and I was really proud of it. So when I stumbled upon it last week and instantly saw the solutions for the problems I didn't even know existed back then, I knew I had to give this another go!

Both versions took about the same amount of time to create. I feel like the new version captures the feel of the location so much more richly, and I love that it has much more detail without being overworked. It's so damn rewarding to see an objective measure of my progress.

It's funny, because I often lament to Noah that I'm not improving. So here's your reminder, too, the progress is often nowhere near as obvious as we want it to be!

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05/05/2025

These past few years, I've stepped back from the online world as I focused on my long-neglected wellbeing. Everything about making art and sharing it online had become fraught. I know this is something we're experiencing on a larger scale too: I'm far from the only artist following this pattern in recent years. And yet, it has felt isolating.

The good news is, I've made SO MUCH progress. For a couple of years there, I feared I was uprooting all my coping mechanisms with nothing to put in their place. But for a good 6 months now, I've been enjoying the light at the end of the tunnel, and everything makes so much more sense.

One of the hardest things for me was untangling my creativity from the hole it was filling inside me. It was one of my many crutches: perhaps I'd finally be safe from other people if my art was so good it was above reproach. Of course, when you put it like that, it's obviously silly, but it's amazing how all-consuming such natives can be when they are left to thrive in our subconscious.

It's been SO damn hard trying to uncover what sort of art I'd make if external opinions had nothing to do with it. I love all sorts of styles and mediums and subjects. And while that's still true, this piece came from a spontaneous moment of unselfconscious joy. It was a playful idea with a relaxed ex*****on. And I know that, no matter the avenues I explore, I want them to feel like that.

I can't wait to share more of my journey with you all, no I'm finally finding my voice again. The inner work is worth it, I promise ❤️

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Address

Charlottesville, VA

Website

https://www.imrachelbradley.com/

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