June 27, 2025

Hi everyone! Welcome back to the Bark Blog!

In today’s post, I’m going to talk about what inspired me to start this journey of canine advocacy art but first, let’s go back in time about 8 years ago..

Eight years ago marked a point in my life where I was starting to feel, well,…lost. Not the physical, “I don’t know where I’m at, can’t find it on the map lost” but I was feeling this overwhelming notion that I was suppose to be doing something of great importance…but, I had NO clue what it was! NO JOKE! This feeling was heavy! The most upsetting part about it was not being able to figure out what this “thing” was. The only thing I was confident about is knowing that it had something to do with art as I had been an artist since I was a child.

Four years later, I’m still living the daily grind with this weird notion floating about in the back of my mind and still trying to figure things out. I started experimenting with different mediums and subject matter to see if that would spark some kind of insight on what was going on in my head. No luck, though. I was still as lost as ever…

In October of 2021, my husband and I started the search for another dog to add to the family and we found her! At the time, her name was May and she was just a tiny bundle of preciousness! Her story, however, was something I wasn’t expecting to come across.

At 10 months old, “May” was found on the door step of Good Samaritan “Ron’s” home. She had been dumped. Starved and emaciated, Ron took her in and nursed her back to health. About a month later, May was given vet clearance to be put up for adoption and she joined our family shortly after.

A few days after the adoption, Ron messaged me to see how May was doing and he sent me some photos that I had never seen before. These photos changed everything for me…

When I seen these images for the first time, my heart and stomach just…dropped! I was dumbfounded, floored, or whatever negative emotion you can put here! THIS WAS THE TINY BUNDLE I JUST ADOPTED??? HOW IS THAT EVEN POSSIBLE? I JUST COULD NOT BELIEVE that anyone could do this to an innocent animal! The longer I stared at her photos, the more I questioned everything and the angrier I became at humanity and myself for not knowing cruelty even existed. Hind sight is always 20/20 I guess. By the way, I still carry that burden to this day.

As I continued looking at her in her once emaciated state, I knew I had to step up and do something! That was when IT HIT ME!!! Literally like a flip of a switch, I KNEW WHAT I WAS SUPPOSE TO BE DOING!

This notion I had been carrying around for four years has finally made it’s way to fruition and my path was set! My purpose in this life is to be in the service of animals, to be a voice for the voiceless, and bring awareness to the cruelty they suffer every day by the hands of humanity while spreading the message of compassion and empathy for these sentient beings through art. Since then, I have been improving my artistic ability and have gained enough confidence in my work to make this venture known, regardless of the scrutiny that might come my way.

This is the path that God Almighty has set me on and shame on me for taking so long to realize it, but better late than never.

So my friends, that is how Heleza got started.

I hope you enjoyed this true story. I’m not much of a social butterfly and I keep to myself most of the time but I wanted to share this with you all so you can have a better understanding on why I’m doing what I’m doing and how passionate I am about this cause. With that being said, if you know of anyone that would benefit or be inspired from this story, please share this with them and encourage them to visit my website. I would really appreciate the support!

Thanks for reading and cya in the next post! Bye!