Hannah is a woman of mystery who lives and breathes art in its purest form. Painting is the driving force that has anchored her to a high-achieving trajectory through a complicated life and an even more challenging upbringing. She is one of those fascinating individuals who fashion their creative expressions, not just from a purely artistic perspective, but from a complex, scholarly, multi-layered, socio-political, and philosophical lens. She holds a BA from the Rhode Island School of Design, an MA, and an MFA from California Institute of the Arts. Hannah has lived in a castle, and she has lived in a tree house—she is not a witch, but she may know how to cast a few spells with her paintbrush. She is a woman who has held on to art as a driving force of peace and sanity, which has fueled her unstoppable drive amidst an insane world.
“I’d say I’m someone who’s fearless, passionate, and complicated,” Hannah says, “there are a lot of different parts of me, and sometimes that overwhelms me—and overwhelms others, too.”
Hannah was born in Berkeley, California, but grew up in New Haven, Connecticut—a city she describes as “a weird mix of Yale’s college-town bubble and a place that wasn’t always safe.” Even with that contrast, she came to love New Haven, though much of her childhood was spent abroad. Because of her parents’ work, she spent months each year in Poland and Eastern Europe in the years after the fall of communism.
Those years abroad were intense. “It wasn’t vacation—we weren’t in school, we were just with my parents all the time. It was this really tight ‘us against the world’ bond, but also a lot of chaos and stress.” Living in Kraków in a castle, she remembers being just down the road from Auschwitz and fearing the Nazis would come back. “I didn’t understand history yet—I thought they were still out there. Looking back, my memories feel surreal, like a fever dream. Magical and strange, but also intense.”
Even with all that travel, something she always returned to was the arts magnet program in New Haven—one that shaped much of who she is today. “I’ve always painted. From the time I was born, it was just what I did. Painting was how I communicated with the world, with God, with myself. It’s what saved me over and over again.”
That passion carried her through RISD, where she studied painting, and later Cal Arts for her MFA. Eventually, she even pursued a master’s in Aesthetics and Politics. But alongside her academic and artistic growth, addiction was taking root. Hannah started drinking at 14, diving headfirst into a lifestyle she believed was part of being an artist. “I thought, ‘This fits me, this is who I’m supposed to be.’”
Her teenage years were marked by recklessness—skipping school to drink and hang around museums, hopping trains into New York, befriending homeless people to get alcohol, “a teacher once called me an ‘experience junkie,’ and it stuck. It was true.”
College didn’t slow her down, “I wasn’t a functional alcoholic. I was completely dysfunctional but survived by sheer willpower and determination. Sometimes I’d produce good work, but that didn’t mean I was okay.” At 18, she entered her first treatment during freshman year, “I left for rehab, came back with a boyfriend I met there, and somehow finished school.”
Still, Hannah never wanted to be sober, “Even though I hated how I felt, hated the consequences, I never once earnestly tried to stop. Until now—five months ago. This is the first real time I’ve ever wanted sobriety.”
Travel became both escape and distraction. By 22, she’d gone abroad at least seven times—Nicaragua, Israel, France, and others—always telling herself she was chasing opportunities: murals, teaching, painting programs, “…but no matter where I went, the problems followed me. Changing countries didn’t change me.”
Her art reflected the shift. As a child, her work was raw and emotional. Once Adderall entered the picture, it became obsessive and hyper-detailed—impossible processes, intricate collages layered with oil paint that took forever to dry. “Adderall was a turning point. I thought it helped me, but really it destroyed more than it created.”
Hannah eventually landed herself a prescription and an endless supply, “Adderall and drinking together were disastrous. It fueled panic attacks and anxiety. That combination haunted my twenties.” She picked up a DUI, a public intoxication arrest, and countless blackouts.
Still, art remained her lifeline. Even when she moved to Mendocino, living in a treehouse for a residency that turned into chaos, she clung to her studio. “Everyone there had substance issues—it was mayhem.”
By 23, she knew she needed out, “If I stayed, I’d die there.” Graduate school felt like the answer, and she landed at CalArts, which she describes as “loose, wild, and political.” Unlike RISD’s rigid structure, CalArts gave her freedom—but she started to notice the difference between herself and the artists who were actually building careers, “They weren’t spinning out like I was. They were disciplined, grounded. I was convincing myself chaos was part of being an artist.”
Despite the dysfunction, CalArts brought Hannah moments of clarity. During her first year, after a period of desperation and prayer, she had what she describes as a spiritual experience. “It was like being struck sober overnight. The obsession disappeared. I felt reset, deeply connected to something greater. I believed I’d been permanently changed.”
That year was the best of her life. She flourished, showed up for others, built community, and created meaningful work. But as graduation neared in 2015, the structure she’d relied on fell away. She returned to Adderall, and slowly the decline began again.
“I’ve always had this pattern: when things get too real, I hit the nuke button. Instead of moving forward, I self-sabotage.”
Whenever things fell apart, Hannah thought moving would fix it. She bounced between LA, Northern California, and back East—always convinced a “fresh start” would change everything. It never did.
By the time COVID hit, she was back in Connecticut, and things tipped into a whole different kind of collapse. Abusing Adderall heavily, misusing Ativan, and slipping into a strange phase of mystical, existential searching, Hannah fell into a long, slow psychosis. “I stopped sleeping, stopped eating, and lost touch with language and reality. I was convinced I was living in a musical, taking clues from shows, books, and everything around me. Some of it was terrifying, but some of it felt sublime—like my mind had cracked open.”
There were moments of real danger, but also moments that felt profoundly transformative. A skylight filling with white light, euphoric out-of-body experiences, the sensation of shimmering “butter” flowing through her body—these left Hannah permanently changed. She stopped drinking after that, never again returning to the same level of destruction. Her panic attacks disappeared, her resentments melted away.
“I don’t usually talk about this—it sounds insane, unbelievable,” she admits, “My mom, who never believed in spiritual experiences, told me she couldn’t deny what she saw happen to me.”
Eventually, she returned to LA, sober living, and even graduate school again. But pride, secrecy, and relapse found their way back in. Adderall use returned, followed by kratom, mushrooms, and ketamine therapy. “From the outside, people thought I was doing fine. Inside, my world got smaller and smaller. Relationships fell apart. I felt empty, disconnected, like a shell.”
Six months ago, she finally saw the truth: “I kept it to myself for a while, then one day I just left my apartment, left my keys, called a detox, and got in an Uber.”
When Hannah arrived at Beit T’Shuvah, she knew this time was different. “It felt like a fork in the road: either keep going down a path of isolation and slow destruction, or step into this moment of change. For the first time, I wasn’t coming with an ‘end date.’ This wasn’t about getting through treatment and moving on. This was about my life now.”
At Beit T’Shuvah, Hannah leaned into community and spirit. As a Jewish woman, being part of a Jewish recovery community has grounded her. She embraced step work and AA, has recently become a Program Facilitator, and began to put service above the obsessive patterns that once consumed her.
“I’ve been here five months now. I have no desire to drink or use, which feels like a miracle. I don’t want to go back to that life. I’d rather stay here, invest fully in my recovery, and do whatever it takes.”
Today, Hannah stands in a place she once thought impossible—grounded, sober, and alive with purpose. The chaos that once threatened to consume her has been transformed into a canvas of resilience, surrender, and renewal. She no longer hides behind the myth of the “tortured artist,” but instead embraces recovery as the truest form of creativity.
Her life is still layered with mystery, but it is no longer the kind that isolates or destroys. It is the mystery of faith, of art, of being fully human and open to wonder. Hannah carries with her the memory of white light, of songs only she could hear, of visions that blurred madness and revelation—and she lets those visions guide her now, not trap her.
“I used to think I had to burn everything down in order to begin again,” she says, “now I know I can build.” Her brush no longer paints in the eye of the storm, but in community, and in that she has discovered the greatest art of all: the daily practice of living free.
