We recently connected with Kris Rosenblum and have shared our conversation below.

Kris, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today Do you wish you had waited to pursue your creative career or do you wish you had started sooner?

“If I Could Go Back in Time…”
by Kris May
If I could go back in time, would I start my creative career sooner?
Maybe.
But more truthfully?
I’d just beg myself not to stop.
From early childhood, I drew in bursts—little visual love letters to the world. In high school, I dove deeper. My dad, bless his instincts, found me private lessons while we lived in an artist community. It felt like a beginning. A doorway cracking open.
But then came adulthood—and the weight of survival.
Art was no longer a path. It was a luxury.
Three jobs. Bills. Exhaustion.
I shelved my passion in the name of making ends meet.
I wandered far from my art.
I entered a world I never planned: accounting.
It wasn’t my dream—it was my ex-husband’s influence, my need to survive.
I worked for law firms, then eventually built my own tax and accounting business. Thirteen years now. Hundreds of clients. And for an empath?
That’s like signing up to drown in other people’s fear, shame, and financial wreckage.
Every number was a confession.
People doing the best they could. People who trusted me with their truth.
And that mattered.
That still matters.
And I held them all in my bones…
But the weight of all those unspoken stories?
Eventually, it started crushing the part of me that used to make things.
Until art clawed its way back in.
Then—plot twist.
Eight years ago, someone asked me to join her at a sip-and-paint.
And I remembered what it felt like to breathe color again.
Shortly after, another friend said,
“Wanna teach art to seniors?”
And just like that I was teaching my truth.
My truth was back—and burning.
For six years, I’ve taught art in retirement communities—
while still juggling a relentless tax business.
It’s been exhausting.
Like dragging my body through wet cement
just to show up with a smile.
But I did it—still do it—because those classes?
They’re not just a break from life.
They’re a lifeline for us all.
One of my students told me she’d been diagnosed with a terminal illness—
and that my class was the only thing keeping her sane.
Others have said they don’t know what they’d do without me showing up every week.
They wait for it. They need it.
And here’s why:
Because when people sit down to create—
when they dip that brush, scribble that line, smear that color—
for just two hours… the bills, the pain, the grief, the noise…
it melts away.
Art becomes a portal.
And I get to hold the door open.
I’ve watched trembling hands make magic.
I’ve seen the grief soften. The memories rise.
We don’t just paint—we alchemize.
Now I do it all—watercolor, acrylic, pastel, ink, photography, writing.
I create like my life depends on it—because it does.
Two years ago, I started my nonprofit—Kris’s House of Hope—
For the neurodivergent, the trauma survivors, the PTSD warriors, the misunderstood.
We use art like a sword and a balm.
We don’t fix people.
We free them.
Just recently, I had 18 pieces hung in an accounting firm—my first solo showing. A poetic full-circle moment: art reclaiming space in the very field that once stifled it.
So, would I go back and start sooner?
Maybe. But the truth is, I wasn’t safe enough yet.
I had to pretend to survive before I could truly create to heal.
Now I know this work is my calling—not just to make art, but to bring peace into rooms where silence used to be.
Do I wish I started sooner?
Yes, but I don’t think I was ready..
I started when I could finally hear my own voice beneath the noise.
I started when the world couldn’t shut me up anymore.
And now I’m here.
Not asking for permission.
Building a legacy with ink-stained hands and a fire that won’t quit.

________________________________________

Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers.

Meet Kris May
Artist. Educator. Tax Slayer. Trauma Alchemist. Sacred Weirdo.

I’m Kris May, and I wear more hats than a thrift store mannequin during a windstorm. I’m an accountant, artist, writer, teacher, and the founder of Kris’s House of Hope, a nonprofit born from fire—created to support trauma survivors, neurodivergent folks, and beautifully complicated humans through creative therapy.

For over a decade, I ran my own tax and accounting business, helping hundreds of clients make sense of their financial chaos. But here’s the thing they don’t tell you about being an empath in the tax world: every return is a confession. I didn’t just balance books—I carried the stories behind them. Divorce. Death. Debt. I held them all in my bones, until I nearly forgot I had bones of my own.

And then art clawed its way back.

Eight years ago, a sip-and-paint night cracked open a part of me I thought had gone cold. Shortly after, a friend asked if I’d teach a class at a senior living center. That single invitation reignited everything. For the past six years, I’ve taught art to elders—many of whom have told me my class is the only thing keeping them going. One student, diagnosed with a terminal illness, said it was the one space where she still felt sane. That’s the kind of feedback you don’t forget.

What I do now:
I blend creative expression, emotional healing, and ritual into everything I offer. My work includes:

🎨 Art instruction for seniors and community groups
💀 Creative disruption rituals to help break trauma cycles
🖋️ The Sacred Oil Codex, my signature book weaving essential oils, animals, myth, and sensory healing into gritty, poetic entries
🔥 Workshops and tools for folks with ADHD, CPTSD, PTSD, and neurodivergent wiring
🎭 Sensory-rich exercises that use art, scent, sound, story, and movement to restore emotional agency
🌿 Nonprofit programming through Kris’s House of Hope to bring all of the above to underserved populations, especially trauma survivors and the elderly

What makes me different?
I’m not here to make things pretty. I’m here to make things real.
I don’t believe healing is tidy. I believe it’s sacred, chaotic, and paint-splattered.
I teach with grit and grace. I show up with honesty, irreverence, and a little heavy metal soul.
And I don’t just hand people tools—I help them remember who they are through what they create.

I bridge worlds:
Taxes and trauma.
Art and advocacy.
Dark humor and divine purpose.

What I’m most proud of:
– The tears in my students’ eyes when they finally see beauty in something they made
– The community I’ve built with nothing but passion, tenacity, and truth
– Surviving things I never thought I’d live through—and creating from that place
– Turning pain into paint. Burnout into brushstroke. Grief into gold.

What I want you to know:
If you’re looking for a shiny, polished brand—I’m not it.
But if you’re looking for someone who gets it—who’s been in the trenches and crawled out covered in glitter and ash—then welcome.
I built this for all of us.

Is there a particular goal or mission driving your creative journey?

My mission is to help people remember who they are—beneath the trauma, beyond the diagnoses, and outside the systems that tried to erase their fire.

I create to heal.
I teach to awaken.
I build spaces where pain can be alchemized into power—and where art becomes a form of survival.

At the heart of it all is this truth:
When we engage the five senses with intention, we unlock a sixth—
the sense of creativity.
This isn’t fluff.
This is how our bodies heal themselves.
Creative therapy is a language deeper than words—
a system we’re all born with, buried under noise, and waiting to be reclaimed.

Whether I’m guiding seniors through a watercolor class, designing rituals for trauma recovery, or writing my Sacred Oil Codex, I use color, scent, sound, touch, movement, and emotion to create sensory doorways back to the soul. I don’t believe healing is about fixing—it’s about feeling.

Through Kris’s House of Hope, my nonprofit, I support trauma survivors, neurodivergent souls, and sacred weirdos of all kinds using creative tools that help the body, mind, and spirit reconnect.

This is my mission:
To use the five senses to awaken the sixth—and remind people that being whole is their quintessence—the deepest truth of who they are.

Are there any books, videos or other content that you feel have meaningfully impacted your thinking?

I was a sponge. Still am.

Growing up, books were my escape, my survival, and my soul school. I devoured everything I could get my hands on—manuals on medicinal herbs, dog-eared art books, fantasy novels, dusty biographies, ancient science journals, the classics. If it had words, I read it. I wasn’t just hungry for knowledge—I was thirsty in a way only the curious and the wounded truly understand.

But it wasn’t just books that shaped me. I listened to my elders—the storytellers, the healers, the tired hands that knew how to fix what was broken without a blueprint. I didn’t just hear their words—I absorbed them. I’ve always believed that wisdom isn’t just passed down in print—it’s passed down in presence. In conversation. In watching how someone survives a storm and still offers you a cup of tea.

I also learn from the people around me every single day. From students in my art classes. From clients sitting across the table, sharing their financial fears. From strangers with strange truths. From people society overlooks. Everyone is a resource if you listen deeply enough.

I never followed a traditional management path. My philosophy was born from the margins:
– Serve people with honesty.
– Build what you need, and offer it to others.
– Let passion lead, but let strategy follow close behind.
– And always—always—measure success by who heals, not just who profits.

Everything I’ve built—from my tax business to my nonprofit to my Sacred Oil Codex—has been shaped by a blend of ancestral wisdom, relentless curiosity, street smarts, spiritual hunger, and a refusal to stop learning.

I don’t have one guru or one book.
I have a library of lived experience.
And it’s still growing.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://krisshouseofhope.org
• Facebook: Kris May