“I was diagnosed with an auditory processing disorder at a young age. That meant I was late to start speaking, and so I communicated through visual means. I really struggled with core subjects, so I hated my disorder as a child, but as I’ve gotten older, I’ve grown to love it and understand that it’s the reason my artistic expression is so strong.
When I was two years old, my teachers told my parents that I was mixing crayon colors together to create my own shades. My mom says they had my artwork all over the walls during a parent-teacher conference. They pointed to one painting and said, ‘This is the artwork of a normal two-year-old,’ and then pointed to mine and said, ‘This is Alley’s artwork.’ My mom called her friend Wimberly, who’s an artist in Austin, and asked how she could nurture that side of me. She basically told her to expose me to everything creative.
So I spent my entire childhood experimenting with different forms of art. I had a ceramics teacher, a sketching teacher, and a watercolor teacher. I spent my summers with my grandma taking art classes in San Miguel de Allende, Mexico, too. A lot of the artists there are really connected to the culture and crafts that have been around for hundreds of years.
Art had always been so therapeutic for me, and I didn’t want it to turn into work. After high school, I chose the University of Colorado, where I could study studio art but still have a more traditional college experience. I got to experiment with a lot of different mediums there, but ultimately, I was trying to figure out how my work could have an emotional impact on people. That led me to transfer to the New York School of Interior Design to study interior design and architecture. While I was in school, I worked for Studio Valle de Valle, which was co-founded by Giancarlo Valle, an amazing interior architect and designer. He became a huge mentor to me and really encouraged me to bring my level of artistry into these practices.
Now I classify myself as a decorative artist. In practice, that means I draw on walls a lot. [Laughs] I use small-batch materials and raw pigments to decorate spaces in a way that gives them a visual narrative. My style pulls a lot from historical references. I look at old cave drawings; I look at ancient hieroglyphics. I want to bring back methods of artistry that have been lost over time.
The very first project I did was a ceiling piece for Porta, a homewares store in Brooklyn. It has linear lines with little buds sprouting from them and loops throughout. It’s very whimsical. Since then, I’ve done wine bar and cafe Casetta, Studio Mellone’s bathroom, a guest bedroom for Charlie and Brooke Puth, a bathroom for Aligne founder Ginny Seymour, Frankies Bikinis’ Miami store, a nursery filled with little birds for comedian Cecily Strong, a dining room for influencer Courtney Grow, and more. I really like the ephemeral aspect of my work. A store may eventually close and my art will be gone, but that’s just like other things in nature.
As for beauty, well, it’s not a huge part of my life. When I was younger, I used makeup more as an art form, but it’s very functional for me now. I don’t wear much on a daily basis, only when I have a big event or a shoot—I don’t really like the feeling of it on my face—but I have my staples.
I’ll pop into a random brow bar on occasion, but I typically tweeze my brows myself. I want them to look natural and not too defined, so I only fill in where needed. Anastasia Beverly Hills’ Brow Wiz is great because it’s so skinny, so you can be really precise with it. And if I’m doing a full face of makeup, I’ll curl my lashes, but I don’t use mascara.
I don’t love how powders feel on my face—and they don’t sit very well on my skin either—so I always go for cream bronzers and blushes. Chanel’s Les Beiges bronzing cream in Soleil Tan Deep Bronze and Saie’s Dew Blush in Spicy are my favorites. I use the bronzing cream on my cheekbones but also my eyes. I’ll start in my crease and blend it outward and slightly upward, almost in a wing, to elongate my eyes—sometimes I’ll use Chanel’s lip pencil in Brun Noisette to do a quick wing and blend it out with my fingers. And I like putting blush right on the apples of my cheeks, but I’ll carry it up to my eyelids and nose, too.
The one thing I probably wear every day is Rhode’s Peptide lip tint in Espresso. It’s hydrating and leaves the perfect amount of color. I like combining it with lip liner, too. I’m always switching them out, so I don’t have a particular go-to, but I like Chanel’s Beige Rose in addition to Brun Noisette.
I’m pretty simple with my skincare routine, too. I have guttate psoriasis—it’s an autoimmune thing that manifests as little flakes all over my skin—and sun exposure helps me more than any product. That’s probably an unpopular opinion, but my dermatologist, Dr. Kiran Mian at Hudson Dermatology and Laser Surgery, recommended I spend more time in the sun. Another controversial opinion: I don’t wear sunscreen every day. I used to have a vitamin D deficiency, so I’ll skip the SPF unless I’m at the beach or if I know I’ll be outside all day, and I try to spend at least 20 minutes a day getting sun on my skin. I like Elta MD’s SPF 45, and I add Roe’s SPF 50 Mineral Stick on my nose because it gets extra red.
Madalaina Conti was so helpful when I was struggling a lot with acne. She really helped me nail down a skincare routine. I never go to sleep without double cleansing my face—with Ma:nyo’s cleansing oil and Korres’ Greek yoghurt cleanser—and I wash my face every morning, too.
Then I do a layer of Rhode’s Glazing Milk, but I mostly use it because it smells exactly like a product I used as a little kid. I can’t remember what it was anymore, unfortunately, so the glazing milk will have to do. [Laughs] It’s also dewy and hydrating, which is helpful if I’m going to wear any sort of makeup over it. I top it off with Cerave’s daily lotion—and in the winter, I add in a few drops of Osea’s hydrating oil. It’s very basic, but I’ve been using it since high school. Three nights a week, I slug my whole face with a tiny bit of Homeoplasmine.
My body, meanwhile, loves oils. I like mixing Osea’s undaria algae body oil and Dr. Bronner’s virgin coconut oil and then adding Aēsop’s Rind body balm on top. The Osea one smells unreal. For my hands, I like Aēsop’s Reverence balm. And Taspen’s Restore & Revive Plus, a natural product I picked up in Colorado about 10 years ago, has helped so much with my psoriasis. It has actually been much more effective than a lot of the prescribed creams I’ve tried.
OK, hair. I was blonde growing up, but when I hit high school, my hair started turning brown. I was modeling at the time, and my agent suggested I keep it blonde, so I ran with that. I kept going blonde with Mauricio Bermudez, an amazing colorist at Suite Caroline. But about five years ago, I decided to go back to my natural color because constantly dyeing it made it so brittle.
Rosemary water helped me the most in getting my hair to a healthy place. I make my own with rosemary from my garden, which I boil, and then use to soak my hair every week. Around the same time, I stopped getting salon haircuts. I trimmed it myself for four years, but I recently went to Samantha Draper at Suite Caroline. She did such an amazing job and kept all my length and thickness, which was very important to me. I watched like a hawk while she was cutting it, but she killed it.
I wash my hair every other day. I’d like to go longer between washes, but because my hair is really fine, it gets a lot of buildup and becomes greasy. I like Biolage’s Ultra Hydra Source shampoo; another colorist recommended it to me. I’ve tried a lot of shampoos since I first started using this one, but I always come back to it. It works really well with my hair’s texture and doesn’t make my very long hair knotty. I like their Hydra Source conditioning balm, too, even on the days that I use Olaplex’s No.3Plus treatment mask.
When it comes to perfume, I’ve really been into Parfums de Marly’s Valaya Exclusif. It’s much softer than what I’m used to wearing, but I’ve been hooked on it since my brother’s girlfriend put me on. I also really like Sublimity from Lore. It’s a little salty and coconut-y. Le Labo made my favorite perfumes—Santal 33 and Thé Matcha 26—for a long time, and I still burn their candles at home, but only for 10 minutes at a time because they’re so fragrant. I always have a window open when I light candles because I’m sensitive to scents. I never want my candles to swallow a whole space. My mom used to have a four-wick candle, and I couldn’t be around it.”
—as told to Daise Bedolla
Photographed by Shana Trajanoska in Brooklyn on May 6, 2026