August Recap: Wicked Firsts, Full Circles, and a Gallery of My Own

August was one of those months that felt like a blur. I’d been gearing up for this month for a while, prepping mentally for basically a marathon, and it flew by so much faster than I expected. It was stacked with travel, shows, and some really fun firsts; the kind that make you pause, look around, and realize, wow, Little Annika could only dream of this.

Kicking off August: Wicked at the WNBA

The month kicked off with a halftime show that hit me on three levels at once. First: WNBA. Second: Wicked (aka the soundtrack of my theater-kid heart.) And third: the Mohegan Sun Arena, which is literally the arena where I competed for Miss America (what feels like many, many moons ago).

Weirdly enough, the Mohegan Sun feels like a second home with how much time I’ve spent there over the years - the 10 days of competing, and now coming back every year to paint. The Connecticut Sun’s entertainment team is one of the best I’ve worked with, and before I even left for the trip, I had this wave of emotions hit me in the car, listening to the Wicked soundtrack. Excitement, gratitude, awe, humility… all of it, all at once.

And then, during the performance, it hit me again. I flipped the canvas, the crowd roared, and people were singing along to the Wicked track blasting in the arena. It was wicked cool (pun fully intended). You can watch a cool BTS video my girl, Tina, put together on my YouTube.

The Blur Between

From there, the month moved fast.

• I painted in Idaho for the first time and fell in love with Ketchum’s charm.

• I saw Pitbull at the Iowa State Fair (another “I-state” that confused my brain and my calendar) and found myself backstage with some incredible people.

• I painted locally for Child Start here in Wichita, which reminded me how much I love supporting causes at home between the big travel gigs.

August was wild, man.

Wicked (again), but this time, reimagined in NYC

Then came New York City. To my knowledge, this was the first full-scale music video ever to integrate speed painting, and I got to be the one holding the brush. Michael McCrary, my creative director and choreographer, built this vision from the ground up: we had nine dancers who learned choreography in less than 48 hours, and a whole creative team that brought the vision to life and helped throughout the shoot day to make sure everything was seamless.

We filmed in a legendary sound stage (apparently the same one where Beyoncé shot Single Ladies, and Taylor Swift filmed on the roof…like WHAT). After a 14-hour shoot, I left with sore feet, paint on my hands, and several goosebump moments that I’m trying my very best to hold onto for as long as I can.

One of my most emotional moments came when I pulled out my painted ball gown for the final scene, the one with the emerald city bodice, the poppies, the yellow brick road, the rainbow on the back. I created it during the pandemic and wore it on my final day as Miss Kansas in the Show Me Your Shoes parade. For five years, it’s lived in the Miss Kansas Museum in Pratt, Kansas. And now, standing there in it again in the heart of New York City, realizing how far I’ve come, I cried. Tori, one of the dancers, walked in with a tissue and a hug, and I was like “crap, I need to pull myself together! We still have a scene to film”. But I’ll never forget the wave of gratitude that washed over me in that moment and how much it felt like a full circle.

I want to tell y’all EVERYTHING, but I also want it to be a special surprise. So here’s some BTS photos of my reaction to some of the clips we filmed, and snaps from the city <3

A Whole Gallery of Speed Painting

August closed with another first: The Baker Arts Center hosted a month-long gallery show throughout August featuring the behind-the-scenes of my speed painting, and to my knowledge, it’s the first of its kind anywhere.

I wanted people to see what I see in the studio: the paper practice runs, the adjustments, the drips and splatters that can’t be controlled. I even installed a wall of overlapping Taylor Swift portraits to show how many reps go into preparing a single performance.

My friend Jillian Forsberg helped me curate the show, weaving a story that stretched from my first live painting in high school (a jazz man at a piano) to recent works like Frank Sinatra and my award-winning Miss America talent piece. Standing in that gallery, I could see the arc of my career so far, and I can feel it in my bones that it’s still just the beginning.

At my artist talk, someone asked if the splatters and drips were intentional. My answer: not intentional, but expected. And maybe my favorite part. They capture the speed, the movement, the unpredictability - the very things that make this art form alive.

Looking Ahead

So that was August: a month of “Wicked” highs, new states, surprise moments, and milestones I never imagined I’d reach (or frankly, never even imagined to begin with).

And I think the best part is that it’s all still unfolding. It’s hard to explain, but I just have this feeling that this is still just the beginning. Every new “first” reminds me how far I’ve come… and how much further I still want to go.