“I feel like great art is informed by big moments,” Victoria George explains while contemplating her latest album, “Wilderness.” If that’s true, then this might very well be the most powerful work of her career.

For over two decades, George has carved out her own path as a singer-songwriter, channeling a distinctly Northern California spirit into music that blends country roots and folk storytelling with hints of pop and rock. Born and raised in Marin County, she stepped onto the stage in her teens and never really stepped off. By the time she graduated from college, she was fronting her own band and writing songs in a career that would eventually lead to Nashville and sharing bills with legends like Brandi Carlile, Willie Nelson, Loudon Wainwright, The Doobie Brothers, Gin Blossoms, and Jackie Greene.

Despite impressive songwriting skills and a voice that can hold its own anywhere, George’s career never quite followed a straight line. The management deal that brought her to Music City fizzled. Although she was writing with several publishing houses and playing all the usual clubs and songwriter nights, she was frustrated navigating an industry that didn’t always know what to do with her sound. She returned to Marin County in 2010 and started a family, but she kept playing, kept writing, and kept coming back.

The 2018 release “Victoria George & The High Lonesome” was a high-water mark, showcasing her voice and a dedicated band on 10 tightly crafted songs. “We’d been playing those songs live for years,” she says. “Then I finally recorded them right, released the album, and a year later the pandemic hit.” When the world shut down, so did live music, her children’s school and, for a time, her momentum.

Then came a jolt that reordered everything. “I started recording again in January of 2024, against a backdrop of ‘weird neurological symptoms.’ By February, I had my answer,” she recalls. The diagnosis: a brain tumor. After a craniotomy and 30 rounds of radiation, George found herself physically depleted but creatively reignited. “I think anyone who deals with a diagnosis like this comes through a different person. For me, it changed the way I look at things and the way I want to live my life, which is why I’ve really pivoted back to music. As soon as I could, I started writing,” she says. The songs that emerged would become “Wilderness,” a deeply personal, often joyful, and occasionally irreverent exploration of survival, clarity, and return.

The title track, written on piano, serves as the emotional center of the album. “As a metaphor for the uncertainty and loneliness of a cancer diagnosis, it has this anthemic power to it,” George explains. Another standout, “Every Little Bit,” was written as a love letter to the family and friends who carried her through recovery. “I felt so loved and cared for by my family and community,” she says. “Understanding the depth of that love has been the biggest gift.”

There’s new sonic territory here, too. “Wilderness” and “Peace on Earth” are among her first songs written solely on piano, and the addition of string arrangements and synthesizers marks new tones in the landscape. “It was like painting with new colors,” she says. “I’ve always loved recording, but with these songs, I fell in love with it all over again.”

George describes humor as a “great thickening agent.” And, on this album, humor is ever-present, including on tracks like “Mamas & Daddys,” about a mother who joins a touring band and a father who joins the circus. The theme of resilience is also a constant. On “When I Get Up,” written both before and after her diagnosis, she sings: “When I get up, gonna be as good as new. Gonna dust myself off and finally follow through.”

Now, with her health restored and her voice stronger than ever, George isn’t just returning to music — she’s stepping into it with a newfound purpose. “I’ve never been clearer or more certain of who I am and what I want to say,” she says. After everything, “Wilderness” affirms what she’s always believed: Great art is born of big moments, and this moment is hers.