Pivotal moments in my creative journey
Do you ever look back on your life and ask yourself how on earth did you get to this point. Then when you really look you see that there were clear points that carved out the path. It was not until I was an adult that I truly recognized how much my childhood influenced my own creative mindset. My stay-at-home mom was a traditional crafter. She crocheted, did cross stich, quilled and even made nifty little butterflies out of old pantyhose. My dad was a CNC machinist. He used his creativity to solve problems all the time at the factory he and my grandfather owned. After dinner, he would head downstairs to work on his O-scale train layout. Both my parents were avid photographers. My mom focussed more on documenting the family, whereas my dad had a natural eye for beauty. My Grandmother was a master crocheter. She made thousands of baby blankets and sweater sets throughout her life— never having ever learned to read a pattern! It was this creative mindset that inspired me to find my own creative way as an adult.
Until about ten years ago, my mediums were primarily photography and crocheting. I made baby blankets and I photographed landscapes. Of all the different social media platforms, Pinterest has always been my favorite. I remember someone saying that they were guilty of “pinning” tons of ideas, but never doing anything with them. I didn’t want to be one of those people. Looking through my pins I decided to give alcohol inking a try. I invited some gals over to try it out with me. After lunch we were sitting around admiring our work when I asked what we were going to do the next time we got together. Ann asked if I had ever tried meditative doodling. Haha, I can’t draw. She grabbed a piece of paper and pen and drew some lines on it. Then she showed me how to repeat a simple pattern within the boundaries. To say I was hooked immediately was the understatement of the year. I started out with basic patterns, but I wanted more. I found fun coloring sheets online and filled them in with patterns. Tom taught me how to digitize them and then color them using Photoshop and GIMP. While I loved how meditative the practice was, I was not creating anything original.
Tom continuously encouraged me to create my own characters, but in my head I kept saying I can’t draw. One day he came home with a book called Complete this Drawing. Each page has a partial drawing- a frog for example for you to “complete”. I never completed them as expected. I turned most of the drawings into silly characters with silly faces. The Broken Legged Amoeba was one of my first original drawings that I scanned, colored and made into a card. In the years since I have drawn countless characters and doodles. There have been faces, birds, fish, space birds, flowers and so much more.
The doodles were a catalyst for greater creativity. I graduated from making only baby blankets to crocheting hats and even a dress for my niece. My cards went from simplistic to extremely customized. In the kitchen, I stopped strictly following recipes and started experimenting with ingredients. Instead of only using the wax seal colors I had purchased, I began mixing my own. The list goes on and on.
I am lucky that I am married to someone who values and supports creativity as much as I do. When Tom initially told me about his idea to build out our loft to be a creative space for me all I could think about what how much work it would be for him. But as the work started and I began to picture myself in the space, a new creative light switch turned on in my head. I have the space to spread my creative wings and I could not be more excited. Everything has come full circle.
