For the longest time, I secretly wanted to be an artist. I made plenty of oil paintings while I was a kid, but I think I ran out of supplies and somehow stopped my masterful renderings of pandas and elephants. College art classes were intimidating because I assumed everyone taking them had been painting and drawing their whole lives, and I wouldn't be able to catch up. Instead, I artfully made up my own program of study (Psychology of Religious Belief & Women's Studies).
I did start journaling in college. My journal was really a collaged amalgamation of thoughts and images and allowed me to express covert creativity while documenting life and growing as a person. Before leaving him to visit England for a semester, I made my now-husband Tim a collaged postcard that made him say, "You should be an artist." I don't know that he got to the end of his sentence before I shouted, "OKAY!!!!"
It wasn't long after that I started taking classes within the department of Textiles, Clothing & Design, still insecure about considering myself an artist. But when I finally discovered papermaking and printmaking and bookmaking, everything made sense. I was making things every day. I would stare at my walls where I hang stacks of paper that I've made, enjoying the arrangement of the deckled edges. I would become giddy designing a new binding stitch or book structure. I made to-do lists on handmade paper to make my daily tasks more exciting.
Now my thought-containers are worthy of the important information I put in them--from paper to cover to content, it's all been done by my hand, and it's a great comfort to no longer feel the need to keep my creations hidden. I now consider myself a fiber artist who makes art pieces you can enjoy with your eyes, and handmade books you can enjoy with your hands. Because it matters how your pen to paper feels and how the book fits in your hand, and life should be documented and processed through in a vessel worthy of the task.
