How I discovered I was an artist

Once upon a time I had two toddlers only sixteen months apart and my days were filled with toddler stuff and taking care of the house and a dog and that was pretty much all I had time for.  Then one day, my husband came to me and very carefully asked me what was wrong because I was not acting like myself.  We had been married for almost ten years when our first child was born, so he knew that something was wrong because I was irritable and not my usual optimistic self.

I acknowledged that something was wrong, but I couldn’t put my finger on it.

“When the Wind Blows” photo transfers, acrylic, color pencil, ephemera & dried pressed leaves on cradled wood panel 36×48”

We had to wait until the kids were napping one day and we sat down together to talk it out.  Together we realized that for the first time in my whole life, I had no creative outlet. Before I had always had creative jobs in photography or graphic design. With the first child, I took a lot of photos but since the second baby had come, I wasn’t spending any time doing anything that filled my soul the way creating did.

It was then that I realized that if I’m not making art, I’m not a very nice person to live with, and so we both decided that I should make art a priority one way or another. And that is how I realized that I am an artist.