I wasn't always an artist.

Or, rather, I was a constant artist as a kid—play doh, paint, and fabric were my bffs. Then my dad died, and school got in the way, and it felt like my artist-self just kind of stopped when I was 8.

But my artist self could not be ignored! She came roaring back in when I was 30, and I haven't looked back. In between age 8 and 30, I lived inside my books, reading and writing up a storm until I had a PhD in political philosophy and law at 27. (I also lived in Paris, studied in Germany, and became an international cat-sitter for a while!)

Other people seemed to see that my creative self was still in there, though. So when a crafty thing came up, I got a call. My high school class had to paint a big window for homecoming, so I painted it. I didn't like the dresses at the mall for my junior prom, so I made one. A friend recommended The Artist's Way, and I got really into it. I was losing my mind trying to finish my dissertation, so a bead store in Austin became my second home as I made jewelry to cope.

In the end, I'm glad I spent so much time reading and writing and traveling and thinking, because all of it shows up in really cool ways in my art. I love portraying all the parts of life in my art, and the cultural and nostalgic references give my art a special something, don't they?