We all drew when we were kids.

Making images is one of the most universal things we as humans do, whether it’s handprints on a cave wall or crayons on a kitchen wall.

Which leads me to feel that the most compelling question is not “Why do we create pictures?” but instead “Why do most of us stop?”

And I did come to a full stop, in my early teens. Crippling perfectionism soured what once was an act of joy and self-possession into a painful self-implosion and truly gnarly inner-breakdown.

Following a sequence of entirely unplanned-for events, I bloomed a career in drawing and painting in my mid-twenties. And for the past twenty-ish years, I’ve been finding moments of freedom in my art-making, inbetween big squeezes of poisonous self-critique and collapse.

I am now in the midst of a creative uprising. A way of approaching art free of the thoughts “will it be good enough” and “what will they think of me”. I am approaching my sketchbook as I feel my five-year-old self did: brimming with an unselfconscious confidence and a supercharged vitality.

No, I did not attend art school. No, I am not currently represented by galleries. No, I’m not sharing a CV here, and I’m opting out of the third-person bio as well.

And yes, I am finding my way following the compass of my heart and - more than anything - my Aliveness. This is what my soul is here for, regardless of what the images look like: to honor the eruptive creative force coursing through me, whether I’m making pictures, making pasta, or making love.