Before I Called Myself an Artist

From the time I was a child, I was drawn to small things: the way light rested on a surface, the harmony between shapes that seemed to belong together, the order that lived inside ordinary moments. Long before I knew how to make art, I was learning how to notice.

For a long time, I carried the dream of becoming an artist the way you carry something fragile: carefully, tenderly, before fully believing it belongs to you. I loved beauty. I was moved by it. And still, somewhere deep, I did not believe I was the kind of person who could make it.

There were moments when I tried to step closer to the dream. At fourteen, I began to draw. Later, I studied Fine Arts. I admired artists deeply, yet I could only see the distance between who I was and who I thought an artist had to be.

The dream did not leave, but I kept it at arm's length: close enough to feel, too uncertain to claim.

Life moved on. Seasons changed. And still beauty continued to interrupt me. The same attention I had as a child remained. It was patient with me, even when I was not patient with myself.

Faith became part of my life. And then I became a mother.

In preparing to welcome my daughter, I began to ask myself what kind of life I wanted her to witness. I wanted her to see someone who trusted God with what she had been given, someone who did not let fear make the final decision.

So I began, because honoring the gift felt more true than waiting for the certainty that was never going to come.

I am still learning how to carry the word artist.

But I am here. I am making. And I am learning, slowly, that perhaps that is exactly what an artist does.