Four years ago this month I made the choice to pursue a lifelong dream.  To sculpt full time, all day, every day.

Since then I have exchanged high heels and designer clothes for work boots and carhartt overalls. Instead of an office I have a studio that smells of cedar.  I used to spend my days with paperwork, emails and official documents.  Now I work with my hands, loud noisy tools or quiet meditative ones like a chisel and mallet.  I’ve left the office life behind and each day I eagerly reach for my face mask and ear protection.  My focus is now on the project that sits on my workbench.

Over the years I have filled multiple journals.   Long hand, messy, poor grammar and with total disregard for spelling I scratch down my thoughts.  Sometimes it’s an idea for a new project or maybe a story about my current sculpture that fills the pages.  Other times it’s line after line of introspection about my journey.  Worries put on paper and doubts purged with black ink.  Where self discovery is made on page three.

My portfolio has grown to include sculptures that I never imagined I had in me. I have a better idea about my place in this world and have discovered more about myself than I did in the previous four decades.   I am able look at my environment with a sense of clarity that I couldn’t find in the standard nine to five world.  Today, if someone were to ask, I would say that I’m beginning to think that I may have found my purpose.

This is all I want to do. Even on the days filled with doubt or uncertainty there isn’t anything else I would rather be doing.  I choose the studio, today, tomorrow and for as long as my body can keep up.  All my effort, energy and determination is invested into my career as an Artist.  I set goals for myself, short term, long term and most importantly seemingly unachievable ones.  Then figure out a way to reach them, one step at a time, determined to get there.  When I do, I set new ones.

There is no ‘it’ that will say I’ve made it because there is always another sculpture, another project, another part of myself that I haven’t explored.  I seek to live a creative life, a life of self awareness.  When life demands the very best of my endeavours, I respond by giving all that I am.