Why do I design?

Design has continuously been my voice and connection with people and the world. Some people can describe an object using words with such ease. When words escape me, I have used my art to communicate for me. I can’t even begin to count the times I have been in a conversation with someone and ended up with pencil and paper in hand as an attempt to describe an object or a situation. I see an empty room and I can quickly visualize this space filled with furniture, colors and lighting. My mother would say, “ I don’t know how you can visualize all of that”. She never could. I assumed everyone could see things this way, but eventually found out there are many people whose minds do not and cannot work this way. My friend is a strong writer, yet I struggle to come up with half the words she can for describing something, but I can imagine it in my mind with such vivid details as to create a physical image from it. This is how I communicated and problem solved, visually.


I love glue sticks, textured paper, brainstorming and sketching out ideas, playing with typeface styles almost indefinitely and still get excited about a new box of crayons. I have always had quite an imagination and a desire to sketch out my ideas. I remember, I must have only been about four or five years old, thinking that a tornado was actually an enormous tomato with green arms and legs, going around picking up houses, trees and cows and throwing them about.

I was bullied through grade school for not dressing and talking like everyone else and just not fitting into any particular group. I felt as though I were a misfit. Sometimes, I feel that maybe I still am?


My mother gave me my first set of crayons and sketchbook at a very young age. I fell in love. Art was my sanctuary and I had little desire to do anything else in the world. As far as I was concerned there wasn’t anything else. Ok, there actually was a moment in time when I wanted to be an astronaut and shuttle to the moon. I was nine.

The dream of flying to the moon was short lived as I was pulled back to my dream of working with Walt Disney and having a career in cartoon animation. I spent hours and hours every day sketching characters from the cartoons and made wallpaper out of them.

I was also a very quiet and shy child and was that way throughout middle school and into high school, but I had my art to keep me company and therefore, there was no real push to look outward for connections. The bullies confirmed that reaching out to others was not a good decision for me and as they pushed me I pushed further into my art. My art was then my escape from my harsh reality. I was quiet and kept quiet. Most of my school memories were either racing home each day after school to dodge the bullies or in my art world and that is where I stayed. The times in my life that were most challenging and hard, my mother always bought me a sketchbook and pencils. She too knew that it was my passion and what I held close to in my life.

I started working full-time when I was sixteen years old. I worked in many different fields; baby sitting, restaurant and hotel work, education and nursing. I even went to school and received my assistant nursing license, but no matter what field I pursued I was constantly being pulled back to the arts.

I was living in a small community in Kansas and design was not an option as a career, so I eventually moved to Texas. I researched and found a design course at a local community college. I was in heaven! I found myself surrounded by people with rich imaginations, a passion for design and life in general, a community of people like myself.

When I started my college courses I didn’t even know how to turn a computer on. I did not let that discourage me from learning about design. I embraced that challenge like so many, knowing that computers were to be an important part of contemporary art and design.

After all that discomfiting experience at such a young age in isolation I now want to reach out and communicate, make creative connections with people.