How Did We Get Here?
Before we start, we should get one thing clear: in my world, every day is Halloween.
I've wanted to write stories and make art my entire life. When I was little, that was pretty easy. My mom made sure we had art supplies on hand at all times, my dad drew and painted, and my whole world was full of wild and wonderful tales in book and oral forms.
I still remember the first time my mom introduced me to the thesaurus. I needed a different word for spooky and discovered eerie. I was in love!!!
And then someone (in retrospect they were a dangerous and harmful wet blanket) told little kid me that you can't write and make art. You have to choose only ONE. So I chose writing, love of my life.
After I finished my BA in Japanese and English at UVic, I completed an MFA in Creative Writing at UBC.
And then I burned out on writing, my main love, and a new love leapt into my life at about the same time: my basheret Gabe.
I began to work for the BC Government and focused on other, more casual art activities, like dance.
Let's call this the time of mourning. I complained about not writing each and every day. It hurt me each and every day to do everything under the sun but write.
(Pro-tip: if you want to write, write. The world needs your stories).
Gabe and I got married in a pumpkin patch in 2010.
After a lengthy immigration procedure, I moved to the States from Canada in 2012.
Within a few months, my health began to unravel. My collapse began in slow and strange ways: whooping cough, an enlarged spleen, exhaustion.
By 2013 I had to drop my extra-curricular activities. I dropped every creative passion and pursuit I had to work at my paid employment. That was all the energy I possessed.
But couldn't stay healthy, no matter what I did.
My fatigue left me unable to live the life I wanted, the life to which I was accustomed. Eventually, I had to decrease my work hours at Elliott Bay Book Company because I wasn't healthy enough to work full-time. They were wonderful and supportive and helped me make the right choices for my collapsing health.
But we still had no idea what was wrong.
I began to collect diagnoses, but none explained the severity of my symptoms. None captured everything that was wrong with me.
In autumn 2015, my mom came to visit. She saw how I'd started to live. I had enough energy to wake up in the morning, work, and come home to complete collapse. Symptoms would flare and abate with no discernible cause, and after years of tests and interventions that failed to help me, we had lost a lot of hope for an answer.
My mom and I were out for coffee at Espresso Vivace when she found a brochure for a class. She brought it over to me and said she was going to pay for me to attend if I thought I could muster together the energy to go once a week for 12 weeks.
Could I do that?
I said yes, and I committed to it as best I could. That fall I studied at the Seattle Artist's Way Center with instructor Kate Gavigan.
That course changed the way I live my life.
I began to squeeze in my creative loves again. They fit into each and every corner of time and space I could find in my day. Each morning I begin my day with Julia Cameron's morning pages. When I'm well enough, I add artist dates to the mix.
I re-evaluated my relationship with my body, began to see an amazing therapist who specializes in Jungian therapy and art therapy, and took steps to live well even though I was so sick.
Being able to do the creative work I'm meant to helped me accept my limitations and take better care of myself. If I pushed too hard, I wouldn't be able to do what I loved, so I grew in awareness and developed boundaries to keep me safe.
By the time I was diagnosed with a rare blood cancer in 2017 October, the life I had was one of better balance and joy. I attended Gage Academy to learn figure and portrait drawing. I started the Story Genius program and began to write again after almost a decade of story silence.
Art is once again my focus, my purpose, and even though I'm chronically sick, I live well and fully.
I wish I could say that after the blood cancer diagnosis, my health finally stabilized, but this year alone I've been diagnosed with five new diseases / conditions. Each one takes a toll on my ability to function and challenges my ability to pursue my path.
But that's what I'm here to do: pursue my creative path.
When we moved to Chicago in 2018 June, I decided to shape my life to my purpose and pursue art full-time for three years.
I've wanted to write stories and make art my entire life. When I was little, that was pretty easy. My mom made sure we had art supplies on hand at all times, my dad drew and painted, and my whole world was full of wild and wonderful tales in book and oral forms.
I still remember the first time my mom introduced me to the thesaurus. I needed a different word for spooky and discovered eerie. I was in love!!!
And then someone (in retrospect they were a dangerous and harmful wet blanket) told little kid me that you can't write and make art. You have to choose only ONE. So I chose writing, love of my life.
After I finished my BA in Japanese and English at UVic, I completed an MFA in Creative Writing at UBC.
I began to work for the BC Government and focused on other, more casual art activities, like dance.
Let's call this the time of mourning. I complained about not writing each and every day. It hurt me each and every day to do everything under the sun but write.
(Pro-tip: if you want to write, write. The world needs your stories).
"Just keep your arse in the chair. Arse in the chair.
Arse in the chair. Stare the blank page down."
-- Column McCann, Letters to a Young Writer
Arse in the chair. Stare the blank page down."
-- Column McCann, Letters to a Young Writer
Gabe and I got married in a pumpkin patch in 2010.
After a lengthy immigration procedure, I moved to the States from Canada in 2012.
Within a few months, my health began to unravel. My collapse began in slow and strange ways: whooping cough, an enlarged spleen, exhaustion.
By 2013 I had to drop my extra-curricular activities. I dropped every creative passion and pursuit I had to work at my paid employment. That was all the energy I possessed.
But couldn't stay healthy, no matter what I did.
My fatigue left me unable to live the life I wanted, the life to which I was accustomed. Eventually, I had to decrease my work hours at Elliott Bay Book Company because I wasn't healthy enough to work full-time. They were wonderful and supportive and helped me make the right choices for my collapsing health.
I began to collect diagnoses, but none explained the severity of my symptoms. None captured everything that was wrong with me.
In autumn 2015, my mom came to visit. She saw how I'd started to live. I had enough energy to wake up in the morning, work, and come home to complete collapse. Symptoms would flare and abate with no discernible cause, and after years of tests and interventions that failed to help me, we had lost a lot of hope for an answer.
My mom and I were out for coffee at Espresso Vivace when she found a brochure for a class. She brought it over to me and said she was going to pay for me to attend if I thought I could muster together the energy to go once a week for 12 weeks.
Could I do that?
I said yes, and I committed to it as best I could. That fall I studied at the Seattle Artist's Way Center with instructor Kate Gavigan.
That course changed the way I live my life.
I began to squeeze in my creative loves again. They fit into each and every corner of time and space I could find in my day. Each morning I begin my day with Julia Cameron's morning pages. When I'm well enough, I add artist dates to the mix.
I re-evaluated my relationship with my body, began to see an amazing therapist who specializes in Jungian therapy and art therapy, and took steps to live well even though I was so sick.
Being able to do the creative work I'm meant to helped me accept my limitations and take better care of myself. If I pushed too hard, I wouldn't be able to do what I loved, so I grew in awareness and developed boundaries to keep me safe.
By the time I was diagnosed with a rare blood cancer in 2017 October, the life I had was one of better balance and joy. I attended Gage Academy to learn figure and portrait drawing. I started the Story Genius program and began to write again after almost a decade of story silence.
Art is once again my focus, my purpose, and even though I'm chronically sick, I live well and fully.
I wish I could say that after the blood cancer diagnosis, my health finally stabilized, but this year alone I've been diagnosed with five new diseases / conditions. Each one takes a toll on my ability to function and challenges my ability to pursue my path.
But that's what I'm here to do: pursue my creative path.
When we moved to Chicago in 2018 June, I decided to shape my life to my purpose and pursue art full-time for three years.
I'm finally writing the stories I love, deep in Halloween and the playfully macabre.
In art, I study to become the intersectional feminist Norman Rockwell of Halloween paintings (not in Rockwell style, but in how he tricked people into feeling nostalgia for that which never existed).
This is the journey.
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If you'd like to see what I'm working on, my art Instagram is @izaoctober.
My art is also for sale on Etsy.
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