Why I Create

People ask why I create.

It’s a fair question. It sounds simple enough. But the answer has never been simple.

I’ve been making things for as long as I can remember. Before I knew what “art” was, before anyone suggested it could be studied or pursued, I was already doing it — drawing, shaping, noticing. Eventually, I even earned a degree in it, as if to give a proper name to something that had always been there.

But if I’m honest, I didn’t choose creating so much as I kept returning to it. Again and again.

Because much of my life has been about… dealing with things. Pain. Illness. Recovery. Not always dramatic, not always visible — but always persistent. The kind of things that ask something of you, quietly, every day. And creating became the way I could answer.

There were seasons when life was very full. Three small children under the age of six. A house that was rarely quiet. Days that blurred together in a rhythm of care, responsibility, and love.

In those years, creating didn’t look particularly romantic. There were no studios or uninterrupted hours. There was paper. A ballpoint pen. Crayons — because they were safe, and they were already there. I made things in the margins. In between moments.
Right alongside small hands that were also creating.

It wasn’t about perfection. It wasn’t even about progress. It was about staying connected to something that felt like me.

After surgeries and illnesses, I began to understand something that is quietly important: Creating wasn’t just something I could do when life allowed it. It was something that helped me move through life. I had to do it. Through the hard seasons. Through the beautiful seasons. Through the darkest days of pain. Through the pains that are just part of every day.

It is a way of noticing. Of holding onto a moment of beauty just a little longer. Of translating what was in me into something to be held. Of stopping to realize there was beauty in pain. That beauty can ease the pain. That creating is my reconnecting with the beauty in me.

When I paint a flower — whether it’s a tightly held bud or a fully open bloom — I’m not just painting what it looks like. I’m painting the opportunity. I am painting the energy. It is a moment that won’t last. Things open when they open. That beauty doesn’t linger forever. That being present for it matters.

So, why do I create?

Because it’s how I pay attention. Because it’s how I make sense of things that don’t always make sense. Because even in the busiest, noisiest, most painful seasons, there is always something worthy of notice.

And sometimes, if you’re very lucky, you get to capture it just before it changes.

And sometimes, if you are very, very lucky, you get to share it with others.

With you.

 — Cynthia