I have always been artist but only recently did I think to make it a career. I remember as a child spending afternoons with my grandmother, sketching faces and whatever random super hero or Ninja Turtle was in my mind at the time.

My grandmother being the only person in my life at the time that could 'wow' me with her art. She would freehand these incredible profiles of anyone in front of her or often from memory. As I grew through schooling, I always had art on the schedule and I almost always had a sketchbook with me. I didn't get into painting until high school, but I've had a love affair with it ever since. I always made it a point to find time to create something each year. And I would use my abilities to give friends and family members gifts when I couldn't think of a material item to buy them. There was something powerful in creating rather than just selecting off a shelf and being able to share it with someone.

More recently I just got tired of my 9-5 and always told myself, at some point I'm going to be financially and mentally stable enough to do what I want on the side. Well as the world slips further and further into a hellscape of overworking and underpaid employment, I had enough and just started making it. It doesn't support me fully in life at the moment but I have hopes my talent will take me place that an office job wouldn't. It's a natural gift I've honed over the decades of absorbing through life and I hope to be able to take it to new levels of personal freedom and create a career I'm finally happy with.