My Brown Paper Bag: From Eclectic Collector to Focused Creator

When I was a child, I was a collector.

Art supplies were hard to come by, and outside of a spiral graph, fashion plates, and color crayons, I had none. I collected anything I could get my hands on that I could make stuff with. I collected the twisty ties from the bread and made jewelry. I collected my mom's throwaway bill pile and junk mail pile and looked for colorful paper or images I could collage with.

My favorite was the Publishers Clearing House junk mail because they sent colorful stamps I could lick and stick on paper and mosaic images. I made landscape "paintings" with the stamps by separating the dominant color of the stamps in piles. I had drawers and drawers in my desk filled with anything I could find that I could create with.

I also collected books and magazines from the used bookstore my dad took me to. I wasn't a big reader, but I loved the images on the books' covers. I mostly collected books about horses.

Packing Possibilities

For our first trip to Hawaii and my first time on an airplane, when I was six, I packed more creative activities and books than clothes. I remember fighting with my mom about how I "needed" all of those things. She probably saw it as junk and didn't realize it was a necessity. I had a severe anxiety of not being able to create and having time with nothing to fill it.

I wasn't the kid that watched TV or played video games. I was always industrious, either writing, making things, or coloring. My mother let me bring what I wanted to Hawaii and told me I would regret filling my suitcase with books with pictures of horses on the cover.

She was right.

I didn't crack even one of the eight books I brought, nor did I use any of the other creative junk collections I had. I only colored in a coloring book. When we got ready to come back home, I barely had room to fit my new grass hula skirt and coconut shell top.

Every time I went to my grandma's house for the day, my mom, who knew my ways, would present me with an empty brown paper grocery store bag and say I could fill it with any art supplies I wanted. The only condition was if it couldn't fit inside the bag, then I couldn't bring it.

I stuffed it full of everything I could think of that I might want to make. I had endless projects partly made or in the plans. I spent most of my time at grandma's in her garden or climbing her huge cherry trees with my brother. But I had my brown paper bag full of creative possibilities, and that made me feel secure.

My Paper Bag Expands

For the next 40 years, my brown paper bag grew to be a closet filled with bins, an art studio in the garage, or a spare bedroom. For several years, I had multiple studios housing all of my creative ventures. I had, of course, a painting studio with every art supply on the market: watercolors, gouache, acrylics of every type from fluid to thick paste, inks, oils, and spray paints. I had every mixed media tool and medium that existed.

Then, I had a bead room, where I made all kinds of beaded jewelry, working with silver, resin, and gemstones. I had yarns and threads in every color and fiber for knitting and crocheting. I had tons of roving and a spinning wheel. I had another studio for pottery with a wheel and a kiln.

I spent myself in multiple creative outlets. I sold crocheted jackets, silk-screened t-shirts, and jewelry. I made quilts for everyone's bed and sewed giant life-size dolls for the kids. I made stuffed animals and sock monkeys. I made wallets and purses and clothes. I repurposed sheets into crocheted woven rugs and made crocheted tote bags from recycled grocery bags. I learned how to embroider and tat. I learned how to felt, tool leather, knot, and macramé. I was an arts and crafts junkie.

The Cost of a Purposeful Life

 But six years ago, I made a big decision. I realized I was 45 years old, and although I had achieved a lot—more than most artists—I wasn't even close to fulfilling my destiny. I spent all my creative energy in fractured ways, creating things that really didn't matter. I cluttered my life with shelves and boxes and bins of beads, fabrics, and yarn, all unraveling into a hodge-podge of bits and pieces of irrelevant creative projects. It was all justified because I crafted with my kids and taught them many things, but now it was time to get serious. It was now or never to really press on to build the bricks and blocks that would make up my life's calling and purpose.

I knew that achieving my destiny would take many years—maybe even 20! I had to shift gears and really begin to build, or it wasn't ever going to happen. I boxed up my most precious creative things and gave the rest away. I made a decision that I would only direct my creative energy into painting, writing, or building the business.

I knew that I couldn't function with the thought of idle time, but I felt it had turned into something dysfunctional. It was like all of my energy turned inward on itself and fractured into similar, smaller creative endeavors. Crocheting a sweater got me thinking about pockets and how to integrate felting embroidered pockets onto a sweater. These creative tributaries never ended and spiraled in and around the landscape of my soul, stealing valuable time from me to build the bricks of a worldwide business that would leave its mark on the world.

I never expected that all these creative crafty passions that have been a part of me since I was a child would actually serve to sabotage me from fulfilling my destiny. It felt a little bit like cutting off a gangrened arm in order to live.

Reaping the Reward

I still have small bouts of creative mess, like making felted ornaments at Christmas or crocheting a dinosaur for my grandson on a long car ride. But I'm no longer solving jewelry designs or crocheted jackets in my sleep. Now, my dreams are full of solutions on how to grow my business so I can touch and affect more people. I have required all of my faculties to row in the same direction, and the outcome is traction.

I have become clear and resolute, discerning in my priorities and appropriations of resources. I'm not frittering time or head space on small creative projects just to stay busy and make things. I have traded my brown paper bag full of lickable stamps, junk mail, glitter glue, and creative intentions for a viable 10-year business plan. I'll spend my energy focused, resolved, and determined to run hard after my destiny with the promise in my heart that I can fulfill it.

What have you sacrificed for your passion, and how has it shaped your journey towards fulfilling your destiny?

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