I was tickled pink when I was published in Somerset Digital Studio magazine this year. I submitted entries on a lark, never expecting to be selected, much less to be featured in an artist spotlight article. I've read the magazine for years and loved gleaming ideas from the other talented artists.

My journaling gently mocks how I finally acknowledged my need to artfully create. I had only discovered the wonderful world of digital scrapping a few years before, I was doing a different type of digi-design. I always thought I was just a writer who played with digital colors and apps. So I struggled with calling myself an artist. I was raised to be an English major and wrote a wide variety of things for my work. The article helped validated me as an authentic artsy girl. And only lately have I realized that I can be both a writer and an artist.

Journaling: They suspected it for a long time. They had noticed she started wearing a beretall the time. They knew she was changing, but didnt realize to what extent. They tried to save her. They really did. They threatened her with banishment from the exalted and honorable English Majors secret society. They told her that her brain would rot, that her thoughts would be scrambled, that she would become ditsy. They said her words would be much shorter, more elemental, less syllabic. That she would soon speak only in, gasp, single syllables! SINGLE syllables. 

Nothing worked. She was drawn like the proverbial moth to the flame. Drawn to drawing. Drawn to the cult of color. She adorned herself with flowing, brightly-colored silk garments. She took her beloved MacBookPro everywhere. She was addicted to digital elements, brushes, papers and transfers. She had changed. She was no longer a writer, no more a wordsmith. She was AN ARTiST.

FYI, magazines and newspapers are called "rags" in the industry. And I've written plenty of newsletters in my time, but this is the first time I've done both the words and the pictures.

Thanks for looking. Appreciate all the support from this wonderful group of talented artists.