Throughout my career, most of my work has revolved around digital projects with a marketing goal. Don’t get me wrong — I love that type of work. It’s what I got my degree in. But creating designs during the day wasn’t enough. I needed more. To balance the hours of purpose-driven design work, I focused my evenings on creating art with traditional media for years. I dabbled in everything from chalk pastels to polymer clay, from acrylics to oil paints. Any extra spending money I had went straight toward art supplies and books. Christmas requests always involved art store gift cards. I couldn’t tell you about a single pair of shoes or clothing I owned around that time of my life, but I do remember specific trips for more India ink. As my family grew from two to six, my time for art after work hours ebbed and flowed, but adding an iPad Pro to my list of tools? AH-mazing investment. The iPad allowed me to have a mobile studio at any given moment, regardless of location or whether it is “safe” to have art supplies out around my curious children. I cherished every second of learning and creating outside my traditional analog and digital tools.

Enter the pandemic of 2020. We went from normal to nothing-normal-about-it in a matter of weeks. I don’t know a single person untouched by COVID-19 in one way or another, but I try to stay grateful for what our family has and is able to do that resembles our previous normal…including creating art both as an outlet for the many emotions we have gone through since March of 2020 and to help others also cope.

As I work on my art and set goals for Studio Henson, I hope what I create helps you in some way — brings you joy, boosts your business, inspires your own journey. I think we all could use a little more of that as we have another year of uncertainty ahead of us. Thank you for reading my story and supporting my efforts as an artist.

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