Why I Craft

It is important to examine your “why”, to make sure you know it and your actions align to it. I have identified numerous “why’s” and think I may have come across another.

I write to deepen my knowledge of self.

I share in order to let that self be known.

I photograph to memorialize beauty.

…and I craft to anchor.

Typically, putting together a token of my arts, writing, images, or other things that I find come together is like a special kind of alchemy. Taking it from the page or screen and re-presenting it. Making it a display or a take-along. Doing this gives me a gateway back to something. When I craft something new out of my existing artistic expressions, I am making an anchor back to myself – back to my peace, my joy, my gratitude, my pride – back to my truth.

A part of the exercise of defining your “why” is not just to find it, but to filter out against it. I can create aimlessly – writing, photography, crafting – but usually when it is pure it links back to the deeper why I have discovered. So, when I get caught up in the productivity hype and push of the external world around me, I can filter my actions back through my why. The hope is to keep my creativity pure and unforced. To stay authentic to my truth.

I want to maintain creative practices, but only because they are fulfilling. They can only live up to that expectation of fulfillment when they stay aligned to my natural “why”. Then they hold an immeasurable power.

So, I write to deepen my knowledge of self,

I share in order to let that self be known,

I photograph to memorialize beauty,

and I craft to anchor me home.