hi! my name is junie, i'm 26 at the time of writing this, and i'm obsessed with everything artsy and craftsy. now that i'm opening up a shop and sharing my creations with the world, i thought i'd share a little bit about me and my journey with creating!
i've been doodling my entire life, but i didn't start considering myself an artist until 2019. it wasn't until then that i started drawing consistently. i set up a mini painting studio in my room and i even began selling my own artwork as stickers. on the outside it looked nice and put together. but there was something under the surface that nobody saw; i was beginning to despise art.
the way that i was going about creating was killing my relationship with art. i wasn't drawing because i loved it, i was drawing because i felt like i had to. it's one thing to turn your creations into a performance, it's another thing to create solely to perform it. that was a dark spot i found myself in. i had no idea what to do anymore. so i closed up shop, and i thought my relationship with art was dead forever.
months had gone by, and i hadn't realized how depressed i had gotten without creating in my life. i was hit with the reality that creativity itself is a life within me that must be fed, and i had starved it to death. i couldn't have learned this at a more perfect time. AI was beginning to take over, and art as a whole was being robbed and defiled by it. i was also beginning to understand just how unhealthy social media was for me and how much it had contributed to the way i was going about being an artist. i was subconsciously following a formula because it was what i consumed, not what felt right for me. all of this sparked something in me, something truly powerful that i'm not quite sure how to put into words. i had finally realized that all of these subconscious rules i had applied to myself meant absolutely nothing and i felt free. the desire to create art to spite the machines completely took over my system. i wanted, *needed* to contribute to real art made with the love, attention, intention, patience, and emotion that a machine could never replicate. this whole thing had opened an infinite amount of mental doors i didn't even know i had closed. i began to see art in a whole new light and i felt like i had suddenly understood exactly who i was, and what i wanted to create during my short time here on earth.
going from believing i'd never pick up a brush again to creating art weekly with a much better understanding of myself is a feeling i will carry with me forever. with that on top of the desire i have to do what's good for me, even when it's hard, is what keeps me going. i am so grateful to be able to inspire myself and be my own motivation in this way. and i hope i can inspire others to be the same for themselves. ☆