Every time I step into my studio, I am confronted by these blasted identity issues. Every decision about color, shape, line, and which brush to use challenges me to know myself, to trust my inner sensibility, and to ignore the voices crowding my head with the shoulda, woulda, could’ves. I gotta hold the line, trust, weather the moment. I make some marks and they don’t sit right for the page, the composition, or whatever I think I’m doing. I despair, I let the piece sit, I move to another one to escape the problems of the first. Then, I settle in. I remember that this is about joy, not about making something worthy (whatever that is) or about finishing it. It is about playing, about being where I am supposed to be, and saying goodbye to expectation and saying instead, “Welcome home, hope.” There is something being made that wants to be seen, to be heard. Those other things can wait outside in the Portland rain. When I am on the verge of feeling tension and anxiety again, I wash my brushes, tidy up, and go home. It was a good day.