Most people think of art as a hobby you choose later in life. For me, it was the shape of childhood itself.

I grew up in a house where creativity was as natural as breathing. My mom was always sewing something in the den, and my dad was usually out in the barn, building furniture in his woodshop that smelled like sawdust and winter air.

Some of my earliest memories are sitting on the window seat in the den while my mom stitched beautiful things with her hands. She was an heirloom seamstress and could turn fabric into anything. Dresses with smocking so delicate and detailed they looked like something meant to be passed down for generations. Quilts pieced together with tiny stitches. Cross stitch framed on the wall. Christmas ornaments sewn by hand. She once made me a matching dress for my American Girl doll Samantha, blue cotton with tiny pink flowers and white and pink smocking across the chest. I remember how proud I was to match my doll because my mom made dresses for us both.

She taught me to sew early. Not in a controlling way, but in that gentle mom way where she let me loose with her scrap bins to make whatever I dreamed up. Pillows for dolls. Blankets for stuffed animals. Little drawstring bags pieced together from leftover fabric. She trusted me with her tools and taught me how to follow a simple pattern. I could sew quilts, too, although I always needed help finishing the edges. That was our thing. She would hum along to Christian radio or put on one of my records, and the two of us would talk while she worked.

The soundtrack of my childhood was mostly Christian music. The local Christian station played kids shows, worship songs, and radio dramas. We had The Music Machine on vinyl, and I knew every word to every song. We also listened to Hide Em in Your Heart on cassette, scripture set to simple melodies that I can still recite without thinking. Those songs are stitched into my memory the same way my mom stitched fabric into dresses and quilts. Faith was the background music of our home. It shaped our days with warmth and familiarity, not fear. My mom always answered my questions with honesty and welcomed real conversations, even when I was little. Curiosity was encouraged.

While my mom taught me softness and detail, my dad taught me structure and tools. His woodshop was in the barn, the kind of space where winter crept in through the walls, and we warmed it with an old kerosene heater that smelled like metal and comfort. He gave me my own small tools and let me use his wood scraps to make whatever I wanted. Sometimes I built little projects with nails sticking out at odd angles. Sometimes I just sawed pieces for the fun of sawing. Other times I sanded boards while he worked on something real. He built many of the pieces that furnished our home, and I got to be part of that process in tiny ways.

Between the sewing room in the den and the woodshop in the barn, I grew up surrounded by the idea that hands can make things. And my parents made sure I had a place to explore that on my own. In our semi finished basement, I had an entire room where I was free to create. There were crayons, markers, colored pencils, glue, stickers, watercolors, and bins of craft supplies. The concrete floors meant no one cared if I made a mess. I mixed media before I even knew the word for it. Layering paint with markers, adding stickers on top, gluing scraps of fabric to drawings. Everything was an experiment, and everything was mine.

Even then, I think art was giving me something I did not have words for. My brain worked differently, even if no one knew, and creativity became an outlet long before I understood why I needed one. I did not grow up on pop culture, but I grew up on creation. That became its own kind of language. It let me express ideas and feelings without the pressure to explain them. In a home shaped by faith, books, and hands-on learning, art was the place where my inner world could stretch out and feel understood.

Looking back now, I realize my creativity did not come out of nowhere. It grew inside a childhood full of Christian music drifting through the house, a sewing machine humming in the den, and a woodshop warmed by a kerosene heater in the barn. It grew because my parents encouraged curiosity instead of shutting it down. It grew because I always had small spaces where I could make things without fear of doing it wrong.

My childhood was simple and steady and filled with handmade things. And that shaped the kind of woman I became.

As an adult, I see how deeply that early creativity lives on in me. Art is still where I process the world, still where my brain settles when life feels loud. It is how I connect with my children through quiet shared space, the same way I used to connect with my parents. Rae often creates beside me the way I once sat beside my mom, both of us working quietly but completely together.

Art is still the thread that forms my life.

Not something I added.

Something that revealed who I had been all along

Mimi❤️🌿