Earlier this year, I found myself asking a question I’d never thought I’d ask…
What was the point?
What was the point of continuing to make art if it was all just going to end up sitting in my basement?
What’s the point of trying to be an artist, or continuing to refer to myself as an artist?
What was the point of continuing to try to put my work out there and find my place?
At the beginning of this year, I was on the verge of giving everything up.
When Identity Becomes a Cage
Back in the COVID era, I was already at a crossroads in my work. I’d done so much work with quilling that I took a process that started with a stack of old, unused Left Hand beer labels, and I turned it into an entire visual language that felt uniquely my own.
I pushed boundaries, took risks, and challenged myself with every new piece.
Eventually, I hit a wall.
I wanted to explore other ideas and media, but it felt almost like a betrayal. Quilling had become so closely tied to my identity that moving away from it felt like abandoning the very thing that made my work worth paying attention to.
Before I knew it, years had passed.
When I finally came back to the studio, I discovered I hadn’t left the questions behind.
So I did the only thing I knew how to do.
I started showing up again.
I rejoined artist groups I’d once belonged to and joined a few new ones. I started putting work in front of people again. I didn’t have answers, but I knew isolation wasn’t helping me find them.
I was still bumping up against that wall I’d hit before… Was I a quilling artist? Had I taken the medium as far as it could go? Was quilling just a gimmick? Did I even have a point of view anymore?
Showing Up Anyway
Without the pressures of having to make a living from my artwork the way I had with my studio, I gave myself permission to experiment again. I started exploring cyanotypes, image transfers, linocut printmaking, and eventually began combining those techniques with quilling, rather than making quilling the center of every piece.
I also started showing my work again. I entered exhibitions with both my newer work and my quilled pieces, including one that earned a first-place ribbon for Creative Excellence. More importantly, Most importantly, I started having conversations with people again. I watched how they responded to the work, what they connected with, and what they overlooked. It reminded me that once artwork leaves the studio, it begins a life of its own.
Somewhere in all that experimentation, showing my work, and talking with people, I realized how much energy I’d been spending on things I couldn’t control. I can’t control how my work is perceived or whether it leaves a lasting mark on the world. I can influence those things, but in the end, those decisions belong to other people, not me.
I Was Asking The Wrong Question
As I find myself approaching fifty, it’s impossible not to think about legacy. I want to leave something meaningful behind. But I’ve realized that if I spend all my time chasing some future definition of significance, I’ll miss the joy of making the work that’s in front of me today.
For years, I kept asking myself why I made the work I made. I treated it like there had to be one perfect answer that would unlock everything else.
Now I think I was asking the wrong question.
The Medium Was Never the Point
Quilling was never really the point. It was simply the tool I happened to use to discover my visual language. The medium was never the identity.
Looking back, I can see that every medium I’ve explored has been driven by the same instinct: curiosity. I want to push boundaries. I want to combine techniques in ways they weren’t intended to be combined. I want to see what happens when I ignore the rules and follow the question, “What if?”
That thread has been there from the beginning. The materials have changed. The process has changed. Even the work itself has changed. But the curiosity—the need to explore, experiment, and make something that didn’t exist before—has remained constant.
I started this year asking myself, “What’s the point?”
Looking back, I think I was searching for an answer that could only ever come from making the work itself.
The point was never quilling.
It was never about becoming known for a particular medium.
It was, and has always been, about continuing to explore.
I’d just forgotten that for a little while.
