the craftiness of (wo)men

I'm not sure what drives me to create. I've just always had this desire to try something new, in spite of the fact that I have never done it before. So what that I never cut hair, sewed a wedding dress, catered a wedding, or designed costumes for a production before? You have to start somewhere, so why not try?

The majority of the battle in learning something new is thinking that you simply can't do it. You haven't been trained or personally taught and someone more experienced surely needs to show you the way.

I threw this notion out of my head in my early teens when I declared to my mother that I could cook anything, because if I had done a few dishes and they turned out well, then how hard can it possibly be to cook something new? I started baking tarts, fancy cakes, and making up new cookie recipes. From there this desire to create, to learn and expand my creativity transferred into sewing clothes and linens, baking wedding cakes at the age of 18, cutting and highlighting hair in my early 20s, sewing my first wedding dress, tying flies for fishing as well as making my own fishing pole, and most recently, making hand-bound leather books.

For years it had baffled me as to why so many women around me were amazed at what I had taught myself to do. Then a few months ago I had this epiphany: I have always believed that I could do anything that I tried my best at and used my brain to figure out. I may not be an expert, but I still could excel. If you think that you can't learn to do something, that is must be too complicated without formal training, or that you simple don't have skill, then you won't succeed because most often you won't try or put in a good effort. I admit that I am not great at all things creative (I cannot draw to save me life). But that doesn't mean I can't learn to silk paint, design clothes, plan elaborate parties, or make my own t-shirts. Everyone has the ability to be creative and artsy; you just have to try.