Digging For My Hidden Gems

The morning of July 16, 2019

I’ve been listening to Big Magic by Elizabeth Gilbert. In her book she talks about, what she believes, is one of the Universe’s oldest tricks. In each of us, the universe has hidden gems deep inside and it’s up to us humans to find them if we can. I’ve been chewing on this thought all morning and it has pushed me to finally start writing this blog. I’ve thought about it for a while, but just didn’t know what I would write about. So I’ve decided to simply share my musings to help me process my creative journey and also help motivate me to keep digging for all those deeply hidden gems.

I started tentatively digging for my gems October of 2017. Something called Inktober had caught my attention. People all over the world came together online and just created anything they could with ink and posted it online. Thanks to this movement, started by Jake Parker, I began drawing in earnest again and although I knew my drawings were no where near as good as I believed I could produce, and had a hard time being proud of, I shared them with the web.

That’s when I started to wake up to my own potential. More importantly, it’s when I realized that I needed to draw to truly be happy. I’ve drawn off and on all my life, sometimes intensely, most of the time infrequently. It’s always been there on the outskirts of my life though. I can’t ever really stop drawing, it’s a constant pull impossible to completely ignore. I draw because I love to, and when I share my work, even if not many people see them, there’s still this feeling that the artwork as become more real. I believe whole heartedly that art is meant to be shared. If it’s created in secret and kept out of the light, it’s like it doesn’t exist.

So that’s what I’ve begun here. I’m digging for my gems, truly following my heart and putting myself out there into the universe and hoping to find others who are like-minded in this endeavor. Especially those who are drawn to Magic, Life, Light and Art.

Stephanie Hagen
Fairy Wing Studio