The Thread That Led Me Here: Following Wonder Back to the Beginning

I have always felt the pull of creativity, an insistent thread tugging softly toward that bright, impossible feeling that comes when you create something from nothing.

As a child, books were the catalyst, little portals that ignited my imagination and opened windows to fantastical worlds filled with color and beauty — tales of lost princes, secret gardens, and dancing gorillas.

The library was my kingdom. I spent hours curled up in the pillows of the carpeted castle in the children’s section of the Faulk Central Library in Austin, carrying stacks of borrowed magic home in my arms. The Scholastic book fair was the highlight of my young life. Even now, the thought of it makes my heart skip in excitement.

I wasn’t particularly drawn to making art back then, or maybe I wasn’t brave enough to try. My older brother was a naturally gifted artist, and it seemed like his domain. So instead, I poured myself into stories. I read them, wrote them, whispered them under my breath as I played alone or rode my bike in slow circles around the cul de sac. I read novels under the covers with a flashlight. I pored over picture books until the pages felt soft with familiarity. My best friend and I even recorded radio plays we’d written on a handheld tape recorder, performing entire worlds into being.

I was halfway through a creative writing degree at the University of Texas when life intervened and my beloved son came along. Staying home with him gave me the freedom, and perhaps the courage, to start playing with art materials in a way I’d never allowed myself before. My practice shifted from painting with words to painting with paper, then pens, then paint. Over the years, my making wandered: handmade birthday cards became altered and hand-bound books; collage led to painting; drawing led to printmaking. I returned to UT and earned a studio art degree, though by the end of it all, I still felt like an amateur.

That lingering sense of not being good enough sent me wandering. I tried on different creative identities like borrowed coats — interior designer, event planner, fashion stylist, graphic designer. Some fit for a while; none felt like home. I stopped writing, made little personal art, but I never stopped hoarding vintage collage papers or daydreaming about the worlds they might become. All the while, the thread tugged softly, pulling me toward something I couldn’t yet name.

Around the time of the pandemic, I decided to start taking my art seriously again. And that’s what I’ve been doing for the last five years — taking it very, very seriously. But somewhere along the way, it stopped feeling like play, all this serious art-making. I obsessed over what I didn’t know, what I couldn’t do, how to make art that would sell, how to reconcile all the disparate materials and styles I loved. I’d lost the spark of excitement and possibility that made my childhood so magical. I’d stopped telling stories.

This is where Luna & Fable came in.

Through a lot of trial and error, wrong turns that weren’t really wrong, and mistakes that taught me more than success ever did, I finally learned to embrace what I love most, the things that make my childhood self sing with joy. For me, that means illustration with rich jewel tones, expressive marks, vintage textures, animals, nature, folklore, and dreams. But it also means incorporating fashion, interior design, graphic design, and all the skills I gathered along the way. None of it was wasted.

The thread that binds all of these parts of myself together is the story. I want to tell stories that make people feel seen, spark wild imagination, and make the impossible seem possible. I want to create tales that awaken that childhood sense of wonder in anyone who encounters them, no matter their age.

Luna & Fable began as a whisper, a way of honoring the part of me that never stopped believing in hidden gardens and enchanted castles. That thread led me here, to this space where story and image intertwine, where symbols hold their quiet power, and where I can finally offer what I’ve carried all along.

In the coming months, I’ll be sharing glimpses of the first Luna & Fable collection, Light for the Threshold — a small gathering of illustrated tales, prints, and poetic objects born from this same thread. But for now, I just want to welcome you here, at the beginning.