Artist • Creator • Writer
The Story Behind SuZen— An Artist and Creator
It started with a search for peace.
I didn't set out to become a writer or an artist.
I set out to find a little more peace.
Somewhere along the way, I picked up a pen, began to write, then began to draw, and discovered that the two had been quietly leading me somewhere all along.
Sometimes it shows up as a reflection.
Sometimes it's just a page filled with musings.
Sometimes it becomes a drawing.
For more than twenty years, I lived a pretty conventional life—investment management career, responsibilities, accomplishments, and all the things I thought I was supposed to be doing.
When I retired in 2008, I filled my days with travel, golf, friends and lots of fun.
But eventually, I realized something was missing. I had a good life, but I didn't feel quite at home in it.
Before I knew I was Searching
I started Noticing
And Then I Picked Up a Pen
And Then I Picked Up a Sketchbook
I started making more room for mindfulness, acceptance, gratitude, joy.
And finally more room for me.
I began to meditate in 2014 as a simple way to calm my mind for better golf. This quickly became something much deeper—an inward reflection and a journey toward finding me.
I began noticing the ways I had spent much of my life striving, pleasing, accomplishing and trying to get things right.
Slowly, I began letting some of that go. And somewhere in that process, something unexpected happened.
I became more curious about who I might be when I wasn't trying to be anyone else.
I started writing.
Not because I had a book in me that needed to be written. Not because I thought of myself as a writer.
I simply started to let my inner me find its way out.
First with a favorite pen on journal pages, then on the computer to share with others.
Words became a way to notice what I was thinking, what I was feeling, and what was happening around me. Writing gave those thoughts somewhere to land.
I started to draw.
I didn't really know what I was doing. I just picked up a pen and started making lines.
One line led to another. And another.
Before I knew it I was doodling.
I Had Found Two Ways to Wander
I discovered that writing and drawing were giving me two different ways to let my inner me find its way out into this big, beautiful world.
And find my peace.
Where The Wandering Is Leading Me
Somewhere along the way, writing and drawing stopped being things I simply did.
They became ways of paying attention. Ways of making sense of things. Ways of staying curious.
These days, I move between words and lines, reflections and doodles, ideas and imagination.
I don't always know where a wandering line—or a wandering thought—will lead. And that's part of the fun.
I make things because I like to see where an idea will take me.
I'm simply still wandering. And I'm happy to have you wander alongside—with Caylee, my Zen Puppy, always nearby.
