My Story

My purpose in this life is to tell stories—this I’ve always known. I was memorizing books before I could even read. I played with Barbies and dollhouses, and had a name and origin story for every stuffed animal. I played Pretend on the school bus, with my friend down the street, alone in my backyard. In high school I took a Creative Writing class and wrote songs and children’s stories. I took multiple AP English/Lit classes with a teacher that taught me everything I know.

When I needed a more artistic outlet, I turned to photography and set my sights on art school.

Be it embarrassment, intimidation, or outright fear, my freshman year gave me creation anxiety. Let’s be real, it was Imposter Syndrome. The next character to enter was even worse: Depression. I lost interest in my studies, but somehow managed to finish as a double major. I was often lost, unfocused, unwell. Needless to say, art school was not the most nurturing place for someone who desperately needed to be nurtured.

What came next were several years of various and grueling restaurant jobs while I worked toward a second Bachelor’s and eventually a Master’s in U.S. History. I tried to get as far away from the art world as possible. I studied presidents, wars, foreign policy, soldiers, race, anything that could make me appear more impressive, more masculine. And I was pretty good at it. But I still felt misplaced. At the end of the day, I still leaned toward the creative, the philosophical, the beautiful, the “traditionally feminine;” everything I was trying to outrun. I struggled to find the right specialty, the right professor to work with, the right box to fit in.

My graduate thesis reflected myself and my life in many ways. It didn’t adhere to any specific discipline; it combined many and became something entirely new. It was academic and creative, combining the masculine and feminine energies of the Civil War. It spoke of heroes and legends, generations of myth-making. It challenged tradition with radical ideas about art and architecture, material history, and their impact on humanity, war, glory, memory. This was better than making a 45-minute film that was deemed by the faculty as “fine.”

These were my words, my heart and soul and conviction on paper.

This was something that an esteemed professor “picked up and couldn’t put back down.” It was even nominated for a creativity award, which felt an awful lot like the “Miss Congeniality” of academia. Pretty awesome, if you ask me, even if I didn’t win.

Here’s the thing… you can’t outrun who you are.

And you shouldn’t feel like you need to. I’ve found that it doesn’t really matter how fast or how far you run—you’ll end up bumping into yourself sooner or later.

That lesson took me many years to learn. Eventually I couldn’t see the point in denying my natural talents anymore. I had likes and dislikes and vision, empathy, emotional connection, and I was too tired to keep fighting them off. After all, these attributes aren’t prisons, they’re gifts. And until quite recently, I behaved very petulantly towards these gifts and sent zero Thank You cards. But now, all the paths I’ve walked have converged peacefully and have led me here, where I can use my talents and learned experience to help others, to help you.

Now, let’s make some magic together.

—Cecilia