When you look back at your life, you always see it differently than when you’re actually living it—kind of like how my Great Dane, Charlie Chaplin, looks majestic in photos but in reality just knocked over three picture frames and my water bottle while chasing his own tail. As a young adult bouncing around California, I would never have called myself creative or artistic, even though I studied Theatre in college and worked as a makeup artist. Apparently, I had the artistic awareness of a goldfish.
I know that sounds strange—those are both creative pursuits—but at that time in my life, I simply didn’t think of myself in those terms. Had you asked, I would have probably called myself eccentric. Looking back, I realize that’s because that’s how the people in my life saw me. No one in my family was an artist. We were all very “practical” folk with jobs! You know, the kind of people who didn’t think “artist” is a career path, but rather a cautionary tale.
The Great Taming (Or: How I Became Domesticated)
Over the years, as I took a regular, steady paying job (unlike my life as a freelance makeup artist, where “steady” meant I could afford both rent AND groceries in the same month), there was a slow taming of my creative spirit. For many years, I blamed it on the people in my life—which, let’s be honest, is much easier than taking responsibility.
I didn’t go to auditions in Hollywood because it made my mother nervous when I went to the “big city” alone. I was just too busy to write the proposal for the book on makeup I wanted to write, and yet I always seemed to have time to go out with my friends or watch something on TV. Funny how that works—I could binge-watch entire seasons of shows but couldn’t find two hours to write a book proposal. My priorities were clearly as organized as my makeup kit after a wedding gig.
The Academic Detour (Or: When in Doubt, Go to Law School)
Ultimately, I ended up in law school—mostly because my father and brother were attorneys and I figured they could help me if I was stuck. It’s like choosing a career based on available tech support. While I was waiting for my bar results (yes, I did pass on my first try—why do people always ask that?), my mom took me to a decorative painting class.
Plot twist: I no longer practice law, but I’m still painting. That class was really the start of my true creative journey, although I didn’t know it at the time. It’s amazing how life works—sometimes the most important moments disguise themselves as random Tuesday evening activities with your mother.
The International Education (Or: My Geographic Identity Crisis)
Between California and my current home in Oklahoma (yes, that’s quite a journey), I lived in the UK for school and spent time in Maine. Each place taught me something different about myself. The UK taught me that I could survive on tea Hard Cider and sarcasm, Maine showed me that I could handle winters that would make a polar bear complain, and Oklahoma… well, Oklahoma taught me that home isn’t about geography—it’s about where your Great Danes feel comfortable sprawling across the entire living room. (Also, most of my immediate family moved here, and I can be happy anywhere.)
Speaking of which, Grace Kelly (my other Great Dane) has impeccable timing. She always seems to expect to be petted and loved when I’m having a profound realization about life. It’s like she’s saying, “That’s nice, human, but I have a tough life and my back hurts.” [Spoiler alert: She doesn’t have a tough life.]
The Creative Awakening (Or: How I Found My Tribe Online)
I believe that we all have creative dreams that were stifled and shushed when we were children. Even though I came from a supportive family, there was still pressure to get a “real” job and give up my dreams of acting in my early twenties. Over the years, that need to be creative kept coming out—through the way I dressed, how I decorated my home, and in my “eccentric personality”—but I kept ignoring it, trying to do the grown-up thing.
I took that painting class in 1993, and in 1995, I started the first online mailing list for decorative painters. I was looking to find out if there was anyone else out there as crazy about painting as I was. Over time, I found several thousand of them, and we formed a terrific group called ToleNet. Although ToleNet is no longer in existence, overseeing the group helped me redefine my self-image.
You know the saying about how teachers teach the thing they need to learn? Well, that was certainly the case with my ToleNet experience. I would often get frustrated when the women in the group put down their efforts to paint, apologized for writing too much, and didn’t give themselves a chance to be a beginner. In writing to them about improving their own self-image, I realized that much of what I was writing also applied to me. Physician, heal thyself—or in this case, artist, believe in thyself.
The Wake-Up Call (Or: When Life Gets Real)
In 1998, I began to assemble those writings into a sort of personal manifesto about creativity that ultimately became the Tera’s Wish website. (No longer active.) To my astonishment, I began to get mail from people reading the articles who felt the same things I did about their own creative journey. Turns out, imposter syndrome is a universal language.
In late 1998, my dear friend and painting designer Debbie Kaput was diagnosed with cancer. Debbie was a firecracker who lived her life to the fullest. When we would talk, she would say to me that I should not be so arrogant to think that I had forever to live my dreams. That if I had things I wanted to do, I needed to get started on them. In January 1999, Debbie lost her battle with cancer. She was 42 years old.
The Professional Pivot (Or: How I Accidentally Became a Writer)
Through ToleNet, I learned that my passion was creativity and inspiring others to find their own voice through creative pursuits—whether it be home décor, a craft, or just the way you live your life. I had the advantage of having gotten to know quite a few people in the painting industry through ToleNet, and their generous help and information helped me get my first contacts for a column in a painting magazine, and ultimately my first book contract.
Since then, I’ve written columns for nine magazines (simultaneously at one point—which challenged every one of my organizational skills), written over 20 books on art, creativity, goal-setting, and AI, plus created an entire pantheon of coloring books. I’ve also written a mystery novel, found on Amazon under my pen name, Tonya Curtis. Grace Kelly particularly approves of the mystery novel—she’s always been suspicious of everyone who comes to the door.
The Motto That Changed Everything
After Debbie’s death, I stumbled across a quote from an ancient author named Virgil: “Fortune Favors the Bold.” That has become my personal motto, and one that I believe is crucial to creative success. It’s easy to think that certain things will make our life easy: money, fame, beauty, love, etc. The truth is that none of those things brings us happiness. Life isn’t supposed to be easy. It’s supposed to be lived.
I’ve also learned that there is power in being the one asking for what they want.
Think of it this way. If you don’t have something you want, and you ask for it and they say no, you still don’t have it. No changes nothing. It’s the least high risk thing you can experience in life. It’s yes that is scary. Yes can turn your life upside down. There’s a reason people say, “be careful what you wish for.”
“Fortune Favors the Bold” means that we are responsible for our own happiness. Be bold! Go after your dreams.
The Song We All Must Sing
Each of us has our own “song” to sing. Some of us may sing it in paint, others by teaching inner-city children, and some by writing articles about their journey from California to Oklahoma with two Great Danes who think they’re lap dogs. Whatever your song, the world needs to hear it.
My geographic journey from California to the UK to Maine to Oklahoma taught me that happiness isn’t about location—it’s about permission. Permission to be different, to take risks, to fail spectacularly, and to get back up and try again. Charlie Chaplin and Grace Kelly don’t care if I’m a successful writer or a failed knitter—they just care that I show up every day, fill their food bowls, and occasionally throw a tennis ball.
Life isn’t about finding yourself—it’s about creating yourself, one bold choice at a time.
And sometimes, if you’re really lucky, you get to do it with two Great Danes who remind you daily that the best way to approach life is with enthusiasm, curiosity, and the absolute certainty that every visitor to your house is there specifically to make you happy.
Fortune favors the bold. But it also favors those who aren’t too proud to start over when life calls for a plot twist. Whether you’re in California dreaming of Hollywood, in the UK learning to love tea Hard Cider, in Maine surviving winter, or in Oklahoma discovering that home is where your Great Danes sprawl—your creative journey is uniquely yours.
The world is waiting to hear your song. Don’t keep it waiting too long.