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My early childhood was shaped by being raised by a single mother in a large family. One could probably gather on their own that we did not have a lot. I can remember drawing on old envelopes because we didn’t have paper, my mother making a “T.V.” out of a cardboard box that she had to draw the pictures on, and at least one Christmas where we received an apple, an orange, a travel toothbrush and toothpaste, and a deodorant stick. I remember moving a lot, and I remember that I got very good at making friends because I was always the new kid. What I don’t remember was my mother complaining. I don’t remember her crying. I don’t remember her seeming stressed (although as a mother myself now, I know she had to be). I don’t remember feeling “poor”. My childhood was so full of magic! Because life was hard, my mother found and amplified the magic in all of the everyday moments. I learned to see beauty in the mundane, to appreciate how the light comes through the window and dances across the dishes still out from breakfast. How the dew drops on the blades of grass in the morning would make the PERFECT drink of water for a fairy, and to question whether a knot on a tree was really just a knot… or could it be that it was hiding the front door of some small, mystical being? My mother was an artist by craft as well as in life, and she gave me the privilege and honor of viewing the world in that way, always through an artistic lens. My dream would be that I can find and capture the magic in your life, as everyone deserves to see the world the way my mother showed it to me at least once in their life.