Jennifer Sandquist

how do people have kids? 

i don't understand how anyone... could ever... have time to do anything... make anything... or go anywhere... if they had to take care of kids... in addition to themselves. more than once this week i have turned to someone next to me and said... wow... life is so much work... it's really hard sometimes to carve out time for yourself... i can't imagine how anyone can do that, have a job and raise children all at the same time. practice i guess.


last night i sorta freaked out... i started working on a few things and had a really rough time of it... i was extremely frustrated... to the point of tears... it reminded me of one of the first times i ever sat down to paint seriously... i spent hours working... and then cried to my boyfriend afterward saying that i was never going to be able to learn how to make anything... that i might as well give up... he laughed at me... and said... jen, you can't expect to just sit down and know how to do this... but, i do! i do expect to just sit down and be able to do it. i expect that i should be able to do anything i want to. maybe that's cocky... but... i guess it's this attitude that has kept me going... if i anticipated i would fail... i wouldn't start in the first place... so i always anticipate i will do great things... if someone else can... why can't i

his advice to me then... is the same i cling to now... if it's frustrating you... walk away... but come back again... with more energy and determination the next time... but come back again... often... you can't build anything in an hour... 

so my frustration last night... led to insomnia around 2 am... which led to a stack of drawings around 5 am... which led to a coffee cup filled with water color brushes at my desk today... which led to these...

which led to confidence... which led to ideas... which leads to tomorrow... and the next day... which leads me back to my art again and again