Keep Cutting

When I was a child, I swore to myself that I would always have scissors, tape, paper and crayons easily available for my future children. I grew up in a house where you could never find what you needed when the moment of creativity hit. I wanted to have an area that anyone could go to create, regardless of what they wanted to make. As an adult, my life was hectic raising two precocious girls 17 months apart, but I kept my promise. Not only did they have the basics, but they had tubs and tubs of art supplies, everything from clay to glitter to beads. Even as toddlers, my girls always knew they could find a pair of kid friendly scissors, one for my right-handed baby and one for my south paw.

As they grew, our projects became much more focused. We made board games for book reports, show and tell posters about their favorite things, and dozens of arts and crafts projects for the 4-H fair. My youngest loved to quill and always had her tub of supplies at hand. My oldest followed my lead in trying out her hand at scrapbooking. We would spend hours cutting out letters and pictures and creating layouts from our family photos. Eventually, each girls’ crafts bought us a ticket to the Kansas State Fair. Every year we spent time together learning new crafts and techniques and I continued to love to create with my girls. Our kitchen table was never clean – it always contained someone’s wild work in progress – and I loved it that way.

As all parents know, the days of childhood are fleeting. They soon grew to teenagers, and I felt the loss that came with their sudden independence. I had given up my scrapbooking due to space and time restrictions and started to feel an ache in my heart because my creative side lay dormant. Soon they were out the door, and I went from being a caregiver to little ones, to helping my parents as they entered their later years. Time went by and my ache only grew. I watched craft shows intently and loved to wonder the aisles of my local craft stores, but my all my supplies remained packed up in boxes in storage.

I bought a new set of markers on a whim to try a fad and started to find my way back to what brought me joy. I started doing adult coloring when the trend hit, but as much as I enjoyed it, something was missing. I slowly realized what I missed was the “fussy cutting” that I did when I was scrapbooking. The anxieties of my day would slowly seep out of my body as I sat with a stack of letters or stamps that I would methodically cut out, the more intricate, the better. I loved the sound of scissors through paper, the soft ssshhh, ssshhh, ssshhh. My stash of scissors included every size, shape and creative edge available. My orange handled detail scissors were my go-to for creating precise, clean cuts. Just having them in my hand again I felt a kind of rekindling within me.

I had heard about art journaling, but it always scared me because it was so messy. I couldn’t handle all the paint and messes that it seemed to create, but I loved the final results. Striking creations with layers of paints, stamps, stencils, inks and most importantly, fussy cutting. I soon discovered that I loved paper collage which combined everything I admired about art journaling, even the parts that had scared me. To make space for my new-old love, I decided to cut loose and build my self a craft area that I could make as messy as I wanted and did not have to clean up at the end of the day. I could feel the ache in my heart start to wane as I just let myself do what I loved whether it was messy or not. A little anxiety hung around me even then, did I think I was some kind of artist? In those moments, I picked up my tubs of computer print outs and magazines and started to cut.

Even as I found comfort in my collaging, I only shared it with some friends and family. My art felt close and personal and I kept it that way. I focused on the process and it did wonders for my mental health. I could escape for hours in my art room and play and create. At various times, my life grew increasingly complex and issues with family and work started to overwhelm me. In the past, that is the moment when I would set my scissors down and focus on other’s needs. This time I refused to do that. I kept going into my art room and sometimes never had anything to show, but I focused on the process. In my darkest moments, when my heart is beating and my throat is tight, I still reach for my favorite orange-handled scissors and start cutting. I focus on the sound of the scissors, the feel of the paper and the smell of the ink. My anxiety and stress fall away little by little and I can face the rest of my life.

As an introvert, creating community can be hard for me. I keep my family and a few good friends close. As I became more confident and more prolific with my craft, my girls, my biggest cheerleaders, decided I was ready for the next step. My girls were now teaching me. After a gift of a homemade light box to take photos of my art and a tutorial of the world of social media, we created an Instagram account. I am now Amy’s Art Garden. I have been sharing my art and with it, bits and pieces of my innermost self. I now have a community of fellow artists that I share with and learn from and that ache in my heart? It’s gone. Now, I do what I love. I didn’t realize that during my hours and hours of fussy cutting that I was also snipping away the binds that were holding me back from sharing myself as a person and an artist. Making space for what makes me happy, cutting out a place to explore my own creativity, has made me a more authentic version of myself. I still have a long way to go, but I’ve got my orange handled scissors and I know what to do.