The Camellia Bloom: How a Winter Flower Restarted My Creative Journey

Showing up here used to be hard because I felt like I had to perform for the world.

Then one day I realized something.

I could just talk to you.

I could share the things I believe make creativity, and art especially, such an important pursuit.

You have the creative spark. I see it alive in you every day and I do not know how to preserve it for you. I only know how I have kept it alive in myself. My hope is that by sharing my journey you will be able to keep yours alive even after I am gone.

As children we are encouraged to be creative and explore until our explorations become an inconvenience.

I have done it myself. I have said no when I should have just let you do your thing.

That is part of growing up.

Expectations change and we change with them.

Picasso once said that everyone is born an artist. The hard part is remaining one.

Even for artists that can be difficult.

The world revolves around making money and artists are notoriously bad at making money. Myself included. Whatever money I do make goes to pay the same bills everyone else pays. And if there is anything left over I buy more art supplies because making art is so ingrained in my personality that I feel a little crazy if I am not creating something.

It is a blessing and a curse.

A blessing because sometimes I feel like I am creating my own reality.

A curse because what I am usually doing is trying to make sense of the world. Trying to tether the thoughts in my head to something real so I can share them.

Most people do not share those thoughts.

We are afraid of what others might think.

You are not. Not yet anyway. And I hope I can help you keep that.

Creativity is special. It is unique and rare even though everyone is born with it.

So why do so many people lose it?

I think I know part of the answer.

We value creativity as a society but we do not respect the time it takes to cultivate it.

We live in an instant world. Everything has to happen quickly. We are trained to keep moving because movement looks productive.

But creativity requires the opposite.

It requires slowing down.

It requires putting away distractions and being alone with your thoughts.

In our culture that can look lazy. People would rather distract themselves endlessly than sit quietly and let their mind wander.

I got pulled into that too.

For a while I was taking marketing classes trying to build my art business and find my niche. Everyone tells you to find your niche or your personal brand.

But no one really talks about how strange that feels for someone like me.

I do not want to be a brand.

But I have started to understand something.

Maybe I do not need to be a brand. Maybe I just need to represent something.

And in those quiet moments I realized something important.

My niche is not a style.

It is a way of thinking.

In a fast world full of noise, maybe what I offer is a pause. A moment to slow down. A moment to let your mind wander again.

Sometimes I guide that moment.

Sometimes I am simply a distraction from the noise.

It is a bit like meditation. When we start meditating we do not quiet the mind immediately. We begin with a single focus.

One simple thing.

And when we focus on that one thing the rest of the noise slowly fades.

I discovered all of this when I stopped trying to please everyone else.

I had to make art for myself again.

Not to impress anyone.

Not to prove something important.

Just to speak to my inner child and follow whatever thread of curiosity appeared.

That is when the journey really began.

In January of 2026 I let go of many of my old expectations and returned to what first made art exciting for me.

Discovery.

Exploration.

Fear.

And yes, abstraction.

I have to confess something.

For twenty years I secretly wanted to be an abstract artist. There is something deeply spiritual about working with paint and canvas. About creating something that has never existed before. Not recording life, but interpreting it.

I see you do the same thing with your stories.

That is why I ask you so many questions about them. I am always trying to get you to dig deeper and see further than what is right in front of you.

Creativity is not just invention.

It is vision.

Seeing beyond.

You have it. I just hope I can help you keep it.

So I have started leaving a trail of this journey into creativity.

And it began with a flower.

A camellia blossom blooming out of darkness.

The Meaning of the Camellia Flower

Camellias have long been associated with rebirth and renewal. Because they bloom in winter when many plants are dormant, the flower often symbolizes resilience and the quiet cycles of life beginning again. In art and literature camellias are sometimes connected to devotion, endurance, and the beauty that can emerge after difficult seasons.

I did not know any of that when I first noticed the flower.

I discovered it during a quiet walk with Piper.

At first I thought the camellias were roses.

But when I started taking photos to paint them I noticed subtle differences and began asking questions. Once I identified the flower I started researching it and discovered the mythology surrounding camellias.

Rebirth.

What an interesting idea.

Rebirth suggests a cycle and life is full of cycles. Once I started noticing them I saw them everywhere.

The citrus trees dropping fruit.

One tree had dropped so many oranges that the ground beneath it looked painted. So I painted that too.

A few days later I found a blood orange split open on the driveway. The deep purple flesh glowed against the yellow peel.

I had to paint that as well.

Around the same time the fog rolled in heavily. That felt like a cycle too and seemed to mirror what was happening in my mind. I was trying to fight my way back to the artist I always believed I should have been.

All those paintings about cycles and fog made me think about endurance.

Through everything life has thrown at me I have remained an artist.

Part time jobs. Full time jobs. Overtime jobs.

It did not matter.

I kept making art with whatever moments I could steal for myself.

Eventually I began asking a deeper question.

Why?

Why endure all of that?

Why not live like everyone else. Work a job, pay bills, maybe save a little money for the future?

The answer surprised me.

Love.

Love was the reason.

Love is why we endure.

That realization sent me down another path of painting abstract figures intertwined together and exploring the many forms love can take.

But that is a story for another time.

Because that path led to another painting, and another, and another.

And I am still following where it leads.

One thing I have learned about creativity is that it needs space for the unknown.

Someone fearless enough to step into that unknown.

Not to find answers, but to discover better questions.

It is not the answers that make life interesting.

It is the questions.

I hope that by watching my journey you will start asking more of your own.

We do not always need answers.

Sometimes the search itself is the point.

I love you.

I do not always say that enough because I get lost in my thoughts.

That is part of why I am writing these things down.

If one day you read this after I am gone I hope you see what I was trying to do.

Where I was trying to take us.

And I hope you see how something as simple as a walk past a flower can lead to a lifetime of stories and discovery.

You just have to slow down.