Some things begin with a plane ticket and a leap of faith. A few years ago, feeling the weight of a life that had gotten too loud, I booked a retreat to Italy. I didn't go looking for an art project. I went looking for air. What I found, somewhere between the light and the quiet and the smell of paint, was something I had set down a long time ago — the simple, grounding act of making something with my hands. I came home changed. I kept painting. And somewhere in the daily practice of putting brush to paper, I discovered what artists have always known — that there is a particular kind of freedom that lives inside the flow of creating. That you can carry something heavy into the studio and leave something beautiful on the paper.

 

Life is still heavy. For me, and I suspect for a lot of people out there moving through their days carrying things nobody can see. Paper Graces grew out of that truth. If I could take what weighs on me and transform it into something small and beautiful, and then leave it somewhere for a stranger to find on exactly the right day — why wouldn't I?

 

So that's what I'm doing. One piece at a time, sealed in an envelope, left in the world. For you, whoever you are.