My MFA thesis began with a question: “Why am I here?”
I had built a design business, raised a family, and become very good at keeping things moving. Graduate school gave me a reason to stop and look more closely at the person doing all that work.
The looking got uncomfortable. It also changed my life.
From plows to pixels
I grew up on a Kentucky grain farm, where you worked hard, helped your people, and watched the weather. Those lessons followed me into design and into running Thrive Creative Group.
For this thesis, I returned to those roots through family photographs, farm records, objects, writing, and conversations. I examined the beliefs I had carried into adulthood about usefulness, gratitude, success, and being enough.
Some had served me well. Others needed questioning.
My own recovery became part of the research. I began to recognize how much energy I spent keeping the peace, seeking approval, and staying busy. I wanted to understand what a creative life could feel like when I paid attention to my own needs, too.
Making sense of it
This is an autoethnographic study, using my own experience to examine the culture and expectations around me.
I brought personal writing and family archives into conversation with readings on creative practice, mindfulness, resilience, and recovery. The farm became both a source of material and a way of understanding the work: tending, noticing, adapting, and returning.
The finished project includes a book, illustrations, patterned papers, and accompanying printed pieces. Handwritten records, agricultural maps, family photographs, and familiar buildings became part of its visual language.
Design helped me connect things I had previously kept separate: where I came from, how I worked, and how I cared for myself.
How do we teach creative people to receive criticism without making every critique a verdict on their worth? How do we lead a studio with clear expectations and room to be human? What are we helping people believe, buy, or become through the things we design?
The work continues
I completed the thesis. I’m still working on the questions.
These questions connect my experience as a business owner, educator, and person in recovery. They shape how I give feedback, support a team, and think about responsibility in design.
They also led to Ground & Gratitude, a podcast where I continued the conversation through stories about creativity, resilience, recovery, and everyday life.
