UNSEEN SELF

One of my favorite things to do on Saturday mornings is to browse anything interior design. It’s been this way since college, when I would sleep in and then savor an issue of Domino magazine before getting out of bed, but these days it looks a lot more like reading blogs and falling down a rabbit hole from the articles they link to.

That’s how I happened across a space designed by Leyden Lewis for Malene Barnett in Architectural Digest. The design is beautiful, but what I’m holding on to is a quote from Lewis:

“Changing your environment is changing self, and creating opportunities for a self that you do not recognize,” he explains. “I think this is one of the most critical things; it should invite a new version of an unseen self rather than ‘Oh, I know who I am.’ ”

This feels more universal than just design for me. It feels like one of the fundamental reasons I need creativity in my life.

What if any time we start on the path of making something, whether that’s new art or a full pivot in any direction, we’re really asking: Which version of myself do I want to get to know through this process?

I’ve had two burnouts in my past: the one I’ve talked about extensively, and the one I haven’t. The one I haven’t said as much about was right after college, which was really my first major life pivot. After spending a full young adulthood living and breathing music, I just couldn’t anymore. Partly it was not knowing how to contain ambition, and partly it was trauma, but no part of my being wanted to put myself out in the way it would have taken to make music a career. Those summer days between graduation and starting my first full time job were spent trying to learn everything I could from Design*Sponge and wondering if I should try to find a post-grad program in interior design, because more school sounded like the worst option but the best one I could come up with if I was going to start over.

While I couldn’t bring myself to take out more loans for more school or bear the thought of taking any more academic classes, I got to explore the design side of myself for three years because of that burnout and pivot. And it was the side of myself I turned to again after the second burnout. That thread has been a lifeline when nothing else felt like it would fit. From a well-known brand to a small woman-owned business, from merchandizing to refinishing furniture to taking photos of real estate, the version of myself that is fascinated and curious about how we invent and reinvent the spaces we make our own keeps finding new ways to show up and be seen when I need her the most.

Lately, I’ve been dreaming about the ways I want to shift my personal style, creating – or recreating – my visual language that I use for everything from my clothes to my house to my work. I feel drawn to warmer versions of the colors I love; older, nostaligic, vintage pieces and processes, replacing the brightest and modernist leanings I’ve had for so long. I want to see what that version of myself brings forward, and adding that to my collection of versions of myself and my space.

And this is the absolute joy of creating. Sometimes it’s scary to feel like the possibilities are endless and the unknowns are enormous. We are all limited and limitless. But the thing that makes me feel hopeful when I can’t see the road ahead or can’t see the vision is that there’s a chance to try new things, new ways of being or experiencing myself and the world. Creating things – whether that’s a space or an outfit or photos or a painting or a quilt or a shape – is a way of exploring parts of myself that I’m still getting to know and learning how they relate to the parts of myself I know well. They all deserve their time in the sun.