Over the duration of my Fall semester at OU, my life has gone through countless endeavors. I am still trying to find a healthy balance between work, school and family. But, somehow, I managed to make time to for my internship at Lindsey + Asp.

I loved every moment of Lindsey + Asp, from the people that I met to the way I was allowed to express myself through the freedom of design. I brushed up on my skills in photoshop, illustrator and indesign, three programs I have been ignoring for the past two years.

For the most part, I think creativity in tangible art form was an alienated part of my life. Throughout high school, I painted for fun with watercolors and my peers always asked me for tips for colors. I even painted my town’s mural and designed the police car’s emblem on their Ford Tauruses.

During the summer, when I can find time to paint, I usually fill up countless canvases with naked women with three eyes and long nails. I paint their hair like a matte sheet of paint and give the rest of their body dimension and shade. I know my aesthetics and what I want to create.

Throughout my life, I have always had a fixation on hands. Maybe, because they create and break and replenish all from the same palm. I see strength in calloused knuckles and beauty in the thin wrinkles and age spots that freckle on aging hands.

My paintings feature hands as one of the main components. Hands frame the face or drag down lips or hide eyes. The hands tell me they build and that they make.

Maybe I have an obsession with this need to create. I have a compulsion to write and draw and write and draw, and when I’m not, my mind is ticking with the thought of it.

I used to do both with a mechanical pencil in my bed during my childhood. I would fall asleep with the pencil in my hand and my chicken scratch writing bleeding lead into my white bedsheets.

My creativity isn’t gone. My creativity is boiling over and screaming to be released through my hands.