I am not an artist.

Or at least, that’s what I told everyone for a week straight at the peak of my moody, creative crisis.

But of course I am. So now I’m just embarrassed. Because really and truly, in school, if you didn’t know me for my skateboard, you knew me for ink. I drew comics on my styrofoam lunches everyday. I was always bugging teachers to borrow their whiteboards, and kindly, they divulged. My assignments, my homework, other people’s homework, and my scripts— my skin— ALWAYS covered in some sort of drawing or idea. At one point, I was lugging poster board the size of most of me through the halls daily. Different mediums, different tools. For the sakes of fun and exploration. Which, to be fair, I have done since I was a kid.

But sometime after graduating and entering the adult workforce, I happened upon what I now know is my honest dream of filmmaking. Of course, the seeds were always there in high school and my childhood, but they didn’t bloom until they were gone. I was always a visual artist for giggles, executing a dream for play. But now I’m a different kind of artist for love, pursuing a dream for passion.

Which means what? That, at the moment, most of my best 2D works are behind me. Because before, life was what was in front of me and the creative expression that needed to happen to make me capable of doing it— school, survival, and the scrawling of pens that fueled a focus I didn’t want to delegate to subjects I didn’t want to study, but had to.

But now, life is what’s ahead of me, something I get to choose. And I have chosen the movie world! My days look like studying life as it happens with me, scribbles, storyboards, scripts— sets, strangers, and the lessons they teach. I pour into it; it pours into me. I know I mentioned it in my ABOUT section, but I really can’t stress it enough: when I go to sleep at night, I dream of waking up and working. And when I wake up and work, I can swear you up and down I am dreaming. And in a way, I am. My artistry changing course became a convergence point for imagination and reality.

In that week of moodiness, it felt like being a visual artist was something of memory, something I couldn’t claim in present tense, but the routines and disciplines of being an artist serve me everyday. I know that now. And while there’s no grand canvasses, no planning, no meticulous detail— just chicken-scratch from moving subjects and a dream— I can confidently say that I am still an artist. I never stopped being one.

A little optimism and introspection taught me to look at both what I have done and what I currently do, and know that change isn’t erasure, but evolution. I have just adapted to a persistent trying and ballpoint pens. All in the name of passion. And how else would I want to live this big-little life? When I think about it like that, I blush a little less from shame and a little more from excitement.

So here’s some past with some present, how my paper spends its time.

P.S. This word vomit is here for damage control as much as it is to revel in the fondness of growth. If you’re thinking, god, how many people could Piper run her mouth to about creative existentialism in a week, the number is higher than Woody Harrelson.