A New Chapter - Finding my Story

This blog has seen me through several chapters in life. My last post was in 2014. The past 18 months has seen Matt and I move from downtown living in Indianapolis to a quite oasis in Plainfield away from my urban lifestyle way. I am also working for a design firm doing what I love, but there is travel and very long hours. I am working on trying to find a balance, trying to find time to let go of the work and just live a bit. We are also working on starting a family and sorting out how to overcome my fertility issues, a journey that we are not surprised to be on. A difficulty I have know about since I was 18. We about have it sorted and then the real work will begin : ). Life is full of family, each other, work and creating a home, it is full of love and laughter.

Life changes, routines shift and our story becomes something different. For a long time my art was about chasing dreams and having hope. I painted my soul searching journey, I painted my dreams and visions. I painted my story for my soulmate to find, to read and to find me. He bought a painting, and commissioned one, one that is now hanging in our entryway. My story is different, my visions have changed, my story is unclear to me. I find drawing and painting difficult. I no longer feel a need to seek out something unknown, I no longer long for a filling of my heart, my soul. My life is very blessed, it is very full. I am learning what that means to my art, to the story I have to share and tell.

So here we go, on an other Kari Adventure, full of color and art and development. One that I hope is as inspiring as all my chapters before.

Kari

Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays

I am a Licensed Architect!!! What a journey

Huge life news, I am finally a Registered Architect. I started my architecture journey in the 6th grade, starting the seventh grade with getting into Ball State as my life's mission, as another kid might target going to Harvard or Stanford. I grew up in a blue collared family where my dad worked his way up to provided all we could ask for and my mom was a creative free spirit would always seemed to be indulging in a new career opportunity as her heart fancied, providing little extra's for the family. Architecture mixed my love for art and mathematics and was a profession that would offer opportunists for me to be who ever I wanted to be, where ever I wanted to be. I had visions of stilettos in the big city, Chicago, was my place of choice. I always knew in my heart that my family was everything to me, it was who I was and no matter how big I dreamed, going far from home was not an option. To deny that part of myself would to live a, perhaps glamorous, but empty life. I worked hard, played hard and had awesome friends through my High School career. I choose to indulge in many things than to excel at one. There was a lot of pressure to focus on just one thing, but that was and is not my style. College was more focused, it was basically all school and working to pay for it. I loved every minute. I pushed my boundaries, went to India, learned to paint and sketch beyond the drafting and rendering we where taught. My health also started to fail, I am auto immune issues that do to  stress started to flare and really took their tool. I decided staying close to home and working for a small firm that gave me every opportunity a recent grad could want was the best for me. I said good bye to the big city, little apartment dream, however, I did buy the shoes and little suites.  I learned that the big dreams and do it all ideas where not sustainable, that a person could not have everything. I would look at friends doing the big things and I dreamed, but began to realize we were different people, willing to make different sacrifices, that our souls required different things to be ablaze. I had to come to a place of comfort with my need for small town, lots of family and familiarity. I realized I am not the type of person who needs to visit the Taj Mah to understand its spirit, even though I have visited. I don't need to visit every state in the country, but I do need to make regular pilgrimages to my favorite beach and spend a week sea shell hunting every morning. I don't work in an architecture office, and I don't find a need to be doing that work anymore, but as soon as I received notice that I had achieved my architecture license after a very long, and challenging process I knew I had pursued the right course. I am not close to the person I thought I would be, doing what I am doing, truth, I didn't know I could be all I am today. I didn't know I could carve out such a perfect life, or how important every decision to do what was right for my heart over my ego would enrich my life. I am rich indeed.