Back to Basics: The Joy of Creating

From Clay to Canvas and Back Again: A New Chapter

My 2025 word was CONSISTENCY. It wasn’t a coincidence. I always try to choose a word based on something I’m actively working on within myself, but not every year am I consistent in following the inspiration and actually living with that word in mind.

The last couple of years have been difficult for many reasons—reasons I’m not sharing today. The world I knew is not the same. My world is not the same. Life’s stages become more challenging with time, and sometimes difficult things tend to happen all at once. This is not the first time my life fell into a sort of chaos, but this time I was alone and isolated.

I know—and I practice—that the important thing is to keep searching for a better life, a better version of yourself. In that sense, I have been consistent. I believe that when the student is ready, the teacher appears. I am grateful for all the “teachers” in my life, and I have worked hard for many years to heal and to feel better about myself. And yet, something was still missing. Something inside me felt unresolved.

Even though I understood, with the help of therapists, the what and the why behind the story I carried about myself, I kept making the wrong decisions. I kept feeling invisible. I kept drowning in my victim narrative. I kept sabotaging the success I deserved. I felt frustrated and like a total failure—not every day, but consistently. My low self-esteem was taking a real toll on me.

Opportunities kept slipping away for no apparent reason. And my chosen word—consistency—was staring at me. I’ve written in journals almost every day for years, but I always ended up throwing them away. I was afraid that if someone read them someday, I could hurt someone’s feelings. Those pages helped me understand myself, but they also showed me a truth I didn’t want to see: I was consistently not loving myself.

The therapists were right, and deep down I already knew it. But how was I supposed to overcome that feeling of inadequacy, of invisibility, of not loving myself? At 68, I thought I was done—set in my ways. But no.

All the hard work, all the books, all the therapy, all the teachers, all the introspection, and the humility to accept that I needed help—especially help from my inner voice, from the divine, from that energy that created me—finally worked. I listened. Words came from different sources, from people I was able to hear and understand in that moment. And one day, I woke up feeling different.

There is more to write about this, but for now what matters is that I am writing from a different place. I am finally making decisions I postponed for years because I didn’t believe in myself—my strength, my wisdom, my creativity, or the love I receive and the love I give. I couldn’t see myself with compassion.

Everything I needed to know was already inside me. Recently, I understood that I was grieving, and one day I simply cried. I learned that grieving is part of many life processes—not just the loss of a loved one. Once I understood that, the healing began.

Forgiveness is liberating. I thought I had forgiven everything, but I kept bringing the story back. I knew it was time to release it, and I finally feel free.

That freedom gave me wings. The word abundance has a new meaning now. For the first time, I am able to see myself as a good, kind, authentic, talented, creative, humble person.

I began the “accepting and loving me” path with small acts of kindness toward myself. One of those was finally realizing that I do not need to work as hard as I did to deserve an abundant life. I felt abundant in many ways, but not in terms of money and resources. It’s impossible to explain how painful that was and how the lack of resources was draining my joy. For someone who grew up with money issues, this shift felt like a divine awakening.

It’s a long story, one that deserves its own space, but this post is about my Creative Business—which is, of course, a big part of my life. I am calling this new path From Clay to Canvas / Canvas to Clay.

After 25 years of making ceramics for stores, my hands and my heart started asking for something different. My heart knew I needed a change long ago, but my low self-esteem kept me from taking action.

I’ve loved the years of steady production and the joy of seeing my pieces find homes. I am deeply grateful for all the stores—especially Puerto Rican Art and Crafts—and for every customer who has supported my work for so many years. But repetition took its toll on me, physically and emotionally, and left me craving something slower and more alive.

A display on the store with some of my products.

So I’m beginning again—one piece at a time—creating from the heart, just like when I started in both mediums: ceramics and collage painting.

I’m creating limited ceramic editions, very small batches, sometimes just one piece. I’m giving myself time to experiment, to rest, and to rediscover why I fell in love with clay in the first place. I will still create some production for the store, but fewer pieces, with more meaning and more joy.

Finally took the time to make this macrame wall hanging with my ceramic leaves. Already on Etsy.

The clay still speaks, but now I have the time to listen. This is me being “consistent” with my decisions—and, more importantly, consistent with my self-love.

Created for a very loyal and supportive customer who asks for "all the cute things you have created all together" Making her smile with this piece was a true delight.

Along with returning to clay and canvas, I’ve also enhanced my Etsy shop with new sections:

🟤 ceramics

🎨 original collage paintings

📄 digital downloads

📚 instructional tutorials

…all alongside the fabric panels I already offered. It is still in process because it is a lot of work but I will consistently and diligently, be adding the new products. The series of videos are in the making with a lot of work already done but still needing things to be fixed to offer the best of me.

The 'Enhanced" Etsy Shop has a New Banner and some ceramics to sell...and lots of surprises coming.

"Life" Series Vertical Mural already on Etsy

From Clay to Canvas and Back Again: this is my return to joy in the making.

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