By JaeSage (Trauma and grief specialist by day, creative polymath by night)

Image Copyright 2026 by JaeSage, All Rights Reserved. Used with Permission.

The Ridge and the Reach

My creative process begins not at the easel or the keyboard, but on the gravel and dirt of the rural paths near my suburban prairie home. There is a specific kind of magic in the Iowa landscape; it is a quiet, rolling expanse that demands effort to traverse. As I set out for a walk, the climb up the ridges offers a physical mirror to the creative struggle. My lungs might burn and my legs may grow heavy, but the exertion acts as a key, unlocking the “flow” that I need for the day’s work. On these walks, the wind rattling through the dried stalks of last autumn’s uncut corn or fresh sharp tallgrass isn’t just noise—it’s the rustle of a new story, and the way a road disappears over a steep hill becomes the first stroke of a future painting.

Rendering the Sketch

When I finally return to the quiet of my home, the transition from the physical path of the prairie to the artistic one is a shift that is hardly ever seamless or immediate. I find that I must prepare for the inception of a new painting and the development of a fresh chapter in much the same way: I begin to sketch. Sometimes these initial sketches consist of raw charcoal or colored pencil lines, intently capturing the skeletal structure and curving geometry of a winding road lined with scraggly, leafless trees; other times, they take the form of “word sketches”—brief, evocative fragments of dialogue or sensory descriptions of a powerful woman’s intense, determined gaze.

Frequently, this stage is defined by the internal struggle of my own lingering self-doubt, especially when a physical line on the paper fails to accurately portray the vivid image held in my mind, or when a character’s spoken words ring frustratingly false and wooden. This early phase is entirely about the slow process of discovery rather than the pursuit of technical precision. I am essentially feeling out the emotional terrain of the character’s heart and the sweeping perspective of the distant horizon simultaneously.

By carefully mapping out these initial, fleeting impressions, I gain a grounded sense of the “who” and the “where” long before the first heavy layer of paint is applied or the first formal paragraph of prose is even dry on the page. It is a deeply personal process of reclaiming the narrative and honoring the various rites of passage that may never reach the specific destination the viewer or the reader dreams for, but which feels so inherently right for the painting and the resilient women who walk the rugged paths in my stories.

Image Copyright 2026 by JaeSage, All Rights Reserved. Used with Permission.

The Journey of the Resilient

In both my visual art and my narrative fiction, the final destination is often entirely secondary to the quiet, steady endurance required simply to travel the distance. We may not always be able to surmise exactly where a particular path is going, but there is a profound, rugged beauty found in the “Rough Road” itself. My own road through survival of more than I can recount in this limited space resonates deeply within my art and my writing.

My paintings of winding paths are intentional invitations for the viewer to explore that uncertainty alongside me, while my fictional characters—powerful, complex women—are the ones brave enough to walk them without hesitation. My own inner strength and resolve is retold in hopefully relatable ways so that I can share what I have learned along the way with those who engage with my work. These women possess fierce personalities forged in the heat of conflict and personal goals that are every bit as difficult as a steep, exhausting ridge climb in the humidity of mid-July.

Ultimately, my collective work is a living tribute to that quiet resilience: the essential strength to keep moving forward, whether through a dark storm on the canvas or a sudden crisis in a character’s life, trusting completely that the road will eventually reveal its secrets to those who persevere.

By JaeSage (Trauma and grief specialist by day, creative polymath by night)

According to the classic “biographical novel” The Agony and the Ecstasy (Irving Stone, 1961), Michelangelo was claimed to have said that he freed the prisoners trapped in the marble when he sculpted his masterworks. He didn’t see himself as an inventor of forms, but rather as a deliverer. To him, the statue already existed within the stone; his chisel was merely the tool of emancipation. This perspective shifts the act of creation from one of “making” to one of “finding,” and it is a sentiment that resonates deeply with anyone who has ever felt the pull of a creative spark.

When I create something, it feels to me as if I am liberating elements of the stories from a twilight existence that they occupy in my mind’s eye. There is a specific, ethereal space where ideas dwell—a sort of waiting room for the imagination. These concepts aren’t quite ghosts, but they aren’t yet real, either. They are half-formed silhouettes, flickering in the periphery of my consciousness, waiting for the invitation to step forward into the world of substance.

Image Copyright 2026, JaeSage. All rights reserved. Used with Permission.

The Emergence of Form

My hobby dabbling is nothing as grandiose as the Renaissance creator’s, of course; however, the operating principle is the same. I may not be carving David out of Carrara marble, but the inner weight of an unexpressed idea feels remarkably similar to a block of stone. It is heavy, silent, and full of potential. Whether I am painting a landscape or crafting a character or place, I can feel them emerge from that realm of ideas.

The process is often more of a discovery than a construction. I can see the formation of the trees along a woodland path, or hear my characters speak as they walk into the light. It is as if they are whispering their own details to me, telling me which branch should curve toward the sun or which word a character would use to express their hidden fears. As the brush moves or the keyboard clicks, the fog in my mind clears. No longer imprisoned by my imagination, they arise, fully formed, into the life on the canvas or the page.

I have never questioned the process; I have merely lived it. Since I could hold a pencil or paintbrush, the freeing of a subject from that place of shadow existence has been like a flow from mind to hand to surface. It is a fundamental part of my rhythm. In my childhood, it was the simple liberation of a doodle from a blank margin; today, it is the more complex release of a narrative or a vista. This “flow state” is where time becomes irrelevant and the boundary between the internal and external worlds thins.

Image copyright 2026 by JaeSage, All Rights Reserved. Used with permission.

The Reciprocal Act of Freeing

As I solve the puzzles of how to apply the better tone or color or phrase, there emerges my own liberation, my growth and confidence. Every creative act requires us to confront a series of micro-challenges. How do I capture the exact hue of a post-storm sky? How do I structure a sentence so it carries the weight of an awkward silence? In the act of answering these questions, I am not just refining a piece of art; I am refining myself. Each successful stroke of the brush or turn of a phrase acts as a key, unlocking a little more of my own potential and self-assurance.

There is a profound therapeutic quality to this release. As I free my mind from tension and worry, I experience a kind of awe of what I was able to create. The stressors of the day—the emails, the intensive meetings, the lingering anxieties—are often the very “marble” that needs to be chipped away. When I focus entirely on the act of liberation, those worries lose their grip. They are replaced by a sense of wonder that something new now exists where there was once only a void or a blur.

In the end, the act of creation is a reciprocal relationship. I lean in, and I liberate, and I learn. I liberate the idea from its shadowy prison, and in doing so, the process liberates me. It reminds me that I have the agency to bring light to dark places and form to the formless. Through this quiet, persistent act of freeing the “prisoners” of my imagination, I find my own freedom, one stroke and one word at a time.

Image copyright 2026 by JaeSage, All Rights Reserved. Used with permission.