Searching for Faerie, Finding Me | One Story, Three Forms

Three years ago, Searching for Faerie, Finding Me began as a quiet leap into the unknown. I call it now the first edition but at that time it was just a story that needed to be told. It was not perfect, just my best effort. Prior to doing it in Canva - I had started painting it but it was slow work because I was writing and painting the story at the same time. At the rate I was going then, it seemed to me that it would take me about 2, maybe 3 years to finish the paintings. So I pivoted and digitally illustrated the story and all 41 pages were eventually laid out with text. It was “finished” and could now do print-on-demand with Amazon. While I felt there was still so much more to be improved, I gave myself a deadline and when that arrived - mustered the courage to just release it into the world. At the time, simply completing it felt like such an accomplishment. The wish for this story to exist was finally accomplished. 

2 years after the publication, I started seeing gaps where improvement could be made. There was so much limitation due to element availability. I started working on the second edition draft of Searching for Faerie, Finding Me, changed some elements, updated the text in some. This emerged from much reflection, and need for growth. Time has a way of revealing things that I could say better and illustrate better. I began slowly making the small refinements that I longed to make — adjustments in tone, imagery, emotion and expression in the text. I had evolved and I needed to reflect what I imagined. The second edition is not an attempt to erase the first, but rather to honor the journey between who I was then and who I am now. It reflects deeper understanding, greater patience, and the realization that creative work continues evolving long after it is considered “finished.”

The upcoming second edition of Searching for Faerie, Finding Me still has natural limitations because it still utilizes pre-made elements. I still yearned to make the painted Drean Edition. Where the only limitations for me will be my imagination. The dream started in painting the pages of the book and it will continue to evolve until that dream of a fully painted collection of canvases is completed. Now, all 41 pages exist physically in varying stages of completion. Some are nearly finished, glowing with color and detail. Others remain unfinished sketches waiting patiently for their turn to come alive. Together they cover the room like fragments of a much larger vision slowly assembling itself piece by piece.

Sometimes I pause and look at the progression of the work and realize I am no longer simply making a book. What began as a story has transformed into something closer to an artistic archive — a living record of an evolving idea, an evolving imagination, and even an evolving version of myself. Each edition captures a different stage of understanding. The first holds the bravery of beginning. The second carries refinement and reflection. The painted Dream Edition contains the dream itself of Searching for Faerie, Finding Me  — the version I always quietly hoped the story could someday become.

Perhaps that is what creative journeys truly are. Not a straight line toward completion, but a series of returns. We revisit old ideas carrying new experiences, new emotions, and new ways of seeing. What once felt complete suddenly reveals deeper layers waiting to emerge. In that sense, Searching for Faerie, Finding Me  is no longer just a book I created years ago. It has become an ongoing conversation between imagination, growth, and time itself.