I felt so relieved to find a fun job, to have clear objectives and constraints. And so I went for years without making any personal work and I was perfectly content … until I wasn’t.

I was always finding little ways to include drawing in my work.

I started loathing the path that I was on … loathing, not loving, and mistrusting the art world.

I also was in an experimental noise band for a very short while. The fun fact is that you don’t have to know how to play an instrument to play an instrument in an experimental noise band.

What I wasn’t willing to acknowledge at that time was that anything that was worth committing to was fraught with risk … I was wishy washy and indecisive. And I wasn’t interested in committing myself to anything in which I’d have to potentially fail at something I love. I mean, how willing was I really to pursue my dream?

I won the happy childhood lottery and I don’t take that for granted.

I’ve relished every opportunity to break free and change direction and to quit and to hit restart. The longer I live, the more I realize that commitment and freedom can—and do—peacefully exist.

My whole life I’ve been seeking independence.

Regardless of scale, commitment is hard. And I always think of the word forever when I think of commitment. Like, I'm going to be on some straight and narrow path for the rest of my life if I commit to something.

As a lifelong artist, divorcée, and a grad school dropout, I feel that I am sufficiently qualified to have some thoughts on this topic. And I recently got bangs, which some of you know is a huge commitment.

Telling stories does have the power to influence people and create change.

If we’re going to take on any challenges, we’re going to take on something that we perceive to be a risk. You should be quite clear that there’s a point to doing it.

Like with a night sky you stay with it, push past anything you might be afraid of and you see the beauty of all the stars… you stay committed and you push through the struggle and see the beauty in surprising ways.

Go towards those dark places and be curious about what’s in the shadows because those dark places are ultimately the sources of a lot of real and compelling human expression.

If you’re trying to create something powerful with a lot of impact, you have to be willing to lean into that discomfort.

I have found the importance in carving out space for things that don’t necessarily have a clear purpose or an obvious logic.

I think of taking a risk as an experiment, and there’s lots of different outcomes that you can get from that experiment. Whatever outcome you get, you learn something. There’s wisdom, there’s knowledge, there’s life experience.

Give people information so that they can take action and make a difference.

Don’t play it safe – take risks. Do something different. Get out in the community and talk to them. Find out what they need, what they want, and do it.

Ideas are pointless if you don’t act on them.

We have got power! By controlling our environment and lifestyle, we have got the power to control which genes will be expressed, and which genes will be silent!

We live in a world where "medicine" has become toxic, "food" has become nutritionally depleted and heavily contaminated, and "toxins" are bioaccumulating in the body and passing from generation to generation.

About 200 years ago, "survival" was a completely different concept!

This is the issue we have to understand, take it on board and actually accept it - yes this is the challenge of our society, but there is so much we can do about it!

For example, type 2 Diabetes didn't exist in children at all a few years ago, and now its growing with a 3.5 annual rate.