‘You don’t need to convince anyone of anything. You just need to be confident in what you know.’ 💜
~ Alan Cohen
A July reflection on creativity, motherhood, and listening to yourself
There’s a kind of person who, the moment you talk to them, reminds you what’s possible when you finally stop arguing with your own heart. My friend Janice is one of those people. She’s generous, warm, endlessly creative, a wonderful mom — and through her online community, Hamlett Studios, she helps other creatives find their way back to themselves through art journaling.
I sat down with Janice this month to talk about creativity, motherhood, and the long, winding road of choosing your heart’s desire over the path everyone expects of you. Here’s our conversation.
Janice, take me back to the beginning. Where did this journey start for you?
It actually starts when I was eighteen, the summer before college. I came from a family where education was everything — get your degrees, get a stable job, that was the roadmap, already laid out. But my heart really wanted to study art. I knew that wasn’t an option in my family. That summer I was so sad, I started art journaling without even knowing that’s what it was called. Just pictures and text, a lot of sad pictures. Looking back twenty years later, it’s bittersweet — that was me trying to process a heartbreak I didn’t have words for yet.
So you went the “practical” route instead.
I did. I picked a degree that was creative-adjacent, enough to let me draw a little. Then I went for my master’s, worked incredibly hard — graduated honors, awards, the whole thing — and found a job I genuinely loved. I thought I’d be there thirty, forty years and retire. I thought I’d figured it all out.
And then everything changed.
I had my first baby at thirty. Then the pandemic hit when he was eighteen months old, and suddenly I was working from home and caring for him at the same time. Everyone around me was overwhelmed, counting down the days until school reopened. I had the opposite reaction. I thought, wait — I actually love being with my kid all day. Something shifted. I realized I’d been missing the good stuff in life by going to the office every day.
That’s a big realization to sit with.
It really was. We had our second baby, and that pregnancy and birth were night and day from the first — so smooth, so natural, like I was born to be his mother. I went back to work after maternity leave, still working from home, and I just couldn’t do it anymore. My intuition was screaming at me. It made no logical sense — I’d worked so hard to get there. But I was crying myself to sleep every night before work. My husband saw what it was doing to me and supported me in realizing this wasn’t the right path anymore. Handing in my notice wasn’t even a hard decision in the end, even though everyone around me was shocked.
What came next?
Homeschooling, which I never in a million years thought I’d do. But I loved spending time with my kids so much, I thought — why not? We could have adventures together, I could show them the world outside the school building. School had been fine for me growing up, but I remembered how much comparison happens there, and I wanted my kids to have room to flourish without that.
And somewhere in there, you found your way back to your own creativity. 
After a few years of taking care of everyone else, I realized I needed to take care of me — and that meant honoring the gift I’d been given. I started journaling and doodling again, just to process my emotions, since I didn’t have much adult conversation in my day. I realized this wasn’t just keeping me sane — it was bringing me back to myself. Helping me rediscover who I am underneath everything I’d been through.
That’s beautiful — and it sounds like the seed of what you’re building now.
Exactly. That’s where Art and Heart Club came from — a membership where we use art journaling and creativity as a form of self-care, a way to put ourselves first and get to know ourselves again, so we can lead more authentic, genuine lives that bring out our inner magic.
Who is it for?
People who used to be creative, but life got busy and the art supplies got put away “temporarily” — years ago. People who feel guilty taking time for themselves when someone else always needs them. People who scroll through Instagram thinking I wish I could do that. People who have journals collecting dust, waiting for the “perfect time.” People who’ve lost track of who they are outside of being a mom, a wife, an employee, a caregiver. People who crave a creative outlet but feel stuck, or like they’ve forgotten how to play. People who want to come home to themselves but don’t know where to start.
Talking with Janice, I kept thinking about how loudly the world tells us what we should do — and how quietly, persistently, our own hearts keep telling us the truth anyway, if we’re willing to listen. Janice’s path wasn’t a straight line. It took an eighteen-year-old’s sad summer of journaling, a hard-won career, a pandemic, two babies, and a lot of courage to finally choose her heart’s desire over everyone else’s roadmap. But she did. And now she’s holding the door open for others to do the same.
If any of this stirred something in you, I’d start small: pick up a pen, a brush, a blank page. Don’t wait for the perfect time.
You can find Janice and the Art and Heart Club at hamlettastudios.com and hamlettastudios.com/club.
Interestingly, in feng shui, creativity and children share the very same area of the home — the art of energy reminding us the two have always been entwined — which makes me wonder: do those of us who spend the most time with little ones end up tapping into a deeper creativity than we ever expected?
Until next time — keep tending your own garden. 🌿
~ 🌸 ~ ~ 🌸~ ~ 🌸 ~ ~ 🌸 ~ ~ 🌸~ ~ 🌸~~ 🌸 ~ ~ 🌸~ ~ 🌸~~ 🌸 ~ ~ 🌸~ ~ 🌸~
P.S. 🌱
If you consider yourself a creative person: a writer, visual artist, a musician et cetera, and would like to improve your one line presence with your art, consider one of Leonie’s e-courses for creatives here.*🌱
*I’m Leonie’s affiliate and may earn a small commission if you join at no extra cost to you.
