Every day I become more and more myself.

Part of The Comfort House Project: Stay as long as you like

This linocut reduction print stands out in the series as the smallest room positioned high in the attic. I set it aside for a teenager at the start of the project but Sofia was the last of the protagonists that I selected after I met her and her mom at the Royal Bison Craft Fair. 

I met up with Sofia at my local coffee shop and had my expectations dissolved. Talking with her was like talking to a peer who just happened to be precisely half my age. She has a wide variety of interests and the confidence to talk about them vulnerably. For comfort, she brews tea from mint leaves she grew and dried last summer. She's a snowboarding instructor. She's in a band called Inertia. Did I mention she's 15? When she was in the eighth grade she got a grant to update her school library with BIPOC content, and she still has teachers from other school boards emailing her for the list. She loves spending time with her friends that bring out her best self, but not those who make fun of her interests or give her permission to be a mean girl. She's concerned about the world and polarization (forget nerds and jocks, high schools these days are divided by mask-wearing and vax attitudes) and is scared of her loved ones dying. She shared a favourite childhood memory of a pinecone full of ladybugs that she dubbed a ladybug apartment building. She's anxious about the environment and Roe v Wade and things moving backward. The title of this piece is something Sofia said verbatim and was one of the wisest things to come out of the whole project. Every day I become more and more myself.

Beyond including symbols of her identity, I really wanted Sofia's room to feel as magical and full of potential as the young woman herself. She sits on the front edge of the floor and gazes into the distance, surrounded by found treasures. There is a beehive on a branch, an abstract mobile artwork, plants, a bookshelf full of books and a few good rocks. There is a spherical object that even I don't know what it is and the ceiling is rendered in a cloud mural. I printed nearly every layer with a colour blend and those stars on the ceiling -- glow-in-the-dark ink.