Many years ago, when Instagram still seemed fairly new in my world, I happened across a challenge someone had posted called INKtober. It was September of 2015, and the idea played around in my mind as something perhaps I should do.
I hadn't created anything new all summer. Not since a pack of three pit bulls attacked me early that spring. The traumatic experience had left me with wounds far deeper than the physical ones. For the first time in my life, even the studio and creativity didn't feel like a healing place.
Fear held me hostage.
October 1st rolled around without me committing to the challenge or creating a drawing. But later that night, sleepless and wide awake, I crawled out of bed, plucked two pens from a drawer, found a sketchbook somewhere in the house and made an ink drawing.
And then I kept going.
Every single day for the rest of October, I made a drawing and shared it publicly. I remember squeezing a daily drawing into the spaces and places life took me. Drawing while waiting for dinner at a restaurant in Billings before heading to a rodeo with Raymond. Drawing at home. In the studio. In the wilderness. One dawn, after we'd danced alongside generations of a family at an autumn barn dance, I sat on a dry grassy hillside and drew their historic barn.
Curiosity and discipline got the drawings made. Courage helped me post them. Ink is unforgiving. You can't erase. There were imperfections. These were exercises. I certainly hadn't set out to make anything “sell-worthy,” whatever that means…
But to my surprise, people responded. They began asking if they could purchase the drawings. Some I gave away. Many found homes.
I kept just one.
A little drawing of the Velveteen Rabbit from a favorite childhood story. Looking back now, I believe I saw something of myself in that tender, well-loved and unintentionally abandoned little rabbit. Somehow, that stuffed rabbit spoke to the place I was finding my way out of.
Those 31 days became what I later described in my Journal as “baby steps through the fear.” And now, eleven years later, October 1st has rolled around again. This time, I'm saying yes before the day slips away.
INKtober 2026 begins today.
I will create one original 6 × 8 inch ink drawing every day throughout October and share it as it emerges. This time, each new original will also be offered for sale.
I don't know what today's drawing will be.
That's part of the adventure.
31 days. 31 original drawings.
One day, one drawing, one small act of creative courage at a time.
