This wasn’t the original plan…

When I was a kid, I was a pro at lining up my stuffed animals and making them learn how to write and do math on their handmade construction paper notebooks, made by yours truly. And when I was about 5 years old, my mom gave me this magazine catalog that was made for teachers, full of all these incredibly fun looking items and decorations that could be placed in a classroom and used to teach kids. (I still really want the solar system model that was in there. It was a thing of beauty.)

So that became the plan. For as long as I can remember. I was going to be a teacher.

I was one of the few kids in my high school who knew exactly what I wanted to do with my life. I had some amazing English teachers who inspired me. English was my favorite subject because I was good at it, reading and writing were just my bread and butter, my cup of tea. I recognized that I was (and still am) far too sassy for elementary kids, so I knew I was going to teach high school. And it felt nice, felt comforting knowing what I was going to do with myself. I got accepted to the college of my dreams and worked hard.

And all along the way, I was playing with art. Admiring and loving what other people could do, and even better, I realized I could use it in the classroom because in my head, literature and art and film can all be engaged with and examined together to help amplify one another. But all my art had just been for me up until this point and I felt strongly that... I needed to be sharing my art too. It was this stirring, this burning in my heart that this talent wasn't just for me, it was meant to be shared and that someone somewhere maybe needed it.

It was a feeling I ignored for a while because I was working towards a degree in English Education. A degree that I got, a license that I'm exceptionally proud of. And I got to live my childhood dream and I got to teach and I got to meet my students and I gained a love for those kids that I've never been able to accurately describe because it was just purely selfless with no desire for anything in return...

But then the anxiety and the depression kicked in. And they kicked hard. And suddenly this dream was eating away at me, suddenly the plan wasn't working out the way I thought, and it made the anxiety spiral worse. It's something that I know few can really understand, just how much being a teacher emotionally, mentally, and physically exhausts you. It's a hard and often thankless profession. And it takes a special kind of person to be able to do it, someone who is both good at it, and built for it.

I felt like I was good at it... but I also felt like I wasn't built for it.

So the plan was crumbling. The dream had been lived and... it wasn't what I wanted it to be. Needless to say, I was distraught and it was making the anxiety worse.

And through all of it, I still had that feeling that I needed to share my art. It took some work to build up the courage, but I finally did. And it made me happy again. The more I made and shared, the more chances I got to make pieces for other people and see how happy they made them, the more the dream started to change. The more plans started to change.

And that leads us to this very site. I still work in education, just more behind the scenes. And the ultimate goal now is to create a graphic novel, the ultimate combination of all the things I love. Dreams and plans don't always work out the way you want them to, but I did right by my childhood self, I gave it a real college try, and I've allowed myself to move on and pursue what makes me truly happy. I hope in some small way I can help make you happy too with the pieces I've created and shared.

So with all my heart, welcome to KennaKott Illustrations! A little piece of me made just for you.