Hello and welcome!

I’m so glad you’re here. My name is Sara. I’ve been making art and telling stories for as long as I can remember, but career-wise, I haven’t followed a traditional path. I graduated from the University of Mary Washington in 2011 with a degree in Literature and Creative Writing, and it was writing stories that got me through to graduation. I moved from Virginia to California, and got a writing job, and then another, and then another. It wasn’t really creative work, and I felt lost. For the longest time I felt like I needed to choose between being a writer and being an artist. 

As a child making things was easy. But there’s a funny thing that happens when you grow up… you have responsibilities, and you start doubting yourself. Sometimes we forget the simple pleasures of making things just because…. and in my case I began to think I needed someone to come along with a little magic wand and say, “Abracadabra — Now you’re an artist.”

With all these heavy feelings, I was pretty paralyzed in my creative life for a long, long time. I wasn’t sure how to channel my energy, my ideas, and my identity, and so I froze. I didn’t make art and I didn’t write… except, mainly, to make cards for friends and family members.

I would try to make things for myself and then I would stop. I worried about my style, and if my work made any sense. I worried (like most people) if what I was making was good enough. Worse, I confused being a creator — something all of us humans are — with making money, and I poisoned my own craft.

This caused quite a bit of angst… but for me, making art has never felt like a hobby, but a vocation — something I’ve always needed in order to feel right in my body and in my life. It’s always felt like something I was meant to do. In the midst of all this indecision I kept experiencing things, traveling, and exploring. I made a lot of friends. I fell in love a few times. And then very slowly, I started to make my way back to myself.

I’m still very much in the thick of my creative journey — and now that I have a small daughter, my identity as an artist and individual has shifted even further. This space is permission to explore all avenues of creativity. To share my inner world, and to connect. Illustration in particular has provided a landing place for me to combine my storytelling pursuits, and its here that I have found some of the deepest joy.

With all that being said, I’m so glad you’ve found yourself here. I hope this resonates with you, wherever you may find yourself on your own journey.

Today, you can find me in Reno, Nevada where I live with my husband, my sweet baby daughter, and my two cats — one Garfield-esque ginger and one terroristic tortie.

Interested in working together?

If you’re looking for an illustrator for a

• Children’s book,

• Editorial piece, or

• For commissions

Please send me a note at sara@saracardoza.com.