What used to be my ceiling is now my floor.

       Did I think I’d be selling my hand-drawn mazes 17 years later when I first began back in 7th grade study hall? Yeah, kinda. I started “doodling”, then wanted to create the hardest maze of all time. I thought the smaller the passages the harder it would be, the lines were so close. I added some symbols; pumpkin for halloween, tree for christmas, flag for Fourth of July, and then my name, and a simple “Hi”. Adding my name and a version of hello became a trend in a lot of my future mazes. I finally completed it and wanted to share it, and yes even back as a 12 year old sell it. My dreams were huge, I remember calculating it out and determining the best selling price to be....10 cents. So I set forth to make copies, which was pretty difficult back in 1995, copiers weren’t as handy as they are today. I originally drew the maze in pencil, so for the maze to clearly copy I had to retrace - every - single - line in pen. I made the copies and began selling to my study hall class. I don’t recall selling out, but making a sale on something I created was really cool. 

       Over the next few years I drew many mazes, never able to replicate the intensity of the first one. During high school I drew my mazes via the crazy new technology of a computer program called Paintbrush. This allowed me to make my mazes more visually mind-boggling, straighter lines, and of course closer lines. I later felt hand-drawn mazes were more personal, so the 11 drawn via computer will be the only ones; a special series if you will. The late high school years and college I sporadically would draw a maze for a special occassion here and there. Then after two years working at Southwoods I felt compelled to draw a special maze that represented this amazing place. I did, and it later ended up in their camp yearbook - published to over 600 people. 

       What a feeling that was seeing your work published. Again over the next few years a special maze would pop up, nothing consistent. Then came an opportunity to put them all together and really live my middle school dream. I began the publishing process a month ago and can’t wait to have a book representing Mazes of the Century within the near future. What used to be my ceiling is now my floor.