whichgoose.

Whatever you want to call them ... heroes, idols, inspirations .... everyone has people they look up to. I was thinking about originality the other day (mostly, the current issue I'm dealing with of copycat/haters) and I was realizing that someone emulating me or my style really is a high honor.

(If only they weren't stealing my dreams and my income.)

Anyway, trying to keep things on the sunny side.

Here are the people I've looked up to and how they have changed over my life.

FAMILY: My mom and dad and big sister (obviously!) They are the people who taught me how to be myself, how to care for people and what It means to love. I remember putting on my mom's make-up when I was little...making a mess. And always wanting to do ANYTHING my sister was doing. And thinking my dad was the smartest person in the world when he made up bedtime stories to tell me.

PUNKY BREWSTER: I think every little girl my age wanted to by Punky at one time. She was just SO COOL and so far beyond her time. And my goodness...that vest and those bandanas around her knees!!

ANI DIFRANCO: Ani represents the first "breakaway" for me from only wanting to listen to the same type of music as my sister through my middle/highschool years. I thought she was so beyond amazing ... and her lyrics first made me want to be a writer. Sidenote: I used to have a nosering because of her!

WALT WHITMAN: Oh, my idealistic and poetic college years. I was an English/Poetry major and thought life was nothing but a collection of stanzas. I read "Leaves of Grass" cover to cover ... mumbling the words out loud like I was in some kind of trance.

MARTHA STEWART: Snapped back to reality after school...working retail ... but starting to get more in tune with my creative/artistic self. Martha represents the full spectrum of togetherness/ success (minus the whole prison thing) and sophistication. I remember thinking 'why can't I do something like that?'

EMILY MARTIN: (the Etsy seller "TheBlackApple.") I chose her to represent "THE ETSY SELLER" ideal for me. I remember when Lauren first sent me a link to etsy and wrote, "Possibly the coolest thing ever."

Whoah. was she right or what. I remember looking at TheBlackApple and just being blown away that people were buying these things this girl, just like me, had made.

I remember staying up late that night and sketching out drawings, ideas for shops, possible names and just feeling this tremendous sense of possibility and destiny.

I like to think that there is much more ahead. Where I am now is just the adolescence of my business and artistic journey. Maybe I will be someone's "Martha Stewart" someday.

But if I'm only ever Emily, that will be just fine with me.