Storms Made of Sand

There's a story about sand here, and I partly have my high school freshman year English teacher to thank for that. 

This inspiring instructor provided the impetus for what became my long ago established pen name, Sand Storm, the origin for the name of my Etsy shop and this blog.

These days, no one uses pen names. The prevalence of social media renders the practice obsolete, since it obscures rather than assigns credit to its author, and social media thrives more on revelation than obfuscation.

What does SandStorming, and its root, Sand Storm mean? When I first coined the name, I referred to it as a metaphor, one that involved grains of sand (words and pictures) swirling about my mental landscape, creating the thoughts that culminated in a poem, artwork, or a song. The fact that it contained a form of my name iced the cake.

Destination Inspiration

As I entered the world of social media with the masses, I noticed that mine was not, er, the only storm churning up sand. My solution? One that would possibly have made my former English teacher proud: I created a gerund from the word and from there, forged ahead. Gerund, you say? Yes; the "Storm" half of the term with "-ing" tacked to the end of it, smooshed together with "Sand" in front, "smooshed " being the less technical but appropriately virtual-space sort of term. It seemed to make sense, in a logical progression sort of way. 

Since my high school days, the military has coined SandStorming for its desert-worthy implications. My sand is more the beach variety, or maybe an Arizona landscape on a quiet moonlit evening. Such is the variety of sands swirling in my own mental space and arriving often thereafter on paper.

Walking Crow Logo Tee from the SandStorming Shop

What has felt most remarkable to me is that, after many years of desert, these sands seem drenched in sea again--ebb and flow and mist and mystery--the kind of mystery that accompanies the creative process. 

Sometimes the sense of innocence and impression leads me to joke that, when I'm drawing, I'm transported back to my childhood once again. But really, I'm only half joking. And what about that shop mascot, the crow? How does he link to sands and storms and pen names? 

That is a story for another time.