Paloma Contreras

Southern Home (SH): Your path to becoming a designer has been unusual. Will you share your story?

Foreign languages were my first love, and I majored in Spanish and Italian studies in college. I became a high school Spanish teacher, and although I enjoyed the subject matter and working with students, I realized early on my heart wasn’t in it, and I needed a creative outlet. A couple of people I knew were writing blogs to keep their friends and family in the loop, and I thought, I could do that. I started in 2007 without any sort of intention—I just knew that every now and then when inspiration struck, I would write a series of personal essays.