Carbon is a versatile element. Under pressure, it makes nature’s hardest form, diamond. Burned as coal, it can warm a cold night. In the hands of PeeMonster, carbon in the form of graphite can craft entire worlds. When her pencil scratches a familiar tone across a sheet of paper, PeeMonster–a pseudonym she gave herself as an online alias in her teens–is at peace in a space all her own.

The worlds she creates today began as make-believe childhood stories that she illustrated and brought to school for other kids to read. The insatiable drive to make her stories real led her to college to become a professional animator, but on the way, she fell in love with the slow, careful process of creating with a single tool. Through her time learning animation and a month-long drawing program at CalArts, she realized the level of detail she could achieve with time, dedication, and a pencil. She found comfort in the simplicity of that familiar medium.

“The feeling of getting lost in details with my pencils is cathartic, intimate, euphoric, calming, comforting…healing. It feels like home,” PeeMonster explains. “This is the world I escape to when the other world is too confusing. In a way, it kind of restores a sense of control, as I can put the puzzle pieces of detail together in my work and make it make sense. Cannot always do that in ‘real life.’”...

Read on in I, Enheduanna Issue 3: In Our Hands, available here.