I grew up in a fairly large suburban neighborhood outside of Syracuse, New York, which in itself is a fairly small city. My house was an upper middle class house but still modest in the grand scheme of America, just because Syracuse is modest as a city, which I really appreciate. I was in the outer ring of suburbs, and behind my house was literally farm land for probably a hundred miles until the next city. So I grew up really in touch with nature. There was a creek behind my house, and a lot of older kids on my street and we were constantly playing and making things up so there was a big creative culture.
Syracuse didn’t have much industry, which I’m really grateful for because I think that led to a creative upbringing because I didn’t have much idea of what the art world was like or what any creative industry was like. It was all invented by myself but mostly the older kids I grew up with. A very close neighboring family had three kids that were all around the same ages, and they taught me how to draw, how to use markers, blend colors, build stuff with any material. We used to build forts, build things out of clay, constantly making things.
I lived with my parents and my older brother and sister. And I would say the most creative zone in the house was my bedroom. I could decorate it how I wanted. I had a TV and a computer eventually in there. So I was doing a lot of world building, watching a lot of movies. I would draw to the movies and just create endlessly in my room. I would either work on the bed, the floor. I guess one amazing thing that my mom did is I had a big desk that was actually an old door with a glass on it. So it was this really big surface, and I had a computer on it eventually and I would sit and draw. I would draw on my bed, too. I loved the movie Shrek and I would watch it over and over again and just draw to it. I would be drawing my own world but I loved to listen to the comedy.
We had every video game console. The neighbor family had only one TV and there were lots of rules around it. Maybe I was lucky that they pulled me outside more. What’s wild is I’m really grateful that I grew up around a lot of TV and video games because it makes the Deck of Character, the oracle I designed, really unique. Nintendo, as a video game company, made all its money at first off of playing cards in Japan. I would love to build the Deck of Character as an oracle business similar to early Nintendo.
I was growing up when Pixar had its golden age, so I was very much influenced by animation and cartoons and I loved Nineties Nickelodeon, also a golden era, and it really sculpted a positive outlook for my generation, which very much has infused into the Deck of Character.
My brother’s room and my sister’s room were very much their style and taste. My brother and I were really close so I liked to watch movies in his room. Our bedrooms were all upstairs, and then the whole downstairs of the house, the living room, dining room, kitchen was my mom’s zone, and she was really creative; she’s a really good interior decorator. So she loved seeing us being creative.
My whole neighborhood was a hill and we were at the top. Behind our houses was the creek and the farmland. But our driveways were relatively flat; there was a slight gradient, then they would drop into a big ravine where the creek was. My neighbors had a very long driveway which was fun, and we had a shorter driveway, so there was a lot of different world building.
We would play “town” outside; we would use our driveways and we would just have a make-believe town. Someone would be near a rock off the driveway and that rock would be, like, a restaurant, or we’d have different pit stops around the driveway. People would run different parts of town.
We would even have night games. It would take probably an hour to knock on people’s doors and rally them for night games. There were about fifty houses in the neighborhood. I was shy, I was one of the youngest, so I would just follow the older kids. We would play different games late into the night, like capture the flag, or like spud where you just throw up a ball, and everyone has numbers, and you call a number and you have to catch the ball.
My brother loved skate boarding, and we actually built a halfpipe in our backyard, and then my neighbors who had a really long driveway had all these ramps in their driveway. I would rollerblade on the halfpipe and the ramps in elementary school/early middle school. So I was even introduced to wood building and more macro structures. And later I did a little bit of installation art in adult years; I think we’re very influenced by the skateboarding world ‘cause that was early installation art.
I didn’t grow up spiritual, but I’ve gotten spiritual in my adult years. I loved being outdoors, which formed my sense of spirituality; my parents didn’t talk about it ever. I just discovered it naturally on my path especially when I went to college. I feel like my sense of spirituality was always when I went outside. I was mesmerized by trees and by the air and the weather. I was emotionally in tune like that. So I loved being outside ‘cause it was a sense of connection always.
We had a tree outside the front of our house and there was this really cool swing on it. And it was one of those stool swings that’s a circle and it has the rope in the middle. I was obsessed with it, more than anybody in my family I used this swing. And maybe this was also part of my alone time and like my thinking time, but I would go on the swing and I would push against the tree trunk and swing for a really long time and just look around. It was at the front of our house, facing into the neighborhood. And there’s two memories with that swing, well I guess three. The first was one of my earliest memories. I was probably six or seven, and I had shorter hair, and my hair got caught (in the rope), and I didn’t realize it when I was swinging and my parents had to cut half my hair off. It’s just kind of a funny Hannah moment. There was always something about me that was humorous and comedic, just about my being. And then the second is, two older kids were swinging on the swing one day and one jumped on the other and the swing broke and it was never replaced. I was really upset about it. And the third one was the day my family cut the tree down, I was probably late elementary school at that point, and I was super upset. I wanted them to re-plant the tree but they didn’t. I think it was showing signs that it was dying but, I get very emotional about trees, it’s strange. I think it’s important to replace them or just keep them.
When I design my own home, I think it’ll be a lot like the house I grew up in but maybe just a little bit more wild. My mom was really into interior design and I’m not as much. I even worked for an interior design company for a little bit because I have an eye and I have a sense of scale and I’m a pretty good stager. But I’m not a mind that cares about the functionality of a night stand. I think ‘cause I’m more of an artist. In my adulthood I haven’t made great incomes, so I’ve had to live frugally, so I think my house will be a little bit more functional, even barren, just ‘cause I like clearer space, I like just putting weird art on the walls and celebrating kind of the stranger spectrum than what my mom would have done. And I’m not a very materialistic person I think ‘cause I really value ideas, so I’d rather just have space for ideas. I had one living space of my own for three years, before gave it all up and started The Deck of Character and started traveling a lot. And in that space I used to host a lot more, but I don’t think I’ll host very much in my real space now that I found something more true to me. It’ll be very private.
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