JBS Welcomes Jill Sprott to the Team!

Hi, all! I’m from Oahu, Hawaii, where I live with my husband Rob and daughter Zoe. I was born and raised here, though being blonde-haired and blue-eyed, I often get odd reactions when I share that. I don’t look “local” but I grew up speaking pidgin with everyone else here. Fo' reals! By day, I am an English teacher, surrounded by students' papers, and by night, you will most likely find me surrounded by patterned paper. I started scrapbooking over seven years ago out of curiosity, and although it took me a long time to shake off the fear of “messing up,” I kept at it, and I’m glad I did. When it comes to trying to explain why I scrapbook, I always quote Robert Frost. He was referring to poetry, but I think the same holds true for scrapbooking: it is “a way of remembering what it would impoverish us to forget.” The ultimate inspiration can be found in the desire to do just that. It’s a sense of play that ignites and motivates my creative process. I can’t create with an “I-have-to-do-this” attitude; instead, I approach each page with an “I wonder what might happen if...” attitude. One of the most satisfying things about the process of creating is that "click", that moment when everything comes together and you just know.

"From the Desk of a 13th Year Newbie" is my favorite October JBS Mercantile layout. This is my thirteenth year of teaching, but it is also my first year at a new school. That transition has been challenging and gratifying, affirming my belief that teaching is a vocation, a calling. It is difficult and wonderful and important work, but because it can be so personally demanding, a teacher must constantly make a choice to answer that call. On a constant basis -- each year, each quarter, each week, each day, each period -- I say "yes" to teaching.

One of my favorite photos right now is a shot I took of my daughter at Bellows this summer. It was early in the morning, and the whole family had gathered on the windward side of the island for breakfast on the beach. Every time I look at this photo I marvel over the blue of the ocean, the wide expanse of sky, and this child, opening her arms to take in the wonder of it all. It's an endless ocean before her, but she moves toward it. It reminds me of e.e. cummings: "It's always ourselves we find in the sea."