About Magicalthinklet
Hi there!
Welcome to Magicalthinklet, my little rounded corner of the interwebs.
I love to create things. Always have, always will.
Harold (with his awesome purple crayon) was one of my heroes when I was a kid. I spent lots of time writing & illustrating stories, sculpting little houses & animals, and drawing maps for my Matchbox cars.
There is something so magical about dreaming up a world around you, and creating something out of nothing. It is so sweet to stand back and say, “I made that. Now it is part of the world.”
Magicalthinklet started solely as a drawing blog back in 2008, but now features my paintings, drawings, and writing, along with front-end web tid bits and pretty stuff that makes me swoon.
A little bit about me
My full name’s Betsy Ruth Ming-Lai Lam, but I have a small army of nicknames: Lotus Girl, Soups, Boot, El Gee, Cap’n, and Beastie.
I was a gymnast for 14 years, competed at the University of Iowa, and still miss it like crazy. Luckily, I found rock climbing in the Fall 2010, and I’m head over heels. I cannot imagine my life without it.
I studied journalism and painting at Iowa, and after graduating, headed west for an MFA in Painting at the San Francisco Art Institute. While there, I decided an online art portfolio would be sweet, so I started tinkering with web design & development. Luckily for me, my brother is a web developer; he taught me the basics and I was hooked. It became a hobby, and grew into a job.
Nowadays, I get my geek fix working as a Front-End Web Developer at Threadless, a community-driven, designy company in Chicago. And I teach beginner climbing classes at Formula Fitness Club, Old Town in Chicago.
A few things that make my heart go pitter-patter: soup (any time, any place, any season), Scrabble, Gilmore Girls, neuroscience & other science-y goodness, Bones, a good pair of boots, Cary Tennis’ writing, Fringe, oysters, the last 30 seconds of Belle & Sebastian’s “There’s Too Much Love,” crispy bacon, Pieta Brown’s “In My Mind I Was Talking to Loretta,” and lastly, my life in Chicago’s Bucktown neighborhood with my husband and our little Havanese, Mr. Deuce.
I love getting mail, so if you’re feeling chatty, or just want to say hello, send me a note or email me at: magicalthinklet@gmail.com.&