Photo by Coco McCracken at Black Seed Studio, January 24’
Happy 2025—I write this to you halfway through February. It’s taken me time to sit down and write. Someone last night reminded me that I am exactly where I need to be. So, I relish the extra time and I relish the moment you get where you want to be going, no matter how long it takes.
2024 was a really full year and in really beautiful ways.
I completed my three-month (almost four-month with an extension!) residency with Indigo Arts Alliance as the David C. Driskell Fellow at Black Seed Studio. Time there has shifted my work in ways I never could have imagined. In some ways, that residency feels so long ago, but then I think about the work I made there and the work I am making now, and I am in awe. Awe for the ways I have no idea what I would be making if I didn’t have the time there. I feel really attuned to my inner self, thoughts and feelings. I feel strength and power from the weight of love that is carried in grief and loss, instead of shame. In a world where grief and loss is rushed past, I feel proud to be making work that explores the magnitude of grief, death, and burial, instead of making it small.
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Last year, the first goal and intention I set for my studio practice was to make a zine, and I proudly made two this year. One of my proudest collaborations was being asked to collaborate with A CLEARING’s Cycle of A Possible Practice, and make a zine for their zine subscription in conversation with Solmaz Sharif’s “Vulnerability Study.” The process of making that printed work shifted something in me.
And at the end of the year, I made a comic in Isabella Rotman’s comic class at the Portland Public Library that yet again, shifted something in me in the ways I understand what is possible. Two zines on passing time, love, noticing, grief encapsulated by nature motifs and symbols.
One titled: Everything comes undone, we do this over and over.
The other: Sometimes the fog greets you as kindly as the sun.
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My writing practice has been revived. And I am so grateful. I always say this, but I am never as close to myself as when I am writing and making art. When I do both, I feel like I am functioning with all of me.
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For the first time, in 2024 I explored selling my work in ways that felt more commercial and in some ways, more accessible whether it be through ceramic goods, or for the first time, printed goods. My goal last year was to make a set of postcards which I did for my time at Elements as their September Gallery Artist. On top of that, I created two stickers and I feel like there is a part of my creative process, self, and brain that can really attune myself to this.
There is such beauty and sacredness to an original piece of work, and that asks for a monetary value to match, which is humbling as an artist. I feel such gratitude and respect when someone purchases an original piece of my work, but I also know that we all must eat. And we make choices with the way we use our resources, and in an ideal world, we would have bountiful resources that nourished all aspects of our lives. All that to say—sometimes we can only buy a sticker or a print. And I think having a part of my practice that is accessible to all patrons is really important. It keeps the work exciting, too. So I continue to ask myself: what work do I want to make and who do I want to make it for? Who do I want to see value and beauty in it?
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My newsletter process has shifted into a deeply nourishing part of my artistic practice for the ways I share my art and writing. I’ve noticed the way I feel off-center when I am not writing them. It’s a really special archive of my artistic practice, and in a world of junk mail and advertising and disconnection, I find writing and receiving newsletters a way to combat that. I wrote 10 newsletters. I think if I can keep up with that in 2025, then I will be very happy.
Something that I am noticing in my life is the ways that our society and systems speed us along. And I’m noticing how I long to slow down. That longing comes from the desire to feel more intentional, fulfilled by presence, and to add a sense of awe, preciousness, and sacredness to my life as much as I can. I want to be careful with my time. Careful in a way that is not fearful or scarce, but careful as in adding in more love, adding in more romance, creating attention, creating beauty, reverence, and joy. I think if life can even be filled a little more than half with those things, life can be pretty good. Even when it’s bad, if those pieces can ground me, I’ll always find my way back.
Again, I ask myself:
I am asking myself what do I want more of in my life?
What do I want less? What do I need to let go of?
What will I carry with me into my new year?
What will I try to work into my life for the better?
I ask myself: can I move slower? How do I foster more creative reflection time? Can I make more time for artist dates and what are small ways that I can do that? How do I strengthen my studio practice? How do I reinforce it? Center it? How do I foster collaboration? How do I protect solitude? How hard do I need to push? What is my threshold?
Intentions and goals for 2025
Move slower and more carefully
Create a new zine
Sell work in my online shop
Participate in some markets
Create an urn for my mom’s ashes
Continue to work with clay—creating more personal work, unearthing the unexpressed
Plein air paint
Another year of newsletters
Sustain a sketchbook practice
Design a sticker
New postcard set
Share my work in a new space, in a new way
Put myself out there, in a new place
Prioritize artist dates each month
Stay open, stay tender
Some photos from this year (mostly in order):
