A Soft Start to 2025
A happy 2025 to you all…
My start to this new year has been a bit slow and languid. I kicked off 2025 with a cold that has made her home in my body and is lingering despite her posted eviction notice.
Although, the stuffy sinuses and occasional cough bring me some discomfort, the forced rest has been more than welcome. It’s felt like something my body has been needing for quite a long while so rather than fighting it, I’ve found acceptance a much easier route.
Truthfully, it’s been a welcome start to this year. I find January to be a time much better suited for hibernation and rest than for resolutions and forcing our tired bodies into action immediately after a full and bustling holiday season.
This pace has also set the tone in my studio. I have no deadlines or time restraints — only commissioned projects and self-imposed ventures to be worked on.
It’s quiet here. A much welcome space and one I am realizing I have been craving for quite some time. I have found art doesn’t breathe as well on a deadline. Sometimes, these limitations can’t be avoided. There are markets and art fairs and exhibitions that ask me to work within confines mostly throughout the spring and summer months. Ultimately, in winter, I am provided with space to dance with the process and room to explore without the niggling reminder that an expectation looms.
Art simply lives better when I stop asking it to “be” something. Art asks me to play. Painting takes my hands, looks me in the eye and says, “can you be here, right now, in your body, in this moment? Can you just allow for whatever happens to just… happen.”
It can be really easy to make what I create all about the end result. In fact, if I’m not conscious of it, the end result can totally run the show. Every brushstroke is analyzed, every time I step away, I look at my work with “I shouldn’t have done that, I should have done this…” Editing at the beginning of a new venture is the true killer of creativity in its most vulnerable state.
In the open space of winter, I’ve discovered a wide meadow in which to explore whatever my heart desires. I have been creating these little 5x7 wintry pieces and I have intent to mat and frame them up and launch them as a series, hopefully before the month is through. I’m still feeling out whether or not this collection is finished, the art usually tells me if there is more to be explored… When it’s live, you’ll all be the first to know!
I hope your start to this year is soft and gentle, I hope you find space to let yourself discover hidden potential in a new pace and that you do your very best to take the most exquisite care of yourselves in this quiet time of year...