Two Months, One Update
Thankfully the winter is over and it's finally spring 🌷
It's been cold and wet for the last two months. I've been a sloth, hiding under a blanket on my couch, taking my dogs on rainy walks, and being cozy. I've been working primarily on projects that don't light me up, so I've been doing outreach to get light-up projects. I've been trying to write down what it means to be a light-up project so I can be more strategic about my portfolio and get the kind of work I want to do and then do it.
I went to a virtual talk with an artist I admire, Chris Delorenzo, and he said something that struck me; he said something along the lines of "You have to be doing work that feels good because, as an artist, it's easy for the way you feel about your work– to be the way you feel all the time." He's right about that. When I am working on something, and it's going great, I feel like my whole life is going great, and when I'm working on something I don't love and the client is being tricky or taking forever to respond, I start to feel awful about the project and also my life. I could work on better boundaries to help with this, but I could also work on better projects; more on that below.
In addition to rainy walks, I've been doom-scrolling for no reason because the news is awful, Pinterest ends up leaving me feeling like I need to remodel my entire house, Strava reminds me I've been being a sloth, and Instagram is just weird ads and dumb reels. It's not been great, but I've also given myself grace because winter is challenging. After the cozy fall, the holidays, and the brief newness of the new year have faded – the cold and the wet start to get to me.
It's finally spring, though, and there are little glimpses of flowers here and there. I'm ready to come out of hibernation. The last couple of days of sun have been an absolute dream. It's my favorite time of year when everything starts to wake up and bloom, and I'm very excited about it.
In my sloth mode, I did read a book. I was feeling crunched about time (see my last newsletter), and I hated that feeling, so I decided to take a break from trying to be productive. In that break, I remembered that a couple of years ago, I had read "4,000 Weeks," and a lot of what I had been struggling with the book had addressed, so I decided to reread it in hopes that it would help, and it did. It was very much what I needed. I recommend it to anyone feeling like they have too much to do and no time to do it because that's true, and it's not your fault.
The book has many interesting insights about our modern-day relationship with time and how we got to this annoying place of feeling like we have to "make the best of our time" all the time, which tends to lead us to feel like we are failing more often than not. My biggest takeaway (I have to keep learning this lesson) is that we have a limitless brain capacity for ideas of things to do and a minimal amount of time as finite humans actually to do anything. Accepting this reality is the only way forward.
After reading the book, I redacted my goal of writing 24 newsletters and brought it back into a reasonable realm of 12. Though I love writing this newsletter, it takes time, and the combination of the time it takes and the pressure to get it done starts to make it feel like a task to do and not something to enjoy. Taking the pressure off (and giving myself a whole month to write it - as opposed to two weeks) feels a lot better, so that's what I'm going to do. There's a balance, of course, of doing what's comfortable and pushing yourself to do more, but I've decided this newsletter isn't an area where I want to push myself; I want to save that energy for the many other goals I've set for myself for this year.
After finishing the book, I realized I liked reading a book on the couch so much more than scrolling on my phone that I picked up another book. 'Real Gardens Grow Natives' has been on my coffee table since I bought it last fall, and I finally spent the time I needed to read the whole thing cover to cover. I loved reading about all the different native plant recommendations and getting inspired for what I want to plant in my yard this year. I've found myself identifying so many new plants on dog walks, and it feels so nice to notice cute plants and be able to say their names.
A skim of my camera roll tells me that after a false January spring with lots of bike rides, a trip to Packwood, Washington, and a few surprising sunny afternoons, I spent February mostly getting dinner with friends, hosting a collage night, hanging with the dogs, going on one (cold) bike ride, and working on a couple projects for friends. So it wasn't spent just lounging on my couch.
I've also just been working. I took on two projects, which I was happy to have because they kept me busy, but in hindsight, I've decided they aren't the kind of work I want to be doing. "Keeping me busy" was a good filter when I started my freelance career two years ago, but it's finally no longer helpful. Just because I can do something, or I am good at something, or someone asks me to do something doesn't mean I need to do it, and I am finally ready to come up with a new filter to help me decide what to take on and what not to do.
My long-term goal is to be able to take on primarily illustration-forward projects. I want to refocus my work around illustration. I've been doing a lot of design-heavy work, think emails and websites, which have been good challenges for me, but I'd like to get back to doing more illustrative projects. It doesn't matter if it's the visual identity for an event, a brand, a t-shirt design, a wall, an email campaign, a magazine, or even a website; it just needs to involve me drawing something. It's often hard to know if a project will call for illustration initially, but it's worth asking the question before I start because sometimes you do know, and if the answer is "no," it's worth a second pass of "Should I take this on" before I say "yes."
When March arrived, all my reading about Native Plants set me up for success. I placed two orders for native plants, one from Symbiop and one from Sparrowhawk. I planted a new tree (a Cascara), a serviceberry, some Pacific rush, three little yarrows, and some seaside daisies. I pick up my Sparrowhawk order in April and am very excited about two red elderberries arriving and a handful of cute native flowers.
Besides gardening, working, and wrapping up my not-as-light-up-as-i'd-like projects, March has just been marching along. Nick and I filed our taxes and went to Bend with his family, which was snowy and gorgeous. We hung out with his Mom when she came back to Portland with us for a few days. We went to two new places, Bar Loon and Bauman's on Oak. Both were adorable, and I highly recommend them.
Next month is my birthday! I'm scheming up a birthday challenge and taking an art class at Ulna Studios taught by a friend. I look forward to more sunny days in my garden, art projects, and bike rides. See you next month! <3