As the calendar year turns I am usually feeling introspective, inspired and hopeful. It is a time for daydreaming and planning, for setting intentions and goals and releasing what is no longer working. Each year after the early December flurry of promotion, holiday sales, packing and shipping I slow down and take time to give the studio a deep cleaning. The downtime that follows allows me to get quiet, make notes and layout a rough outline for work in the year ahead. This is the space to figure out what wasn’t working, what needs changing and what makes sense to keep and expand on. I stopped making new year resolutions many years ago and for the past two years I have instead chosen a word to focus on for each twelve month stretch. I was introduced to Susannah Conway’s method of Finding Your Word thanks to Tami Hardeman and it’s now an integral part of my end of year routine.

By the first week of January I was back in the studio after three weeks away and was finding my groove working on a collection of lanterns and luminaries that will be released in February. I also started work on production for wholesale orders which I am returning to after a full year of not fulfilling due to the constraints I came up against do to supply chain issues. These issues are still a reality and I am learning how to get creative with solutions and substitutions. I missed my relationships with the store owners and having my work represented in different places throughout the country.

The main thing that I decided is no longer working for both me and my business is social media. If you been following along here for some time you know that this is something I come back to time and time again and I have finally decided that over the course of the next year I will be backing out of Instagram. It simply and obviously isn’t what it once was and the time I spend there is wasted. Also, this video really defines how I really feel. Going forward my primary focus will be on creating new work and continuing to supply my wholesale accounts while putting my efforts into my newsletter and this journal.

Wishing you the best in the year ahead and thank you for being here ❤️