It’s the end of the year and time for a fresh studio self-reflection, part of my ongoing effort to be more open with my creative development. In this entry: fall reflections improve self-management, gradually.

If you’re curious, peruse previous self-reflections.

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At the start of this quarter, I was drifting. I had recently overworked myself and become lost. In my recovery, I wondered how and why I was unintentionally subjecting myself to self-harm, despite no longer working for someone else. Even when fully in control of my days, I was drifting out of sync with my goals and turning to overwork as a(n unsuccessful) way out.

I searched and reflected, finding that the source was from some complex mix of past experiences, personal affinities, and cultural values (and probably more). Thus there were a number of different ways I might try to understand and approach the problem. What I found most useful was framing it as a personal management gap, a disconnect between how I intended things to go at the outset, and the way I carried out and kept sight of those intentions over time.

One of my overarching goals over the fall was to explore and try to lessen this gap. Given the complexity of its origins, I approached it from several directions, both in mindset and how I structured my weeks.

Time for a new studio self-reflection, part of my ongoing effort to be more open with my creative development and encourage others to do the same. In this entry: summer growth goes wild.

If you’re curious, peruse previous self-reflections.

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The home garden in 2021 has been, perhaps against expectations, significantly more successful this year than in 2020. At the time last year when garden prep should have started, my partner and I were not remotely thriving at home. What attention we did offer the plants came late and sporadically. It took many months of simply surviving before we could thoughtfully plan or sustain focus again, and much of this year has seen significant improvement over the last as a result.

But at some point this summer, the garden accumulated so much of its own momentum that it took off and …sort of left us behind.

With the end of the season comes a new studio self-reflection. It’s part of my ongoing effort to be more open with my creative development and encourage others to do the same. In this entry: Spring has sprung.

If you’re curious, peruse previous self-reflections.

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What a difference a season makes. While I spent the winter mostly futzing away (thoughtfully) with things from the past, the spring has been all about …well, springing forth, from the present and toward the future. My growth this quarter has been primarily in visual art-making, developing of my heart project STAR KIT, and understanding myself as a visible online human.

It’s time for another studio self-reflection, as part of an ongoing effort to be more present to and open with my creative development, and encourage others to do the same. In this entry: The winter can be a long, tough stretch, but sometimes good things come of it.

If you’re curious, peruse previous self-reflections.

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By the end of last year, I began a commitment to live by a new self-narrative and new scripts. …So of course over the long night of winter I dredged through the past.

For example, I started the quarter feeling that my drawing – a steady natural outlet when I was a child – had become stagnant and under-reliable. With the fresh success of my writing routine in mind, I identified that, not only did I lack a consistent drawing practice lately, I never had one. In my memory of childhood, drawing just sort of …happened, without me trying; as an adult, it mostly came in fits and starts as needed for individual projects. Given my intention to be a visual storyteller, this drawing gap seemed worth addressing.

As a follow-up to my October check-in, and in an ongoing effort to be more open with my creative development, I’m sharing my recent studio self-reflection.

A note of clarification: I’ve been following a term structure, which is simply a semester-like schedule for planning, studio work, and reflection. The term in question ran September through December 2020.

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So here I am, in 2021. Many things are still / yet again on fire, but I’m alive. The fall with its brimming energy ebbed quickly as winter emerged. Starting in November, side projects slowed, but scripting held strong – in fact, it got stronger. I close this term with a freshly completed first pass of a long graphic novel script. (And by “long” I mean over 500 pages, though this will most likely change once revisions begin.) It was my primary focus this term, and I’ve seen it through successfully.

This was possible thanks to the significant progress I made over the last few months toward defining my goals and focusing my practice – what they are, what they aren’t, and how my days and weeks should look in order to reflect that. My success was also aided by starting the strange, slow, soft process of “rewiring” my subconscious into better alignment with where I want my life to go.

In the spirit of being more open with my creative efforts (even / especially the messy process stuff), I offer my recent studio self check-in. This will be a lengthy read!

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The pandemic has made everything harder, and it has made the good things feel less good. I spent most of March through August surviving and redirecting myself out of crushing depression as best I could. For the time, that needed to be enough.

Thankfully, by September I was ready to move beyond survival and back into the studio more consistently. Little did I know just how much foundational work I would accomplish. I end October in the midst of rewriting my self-narrative, personally and creatively.