Happy Sweet ’16, everyone!
Ok, hopefully you’ve had your morning coffee, because it’s heart-on-sleeve time…
This new year feels HUGE. Full of possibilities, opportunities, new plans. Deep breath. It’s exciting and terrifying, wrapped into one sparkly package. I have more resolutions than I’ve ever had. There are lists. Lots of lists. I wasn’t going to talk about this but my fingers just keep typing, so I guess this is happening. After almost seven years of writing “The Jealous Curator”, I’ve decided that in July of 2016, when I wrap up my current design job, I will finally make the jump and take TJC from my “side project” to my “only project”… I’m not going to say “job” because I don’t see it that way. This little corner of the interweb has never felt like a “job” to me. No, not even close. It’s the place where I’ve met all of you. It allows me to share the art that I covet. It’s given me the opportunity to start a podcast and write books … which still kind of blows my mind. On top of all of that, my own artwork has improved so much, and although sharing my work has always seemed like a terrifying thing to do, this community is just so amazingly supportive, I finally feel like I can.
This is where it gets a bit scary. In the fall, my new book will be released. It’s different than the first two. No interviews like Creative Block, and more than a collection of work like Collage. This book is ten chapters. Ten chapters of me… writing. Writing about self-doubt, and inner critics, and blocks, and inspiration, and failing, and finding your tribe, and remembering the joy of just making stuff. And this is where it gets a bit meta… my inner-critic has always lived in my art studio. He has never, ever, come over to Jealous Curator land – until I started writing this book. I was writing about inner critics, and so perhaps he saw that as a fancy letterpress invitation to come on over. Anyway, he showed up. He questioned every word, every chapter title, every little f’n thing. But I kept writing. I cried a bunch of times, wanted to quit a few times, but I kept writing. Slowly but surely I was able to actually take my own advice {meta}, and by the end of it all my inner critic was kind of on my side. I don’t want to call him a friend just yet, but we’re working on it. However, as I head into this new year, this HUGE year, he has a few things to say:
You’re going to put everything you’ve got into this Jealous Curator thing? Really?! What if you fall on your face? That could totally happen.
Yeah… jerk. We may need a therapist.
So, on January 1, 2016 I’m going to take my own advice. I’m going to take a deep breath, and instead of allowing that voice to stop me from jumping, I’m going to listen carefully to what it’s nattering on about and translate it… ok, so what if I do “fall on my face”? First of all, what does that even mean? Am I worried about failing? Failing so epically that I will fall on my face and just stay down there for the rest of my life? Well that’s dumb. “Failing” just means you tried something and it didn’t work the way you thought it would, so you get back up and you try it again in another way. If I “fall on my face”, well then, I guess I’ll just get back up and go again. Hm, that doesn’t sound too bad. And besides, the only way I could truly fail, would be if I chickened out and didn’t make this jump… this jump that I should have made a long time ago.
Exhale. So there you have it. Everything out. Shared. Ready {ish} for the new year. I hope your year is filled with exciting/terrifying challenges too… I’ll see you out there! xo Oh, and ps. the full year, 12 unblocking projects from 2015, can all be found right here if you want to do them again, or try them for the first time. Have fun!
*Art by Trey Speegle
