It’s not you, it’s me

I don’t know about you but lately I feel like social media has been in a free fall. Things have felt radically different. Any semblance of an online artist community has been fractured and any steady connection I have had with my followers has long since been severed. It’s all dead air. And all of this disconnect has made me realize one thing. I have lost myself. In some blind struggle to feed algorithms, avoid banned words, hashtag the acceptable ones and squeeze in between AI slop I have completely lost the plot. Work has become a chore and I have slipped further and further away from my original vision. I went from self expression to feeding the machine. I stopped creating from a place of honesty and I can’t do it anymore.

Here is where compromise comes in. I am not leaving Instagram. I am also joining Substack to use as a sort of blog. I am staying very far away from the rest of the platforms. I have tens of thousands of followers on IG and presumably a majority are even human. Those followers are Important to me and if I reach even a handful of them it is worth it. What I won’t be doing is making content catering specifically to the platform. I do not see a reality where I put my face all over my feed and spend my day filming and editing videos just to please the algorithm. However I do believe I need to share more of my process, thoughts, and inspirations. I will be doing this through my website. We are going to start blogging like it is 2003!

The first big leap into this new era is to close down the made to order webshop. This was a hard decision because I love the designs. I am proud of them. Made to order was a terrific way for me to offer a wide range of sizes along with minor custom options. It allowed me to have less backstock sitting around and made it so I didn’t have to guess what customers wanted to have available. But it also took up most of my studio time. Less experimenting happened and it started to feel like a factory. And then the worst thing possible happened - I started to lose interest. I am hoping a new focus on one of a kind pieces will lead me back to where I want to be.

I am already feeling a bit more free and have created a couple new pieces I cannot wait to share. But first I invite you to shop the made to order collection one last time. If there is any past design you have wanted, let me know. I would be happy to get one going for you before closing this chapter. And as a farewell gift please enjoy an automatic 15% off at checkout. The current collection will be available for purchase through the evening of 8/9

Thank you for being a part of what is to come