its my birthday today! and with that comes a few announcements... for once, a serious birthday post.
if you follow my instagram you'll have already seen a post similar to this, but im posting it here for everyone else:
yall obviously know that i got top surgery three months ago. i just came out of recovery 2 weeks ago and have returned to a mostly normal life.
these last three months in recovery have been extremely, extremely trying. fortunately ive been physically okay, but mentally i feel like ive been pushed to my limit with myself, with family, with money, with what i want out of life. without getting personal, its just been really, really trying. the isolation that top surgery forced me into has really forced me to reflect a lot on everything that i have put my energy into in the last 10 years and realizing how little all of it has actually served me.
1. im pivoting away from commissions. ive been doing them for 10 years now, and ive become so burnt out on them that ive really come to dislike them. i do always enjoy hearing other people's creative endeavors, but over the last few years especially most of the art ive done has been for other people. ive had very little time to focus on my own endeavors and ideas, and im going to try and rectify that. ive always relied on commissions for a portion of my income, but i just cant do it anymore. that point aside, the other reason i am stopping commissions is just because i dont have the same traffic i once did. whether that's because of extrinsic factors (and there are a lot), or because i have become increasingly absent online, i can only guess. either way, this year when i really needed the income, it was just nowhere to be found. i had very little support in a lot of areas of my life actually, that had only been revealed to me when i was at my most vulnerable & literally needing to rely on people physically, mentally, and financially. at the same time of course, i realized i had allies and support in areas that were previously not significant or unknown to me, so there's always a bright side.
2. i mentioned before in a previous post, but my tendency towards perfectionism has prevented me from posting about my projects and im trying to dismantle that. i always want to post the most perfect version, the most complete ideas that i can imagine, but of course that is kind of impossible. ive held myself to extremely high standards and no one is forcing me to do that. ive also had some nasty instances of art/idea theft (of which occurred in my IRL life) that have made me really protective of my ideas. but, if my ideas are cool enough to steal then perhaps im on some sort of right track. between working full time and being a student almost full time, i just have to give myself some grace with not being able to fully complete some pieces.
3. in pivoting away from commissions, i have decided to pursue opening an online shop. its a definite work in progress, maybe-or-maybe-not i will ever open it, we'll really just have to see. im obviously very tired of hustling, so im just going to choose to follow my creative endeavors wherever they take me instead of trying to control the outcome so hard. either way! i suppose be on the lookout for some sort of online shop in the future. or dont. it'll happen if it happens.
so ya. thats pretty much it. hopefully you see more of me soon
