November Wrap-Up (Patreon)

Hey guys!

Man. What a fucking month. It's been a season of emotional whiplash for so many of us. Election week kicked my ass with stress and anxiety. Right on the heels of that, I started to hit the six-month wall from isolation - something I've seen a few psychology-adjacent people talk about. Apparently people who work in isolated environments, like Antarctic postings for example, hit a similar wall around six months before they start to adjust.

That's definitely been true for me - I haven't seen 90% of my loved ones since May, haven't been to my favorite used book store or a coffee shop. And it's really starting to show. Focus got harder and harder to come by. I kept slipping into unhealthy coping mechanisms - overstimulating myself with rapid-fire browsing and such to the point of going numb, then crashing emotionally after. Drawing got difficult, as did coping with the pressure of art now being my full time job.

November sucked. And from some of the private convos I've had with some of you, I'm not alone in that.

So firstly, let me just thank all of you for sticking with me. It's good to know I've got people at my back, who love what I do and are rooting for me. Thanks guys.

I'm working on doing better about self-care right now. I have workaholic tendencies (thanks, mom) and if there's one good thing about isolation it's that I'm not able to mask or avoid that anymore. I can see my patterns - taking on too much, overcommitting, pushing myself too hard and then crashing from burnout and stress, with a heaping helping of self-loathing for afters. It's not easy to admit that, and I'm only just beginning to learn how to change those behaviors. But a big part of that is understanding the scope of what I can and cannot reasonably do.

For that reason I had to throw in the towel on the video rewards for the Acolyte tier for now. Video editing sucks ass, haha - eats up time, stresses me out, and I'm not happy with the end product most of the time. So for the moment I decided to beat a strategic retreat and come back to that idea another time. Bums me out to do so but I'm also glad I had the presence of mind to admit when something wasn't working.

On the flip side, earlier this week I rediscovered the joy of aimless doodling. I've started cracking open my sketchbooks and just letting the pencil or stylus wander, or studying something until I feel good about what I've accomplished. Drawing feels like playing again when I do this - I feel more energized when I'm done, not less. I can't remember the last time I felt like that, outside of my last trip on psilocybin. It's a nice rediscovery.

With all that I'm starting to glimpse a wider picture around what a healthy artistic practice looks like for me. For years I've tried to weaponize my perfectionism and workaholism to be the fastest, most productive person in the room. Not inherently bad, but the isolation-driven introspection has shown me how painful and damaging to myself and my art that pattern has been. I'd like to change that.

December is going to be different. I hope that I'll be creating from the heart more. I hope that I'll be calmer and more balanced, and that I'll end up creating more and better artwork as a result, without agonizing over how it lands on social media or whether it's "on brand" or whatever. I hope I treat myself more like a person who makes art and less like an art-production platform, if that makes sense.

Anyway. If you read this far, thanks for that. It's been a rough couple weeks but I'm still around and still creating, and that's partly down to you. 

Rewards will go out in a week or so as usual, and we'll get the December Sketchbook thread going too.

Love you all. Stay safe, and may our best days be ahead.