Happy New Year!
Beginning Without Pressure
January arrives with a lot of noise this year. Beyond the usual resolutions, reinvention, and pressure to decide who we will be next, my own life is arriving full: a new 1,600 square-foot studio, a feature about to be released in a prominent publication in Southwest Florida, the early shaping of a book, and the beginning of building a new home. It’s a lot (and I’m so grateful!). This year will be fast-moving and exciting.
Rather than trying to get ahead of it all, I’m setting intentions; but more importantly, I’m paying attention. I’m listening. Instead of demanding clarity, I’m allowing it to surface. I’ve learned, especially in the studio, that nothing meaningful begins when it’s forced. The work only reveals itself when I’m present enough to notice it.
Creative Beginnings - Initiation and Expansion
This year carries the numerological energy of one—a beginning year, an initiatory year. But initiation and expansion, I’ve found, don’t arrive with a shove. They come with a quiet adjustment: something aligning, something opening because it’s ready. I felt that unmistakably when my new studio and my future homesite appeared in the same week—timing so precise it was beyond my capacity to understand, let alone orchestrate. There were long stretches of waiting, listening, and seeming stillness, but the “waiting”, it seems, is about Divine timing, and I sometimes forget this.
Expansion looks like space appearing where there was once tension. It feels like capacity growing from the inside, not pressure applied from the outside. For example, in the studio, I can always tell when I’m trying to expand and create artwork. The marks stiffen. The painting resists. But when I soften my grip—when I stop asking the work to become something specific—it almost always begins to move in ways I love. Not wildly or dramatically, but truthfully. That’s the energy I’m choosing to carry into this year.
A “one” year, for me, isn’t about becoming new. It’s about standing at the beginning of something with honesty. Letting the first step be presence rather than ambition. Letting expansion come as a response to clarity, not urgency.
Making Space
I don’t yet know what will take shape this year, and I don’t need to. What I do know is that I’m making room: room to notice, room to respond, room for growth that feels earned because it wasn’t rushed. So, I’m beginning the year right here—not ahead of myself, not behind—just attentive. How are you beginning your year thoughtfully?
At the start of each studio day, I’ve been asking myself a simple question: What is asking for space and expansion today? I don’t always know consciously how to answer it, but the asking alone changes how I move through the day and helps my mindset align with something bigger.
What’s opening feels both creative and structural, as if the work itself is asking for more room to live. I’m listening, and I’m trusting that my own expansion will continue to unfold exactly as it’s meant to, when I’m ready to meet it.
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I have family visiting for most of the month (brother, sister-in-law and Xander, the fire dog) and we can’t wait to see you walking on the beach and down by the new homesite!! Stay tuned for some exciting announcements from the studio and on Instagram - the best is yet to come! Happy New Year Everyone!
XO, Chris
