Nine Years of Fossils
3 • 02 • 2026Quicker than anticipated, up goes my Selected Works gallery——
Nine years of art, picked and chosen from a few thousand files. Anything before 2017 wasn't worth it; the things after had to be carded through. It's a strange feeling, digging through so many layers of sediment. Always another pocket of works would turn up in a distant folder and need to be picked through again. (Even as I write this I'm remembering something else.)
I put off the task of assembling a large gallery mostly because it intimidated me. It's a lot of images and I wasn't sure how to present them or if I'd even want to. But having finished the process, I'm pleased with my work. In struggling against the weight of burnout these past years it's been hard at times to remember that I can draw, that I love it even. Everything seems so.... rote! But looking back I can see the things I liked and wanted to explore, the development of ideas and techniques, flashes of inspiration that slowly built up to where I'm at now. Artistic skill and sensibility is something that grows best when you're not looking, after all.
I think this also falls into a broader.... mood? Phase? of organizing that I find myself in lately. I've always been made to cultivate the skill of sorting and purging, although in the lulls between those bursts of energy I am certainly a messy person. But I'll be turning thirty this year and have a lot I'd like to see change for me. Clearing space for the new means pruning the old, but it can also mean taking time to appreciate that old, tracing footprints back to see the way you came.
Some things I'd like to get in order——health, work, spirit, all those things we all want. But also art, which to me ties into every part. I'm looking forward to enjoying creation, deliberately cultivating that sense instead of just going at it like I always have and hoping for the best. Playing with physical media again helps, turning my attention outward helps, abstaining from creation sometimes helps the most. I'm still playing with what works best, but the idea of a new personal balance is alluring.
I wish for that balance for you, too. Here's to creation in '26, right?