A NEW YEAR, AT LAST!

Hello 2026!

Happy New Year to you!

Wow, wow, wow. 2025, you were a wild ride!

I sat down this morning to take stock of the year - highs and lows, gratitudes and lessons learned. The list just seemed to keep growing. So much big life has been crammed into one small year. When I step back, I see a clear pattern: personal evolution, quiet and not-so-quiet shifts in how I move through the world, and real growth in my artistic practice. A true Year of the Snake, if there ever was one -shedding skin, again and again.

Holding my own peaks and valleys alongside the nonstop terror and destruction being carried out by oligarchs at home and abroad has been… a lot. I’ve oscillated between tuning out and tuning in, between rage and the slippery edge of apathy. I want to know. I want to feel. I want to care. And sometimes the weight of all of it feels unbearable.

Early in the year, I made a decision to be more intentional about what I let into my mind and heart. I began consciously curating the media I consume, not as an escape, but as an act of selfcare. It’s an ongoing practice: resisting cynicism, choosing hope anyway. Over and over, this year has reminded me that grief and joy are not opposites. They coexist. They’re intertwined.

This is what I’m carrying with me into the new year:a deep, stubborn unwillingness to let the shit get me down. And perhaps with that, a greater emphasis on play and silliness.

An abridged list of highlights, in no particular order:

• 2 trips to South America (Colombia + Brazil)

• 3 Concerts (Kruangbin, Gregory Allen Izakov, David Byrne)

• My first NHL game (Kraken won!)

• Jumping into this glassy lake a couple days after Christmas

• Bringing artists together at 4 different local markets

• Exploring new mediums and subjects with paint

• Showing a vulnerable self portrait at a tiny art show.

Lake Crescent in December

If you made it this far I want you to know: YOU are on my list of gratitudes. Render would not be what it is today without your support. I hope to continue connecting with you in the New Year and to be able to share all the evolutions that are bound to take place.