Reflecting on 2025

Reflecting on my word of the year and following what feels right

Do you do a word of the year? I started doing this probably about 5 years ago and I think it’s now a pretty mainstream concept. Some years my word ends up being misaligned or takes on a new meaning, and other years it has served as a consistent guidepost all year (and beyond). My 2024 WOTY was Connection, and I used that word so hard that I realized it was actually a core value that I had been neglecting or misunderstanding, and it has now been cemented into my psyche to guide my actions and decisions big and small.

For 2025 I had lofty intentions for my WOTY: Humility. This was a self-improvement choice, and I really thought I could use this word to guide me to be a bit less of a know-it-all. Unfortunately, you can’t change your entire personality with a word of the year. Soooo, I forgot about it a lot. My hope was to be less sure of myself and my point of view, and to tamp down my tendency to debate or oppose rather than validate or see from a new perspective. This word choice was inspired by a podcast interview with one of Thich Nhat Hanh’s students which revealed a question to ask yourself frequently, “Are you sure?” Thich Nhat Hanh recommends putting it up on the wall as a reminder, which might have been helpful. I do think I was probably slightly humbler in 2025 than I otherwise would have been and will continue to try to pull this into my interactions. I already have a word of the year in mind for 2026, perhaps that will be the subject of a future blog post.

This year, my creativity moved slowly and deliberately and generously. I created for myself and for my loved ones. I had great intentions of keeping up with this blog at the gentle pace I had set when I started it, but life expanded to fill the cracks and I needed to follow that call.

As my life has settled into a rhythm, my creative energy and time flows clearly into seasons. I always slow down a bit over summer in the creative department because there is so much fun to be had outside. This year we visited the beach 23 times from May to September! Then, the fall comes roaring in with my most demanding season of work deadlines. Then, while most people are tucking in for a few months of hibernation in the winter, these are the months where my inspiration creeps back in and more importantly the idle time to execute them. With less time dedicated to the outdoors and a slower pace at my ‘day job’ I finally have the capacity to create again. As I dip back into creating after a 2-month break, I have been playing around on old, abandoned canvases which either needed to be completely painted over or boldly adjusted to move forward. Not all of these will ‘become’ anything, but the Christmas break has already been fruitful (follow along on Instragram stories for more frequent peeks at my studio practice).

I have come to accept this slower pace, and less predictable nature of my creative practice and business, and each year have created looser plans and goals. I still go through the practice of writing them out and figuring out what feels right, and then make changes along the way. This year my art goals were simple: no showing my work this year (rest) but be more consistent with emails (oops), keep exploring my ideas and be prolific, and work on a process for creating landscapes that feel aligned and fun. I am not sure I am there yet on the landscapes. I did too many small landscapes, which are not exactly FUN to create. I did complete many more landscapes than I have in recent years and explored a lot of different references that I probably wouldn’t have chosen if it had not been for a particular creative project:

This fall I completed a series of 10 tiny landscapes reflecting on a few of the incredible places my husband and I have been in our 10 years of marriage. I stitched each piece to a piece of canvas and mounted them in a frame as his anniversary gift.

My 2025 intentions roll nicely into next year and I am sure some new ones will pop up over the coming weeks as my creative practice sparks new ideas. I will keep sharing here about my process and inspiration and whatever feels right.

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