HaikuCat in 2024

You know those personality tests that will ask you a question and you're supposed to tick a circle that says "agree" or "strongly agree" or "strongly disagree" or whatever and like half of the questions are about how you make decisions? In terms of "do you think things through and use logic" or "do you tend to go on gut feeling"? 25 different ways to ask basically that. I always thought that I tended toward the logic/think things through side. It's only really in the last year or so that I've realized that's not true. I make virtually all of my major decisions based on feeling. (Turns out I was mistaking overthinking for careful planning and well-thought out decisions. Apparently those are not the same thing.)

This is how I ended up making the decision in the summer of 2023 to go back to school (online, via ASU) and finish getting my bachelor's degree. It's not that the idea had never occurred to me before then, but up to that point, whenever I thought about it, it was this back-and-forth, should-I-or-shouldn't-I, endless pros and cons list and I'd never get anywhere. But when things lined up just so and it felt right, I took the necessary steps and got things moving. One week I had no real thought of going back to school, and the next week I was enrolled for Fall, transfer credits pending.

One of the things that really nudged my gut feeling into action was that I was feeling super burnt out with HaikuCat. I felt like I wasn't getting the hang of building a small business, even with my very modest goals. I felt resentful of the way Instagram seemed to be pulling me to share my art in a very particular way that didn't necessarily line up what I felt was my own artistic flow. 

So, I put my shop on vacation mode and focused on my classwork, posting to IG only a handful of times, finishing only one embroidery hoop art piece, and not really much else, art-wise. It's just what I needed to do and without really thinking about it in the forefront of my mind, I guess my thoughts about HaikuCat have been percolating around in there, under the surface. Toward the end of the year, they bubbled up, as a feeling. And I tentatively knew what I wanted to do.

Mostly? Not a lot different. I am still working on that degree so that's my main focus, as it should be. And I am still homeschooling my two youngest, so in terms of priority that is at the top as well. But I am once again feeling the pull to make art and to share that art, so that's what I'm going to do, as much as I can with the time that I have. 

It is such a hard thing to allow the making of art to exist as its own separate thing, in and of itself, driven from what comes out of my mind, and not influenced by the sharing part. The looking at the metrics part. The need to increase the numbers (followers, likes, engagement, etc.) part. Being away (mostly) from Instagram has, I think, helped me to get to a place where I can approach it a little more mindfully and authentically. And if it turns out that the negative social media feelings start creeping back in, I feel like it will be fine to step back again and regain my footing. Instagram and this blog are the only places I share my artwork for the time being, and I don't have any plans to change that. It's enough.

As for what I want to do, creatively speaking, it's really the same as it ever was; I'm just hoping to get better at it. Draw more and improve my skills. Embroidery art, when I feel the pull to do that, preferably by challenging myself and pushing my own boundaries. And writing. I have some writing goals I want to make happen this year and I'll talk about them more at a later date. And dabble. Sewing? Yes. Knitting and crochet? Yes. Painting? Alcohol ink markers? Paint pens? Printmaking? Yes, yes, yes, yes. There's so much out there and so much I'd like to try.

I also struggled with whether or not to re-open my shop. In the end, I decided that I like selling pieces to people who appreciate them. That's a good feeling! So, I re-opened it, but with a few changes. One, I did not re-activate every piece. I started thinking about some of them and realized that I want to keep them. There are a few of my embroidery pieces that I love so much I don't know if I'm every going to feel okay with letting them go. So, onto my walls they will go and maybe someday I'll make new pieces that are similar that I am willing to part with. Two, I removed all of my patterns. I have always been ambivalent about making them, so I decided to not have them available. I'm not totally sure what I'll do with them in the future, but for now, they can wait in the wings. 

I've simplified everything having to do with HaikuCat, and for now, it's just this blog and my IG account as the forward-facing parts of my art practice. And my Etsy shop, into which I hope to add a few things every so often, as I finish them up. We'll see how things go.

Anyway, here's a photo of a doodle-style picture I finished up recently. It felt so good to just let loose and let the markers flow as they wanted to. There's nothing pre-determined here. Just making marks.