2026 sounds like the distant future to my brain that came of age through the 1970s and 80s. but it’s now. it’s the year that lays ahead of us all. and it started off for me personally quite nicely but in terms of the world and the u.s., not so great.
i made it through one of the more hectic holiday pet work seasons i’ve had in my 15 years, and still managed to see friends on christmas eve, christmas day, new year’s eve and day. new year’s eve was particularly lovely, spent mostly around a beautiful fire in the backyard at the holiday house surrounded by beloveds, reading aloud and burning our daily affirmation pages from louise hay’s calendar. it was mellow and perfect. new year’s day was spent again at the holiday house, eating black eyed peas and cabbage and cornbread, the traditional southern good-luck-for-the-coming-year meal, and playing a domino game called mexican train. i’m not usually one much for games but i liked this one, despite only winning one round – the final one – all day.
i sprained my ankle last monday so have been nursing that all week. i hobbled my way through my dog walks which were thankfully minimal this week due to the holidays and finally went to urgent care on friday to get xrays so i could rule out a fracture. nothing broken, but the radiologist did note swelling in the joint and osteoarthritis, which does run in the family. so i guess in the new year i need to step up my exercising and do some strength training to help combat that.
this weekend i’ve been laying low per doctor’s orders, staying off my ankle, watching a lot of tv, and trying to ease my way back into the studio. it’s a mess in there so i’m slowly cleaning up and organizing so i might soon get back to creating. i’ve picked a new journal to start for the year, though i kinda feel like i’m not done with the last one yet – there’s a lot of blank pages i didn’t fill. my art journals have been centered around whatever online art class i’ve been taking and so usually only start in february or march but i’ve gone ahead and started recording my daily gratitudes in it and will maybe use the remainder of the blank pages from last year’s journal to play with paint until i fill it up.
i’m pondering how my year in art/creativity will be structured this year. for the past 4 years everything has revolved around an online art class. 2022 was a lot of little free classes and then the paid 3 week art2life class called spark. 2023 was louise fletcher‘s find your joy preceded by a bunch of quickie free classes. 2024 was when i took the plunge and did art2life’s CVP the first time. and i repeated it last year only because i managed to get their affiliate program to pay for it. so what will this year bring?
i considered once again signing up for louise’s momentum course which is a 6 month deep dive (only for folks who’ve already taken find your joy) that sounds appealing to me. but it’s also CVP’s 10 year anniversary and its creator nick wilton says he has a lot of new stuff in store for the big celebration, so it’s tempting. as an alum it doesn’t cost me as much and i can try the affiliate program again – maybe i’ll get lucky and someone will sign up under me and help pay for it. it’s not that i feel like i really need the actual coursework again, as i think i’ve gotten most of it in the two years i’ve taken it. but i do REALLY like the structure of the 3+ month class and the community and just the energy of it all. it’s motivating and inspiring and keeps me accountable to my practice for the duration, keeps me in the studio following along. and i am still at a place with my art practice where i guess i need that… as evidenced by the fact that i’ve barely even been in my painting studio for the past few months. (i’ve printed tshirts and made protest posters and stickers but not painted abstractly at all.)
i’m still in louise’s art tribe, her monthly community subscription, which i joined a few months back after leaving art2life’s substantially more expensive academy, which i always do for a few months post CVP and realize i can’t afford to stay in. i like having these art communities online even though my participation in them ebbs and flows over the course of the year. it’s just nice being connected to other artists who are striving to get better, seeing other peoples’ art, and having a place i can ask questions that only other artists can answer. but my time in art tribe might be waning as i haven’t really been taking much advantage of it and i should be conserving my money for CVP in case i don’t get any affiliate sign-ups.
looking back over 2025, i do feel like my art practice picked up a bit, in terms of it being a business/making money. i finally made and stocked an online webshop on my website and even had a few sales! i made more from art sales (online and my pop-up holiday sale at my house) + the affiliate program than i have in years. it’s still not very much in the totality of my yearly income but it’s inching along. if i can best what i made last year this upcoming year, then i’ll truly be making progress.
the longterm goal still remains to get my art practice and business to a place where i’m making more of my income from my creativity than from my pet biz so i can slowly step away from the pet biz. i doubt i’ll ever be able to fully leave it – though that would be lovely – but it would be nice to quit dogwalking and only do cat sitting. cats are more flexible in terms of scheduling and are less physically taxing, leaving me more time and energy for art. so maybe 2026 will be an even bigger step in that direction. stay tuned to find out! and thanks for reading and following and being part of my journey.