A snapshot of who I was

Published about 17 hours ago • 2 min read

Dear Reader,

One thing I'm thinking about

At the end of last year, I made a vision board. This year, I looked back at it, line by line.

Some of it I crushed. Some of it I had to let go of. Hawaii rained the entire time we were there. And what surprised me is that the stories behind each goal turned out to be more interesting than a list of hits and misses.

The main thing

Here’s what I took from it: a vision board is a snapshot of who you were when you made it.

By the end of the year you’re a different person. In between, you’ve lived a life, you’ve grown, you’ve changed. So when you look back at the board, it can feel like it was made by someone you don’t quite recognize.

That changes how you read your misses.

I put 10,000 YouTube subscribers on my board. I’m at just over 6,000. If I only look at that number, it feels like I fell short. But I started the year at 3,000. I doubled it. That’s the part the number on the board couldn’t show me.

I put a monthly print subscription on there too. I closed it. At first that felt like failing. Then I realized it wasn’t. It was finished. It made me a better artist, and it took more courage to close it than to keep forcing it.

And the goal that gave me the most, the monthly block printing workshops, looks nothing like what I pictured when I wrote it down. Watching people go from never holding a carving tool to making their own pattern collections is the best thing that happened to me this year.

If you want to look back at your own year, try this. For each goal, skip the hit-or-miss question and ask two others:

  1. What happened between where I started and where I ended up?
  2. What did this give me, even if I didn’t reach it?

You might be surprised by what’s in the answers.

Also lately

I walked through the whole board, goal by goal, in a new video: click to watch

I’m making a board for 2027, and I’m going to hold this one a little more loosely. If you want to make one too, here’s the Canva template I use. It’s the same format, and it’s fully customizable.

And the six desert pieces for Vroman’s are still coming together. More soon.

Hit reply and tell me: what’s one thing on your board (or in your head) that looked nothing like you expected once you lived it?

Warmly,

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Block printing artist inspired by California's coastal and desert wildlife, building a creative business one carved block at a time — while working full-time as a book conservator. I share honest process, real lessons (including the ones that didn't go as planned), and behind-the-scenes updates from the studio, alongside new block printing videos every other week on YouTube.