for first-time visitors

TLDR: It's my first time here too.

I've been packing my prints for the last couple days, getting them ready to ship out in case people actually order them when my shop launches, and getting sweaty doing it. And I've been thinking.

It's a blessing that I have the ability to start my own business without worrying about the outcome. Right now, I'm in a place financially where I can sink money in prints, subscriptions, materials, you name it, in the hope that someday it'll come back to me through my art.

I used to have a mindset that it was too risky to pursue a living through art. I went to UCLA and surrounded myself with exceptional, high achieving peers. I studied English, worked at the newspaper, and thought I'd be a writer.

Writing stories was slow and frustrating. I loved doing it, but it didn't feel intuitive for me the way drawing did. I hadn't been telling stories out of instinct since I was a kid. What had I been doing? Doodling. Observing things. The colors, the curves, the shifts in light.

After graduating last year, I went on a backpacking trip in Australia in between visits to various family members. Surprisingly, I met so many people from other countries, mainly Europeans, all around my age and all sharing a carefree attitude about where they'd spend the next month, or six months, or two years. They didn't care much what they did in between cheap excursions. Picking fruit? Sure. Manning sailboats? Why not?

They worked at hostels, coffee shops, travel agencies, and restaurants. They'd stay for a month or two and move on to the next town. There was a whole economy for them in Cairns, a tropical city near the Great Barrier Reef that, for this very reason, was especially impacted by the pandemic.

I'm a little ashamed to admit that the part of me who wanted to make money, find stability, and start a great career was appalled by these backpackers, despite being one of them. It wasn't just because some of them needed to put on a shirt and deodorant. It was because they had a freedom I'd been denying myself for no reason. Mentally and physically, any path was open to them. Why was I holding myself back? More importantly, why was I in such a rush?

Now that I have some skin in the game of this print shop (don't ask me how much I've spent on mailers, prints, shipping, the like, I haven't counted it up yet) - I've been trying to ask myself the same question.

What's the rush?

If I can get this shop up, even if no one buys a thing, I can still say I did it. My goal here is to get in the habit of taking risks. Not the financial or time commitment kind of risks, but the risk of doing something you really care about. It's one thing to fail at your day job, but there really isn't anything scarier than failing at your calling.

And I might do just that. All I have to say is, welcome to the show, and buy my damn prints!!!