In my last email, I wrote about all the cool things I want to make. Stories and drawings and essays and paintings and books and local events and collaborations and and and . . . There are so many things!
But there are also so many cool things I’ve already made. Stories and drawings and essays and paintings I created and didn’t share, or created and only shared once, or created and immediately forgot about.
And though I do want to see as many of my new ideas come to life as possible, I also want to give my past creations a fair chance—at being seen, at making an impact, at inspiring someone else or maybe even myself to think/feel/show up differently in their/my life, and, yes, at making money, too.
So today I thought I’d share a few of the cool things I’ve already made with you, like this piece I finished earlier this week:
“You’re Doing Just Fine.” (11 x 14 in.)
It started with the little collage clouds. I’ve been sick with the flu this week and resting/reading/coughing a ton, which is good, but it’s left me feeling like I’m falling behind in basically every area of my life. The message in the clouds was a gentle reminder to the part of me struggling to relax into rest: You’re doing just fine.
Then, as I was trying to decide where to actually put the little collage clouds, I remembered this pink sky painting I made in 2023 (and hadn’t thought about since). The fact that these two projects—from two different times in my life and two different versions of me—came together so seamlessly feels like proof the words are true. I’m doing just fine, and probably better than I think I am most days.
It reminds me of another message I painted in 2023:
“I Don’t Know What I’m Doing and That’s Okay” (11 x 14 in.)
This was at the start of my creative journey, and these words brought me comfort on the days I felt like I was flailing and failing to figure it out, with “it” being anything from a very small, specific task to my life as a whole. They still do. “I don’t know what I’m doing and that’s okay” reminds me that I can not know without being wrong. I can be confused without being lost. I can feel lost and still be going the right way. Just because it feels like something has gone wrong doesn’t mean something has gone wrong, at least not necessarily. Learning to understand that nuance has been hugely important to my creative life.
Which brings me to this piece from the more recent past:
“What else could be true?” (5.5 x 8.5 in.)
I wrote this haiku while sitting with some hard feelings by the Brooklyn Piers. Like the last piece, this one reminds me to consider the nuance: that there are infinite possible feelings and stories, and the ones I’m holding on to now aren’t necessarily the ones I’ll hold on to forever. Maybe there are other, truer stories I could be telling myself instead. Ones that make me feel more empowered than defeated; more connected than misunderstood. It’s a gentle redirection away from cynicism toward curiosity that brings me relief on life’s harder days.
There are so many cool things I want to make. There are also so many cool things I’ve already made—including these three reminders for making it through the restful days, the feels-like-I’m-flailing days, and the hard-feeling days. My hope is to do right by both: to create prolifically AND share my creations prolifically.
What cool things have you already made that it might be time to share again?
Comment and let me know.
And if you’d like to purchase one of these original pieces, email me at dylanmichaeljulian@gmail.com. :)
Want more like this? Subscribe to get my words delivered to your email.