When Things Don't Go According to Plan

I am a planner. I always have been. Despite my longing to be more like friends I admire who can change course at the blink of an eye, that's just not how I was wired. I circle dates on the calendar. I make lists. I create things for months in anticipation of a particular moment. I imagine how it will feel when all that preparation finally comes together.

But then sometimes, no matter how much I've planned - it just doesn't.

This summer, I spent months preparing for what was supposed to be my last show of the season. I made new work, planned my display, gathered everything I would need, and looked forward to bringing it all together one more time before the season came to a close.

And then I made the difficult decision not to attend.

It wasn’t an easy decision. When you have invested so much time and energy into something, walking away from it can feel a little like admitting defeat.

But I’m learning that sometimes changing the plan isn’t the same thing as failing.

Sometimes, things just don’t work out the way we expected them to; and sometimes, that unexpected turn gives us room to notice something else. For me, that something else has been exploring the one thing I've always avoided: portraits.

The Shape of Shelter - 24x36"

The Last Dream Before Dawn - 18x24"

Portraiture is something I’ve been exploring more and more recently. I like to think of it as a spin-off from the wildlife and nature work that many of you know me for, and I’m enjoying the challenge of following my curiosity rather than worrying too much about where it is supposed to lead.

There’s something about portraits that feels incredibly intimate. A landscape can suggest a feeling. An animal can embody a particular quality or story. But a face asks you to really look; to pay attention to expression, light, shape, and all the tiny details that make someone feel unmistakably themselves.

I’m not sure yet where this new direction will take me, but maybe that’s the point.

Humans like me spend so much of our lives trying to plan what comes next. Planning gives me a sense of certainty; but creativity has a funny way of reminding me that some of the most interesting things happen when the plan changes.

The show I spent months preparing for didn’t happen for me the way I had envisioned it, but I still made the work; I still learned something. Somewhere in the middle of all that uncertainty, I found myself trying something new. Maybe I don’t always need the ending I planned in order for the work to have been worthwhile.

So as summer winds down, I’m trying to give myself permission to be a little more curious about what comes next; not because I have a perfectly mapped-out plan, but because I don’t. Right now I’m beginning to think that might be the more interesting place to be.

Thank you, as always, for following along with me as I make, experiment, change direction, and occasionally figure things out as I go.

Here’s to the plans that work out, and to the ones that lead us somewhere we never expected to go.