Hello Hello strangers!
Holy guacamole! This week marks the one year anniversary of this lil old blog here. Happy blog birthday R&T!
It’s been a while since we posted. What can I say? We fell hard into hibernation mode as winter flew past and 2016 lost some of it’s sparkly new year shine. We needed to take a moment to step back, refocus, and reset. Honestly, we were a little lost out there in for a while. Floating directionless in a sea of artistic confusion but BOOM here we are back at it again! Wind in our sails full of newfound drive and determination. We’re looking at this exciting one year mile stone as a moment for fresh start and chance to learn even more about art, creativity, and ourselves in the process.
The words we used
THE GOOD
Overall we had a ton of fun working on blog stuff this year! Looking back we discovered that the projects that we got most excited about sharing—the ones that brought us the most joy—were the one that we didn’t take too seriously. Fav examples include our mug shelves, branch installation, and our Make it Monday tile video. Our most recent bird inspired piece for the Durham Art Walk falls into that category too (more on this in an upcoming post). Reflecting on this past year was a nice reminder that just because we take our art seriously doesn’t mean that the art itself has to be serious all the time. We’ve decided we’ve just got to be into what we’re into and the rest of the world is going to have to be okay with that. At least that’s the plan anyway. Here’s to another year’s worth of art with a sense of humor and a dash of whimsy!
We learned that talking to others about their creative processes and art/work/life balance is still one of our favorite things ever. Everyone’s thoughts and stories bring some new spark of inspiration. We’ve got a couple of real exciting interviews in the works and we can’t wait to share them with y’all. A huge THANK YOU to all the artists we interviewed this past year. You are the best! Hugs and kisses and art forever!
THE BAD
We’ve learned a ton from the bumps in the road over the course of the last year too. Mostly, we learned over and over again that blogging life can be hard. It’s a new experiment for us to document our lives and creative process this way and it took some getting used to (and we’re still getting used to it). We struggled finding our voice, deciding what to share, and with faltering creative confidence. We got caught up in thinking about where we want to take the R&T project in the future and forgot to enjoy the present moment. We thought about quitting a million and two times. Finding balance – why are you so hard sometimes?!?!
Most of our struggles stemmed from trying to fit ourselves into a blogging box that didn’t quite suit us or our style. We learned more about our personal skill sets. Luke learned that editing images/video and writing code is fine, but he’d rather do anything else instead of writing posts. So we’re making some changes. We’ll still be collaborating on projects but I (Anna) will be doing the majority of the writing, while Luke takes on more editing and adding his two cents in later.
THE UGLY
We learned that if you force things, overwork things, or fake things – all the joy from your creative acts will be sucked out of the equation. Bummer town USA.
THE TAKEAWAY
The bottom line is we’re still hella jazzed about sharing projects and talking about art here on R&T. We’re continuing on the quest for balance. We’ll be shifting gears a bit on the blog. Focusing on our personal projects and spreading the creative mess around and adding a few new voices to the conversation. We can’t give all our secrets away just yet but we’re excited about what year 2 of R&T has in store! Onwards and upwards—adventure awaits.
Don’t think about making art, just get it done. Let everyone else decide it it’s good or bad, whether they love it or hate it While they are deciding, make even more art Andy Warhol
P.S.
It’s a two for one deal on the blog today. In the spirit celebration and NEW BEGINNINGS we’ve got our first ever curated playlist for your listening pleasure!
