The Lessons from 2025
finding a reason to stay
Happy New Year!
After starting a daily creative practice in 2023 and giving myself permission to experiment widely in 2024, my intention for 2025 was go deeper. Looking back now, I’m struck by how expansive this year has felt precisely because of that focus.
This spring, I began working with my first gallery, Tacit Collective, and now have two collections with them. In May, I celebrated my birthday by betting on myself and participating in my first art fair, Saatchi’s The Other Art Fair. When I returned to TOAF in November, I felt grounded, confident, and like a seasoned profesh. Along with the honor of Curator’s Choice for my painting, Sky Full of Song.
This summer brought my first custom commission for a friend’s beautiful home, and in August I co-organized and participated in earth body, my first group show in NYC and one of the true highlights of the year. Fall followed with Chance Encounters on the Upper West Side, my first bit of press, and the immense pleasure of painting my first mural in a Chelsea tech office. (I love my friend Hannah for putting it into proper perspective: “Your work is now permanently on display in Chelsea!!”)
As proud as I am of these firsts, what I cherish most are the relationships formed and strengthened along the way.
To everyone who has been moved enough by my work to bring it into your homes and offices: thank you. This is the greatest support and compliment you can give a working artist and it’s what makes the work sustainable.
To the gallerists who believed in my vision and championed me: thank you. I’m honored to be in partnership with you and to be co-building a more thoughtful future for art collecting.
To everyone who bought a collage kit: thank you for making art with me!
To everyone who came to open studios, the art fairs, group shows, or along for a gallery crawl: thank you for trusting me with your afternoon.
To everyone who has joined this mailing list, read my Substack, or followed along on Instagram or TikTok: thank you for your attention in an attention economy. I don’t take it lightly.
To my LOML: I owe my beginnings to you. Thank you for the support, the guidance, and the always-honest critiques.
And to my fellow self-taught baddies: thank you for celebrating and commiserating, swapping intel, creating safe spaces, and showing up with vulnerability and generosity. I’m deeply grateful to be in community with you.
A Reason to Stay
As someone who is naturally more divergent than convergent, thrilled by novelty, and prone to an evening (afternoon and morning) scroll, my go deeper theme pushed me outside my comfort zone. It made me realize that sometimes I use new ideas as a way to abandon ideas rather than move through the difficulty of committing to creation and all the deep thought, hard work, and facing self-doubt that making something from nothing requires.
Of course, sometimes it is prudent to pivot, cut losses, or let go. But as someone who has frequently started over, moved cities, or changed careers, I am already well practiced in that lesson.
Go deeper was the lesson I needed this year. It taught me how to stay.
To stay with an idea until its paths are fully explored.
To stay committed after the novelty wears off.
To stay with the belief that I can do this.
As always, thanks for being here and making space for art in your life.
Gabrielle