Why not?!

On saying YES!

In the busy life I lived before moving here, I consistently overcommitted myself. When invited to participate in a new project, I very often impulsively and enthusiastically said YES!, usually before checking my calendar. Inevitably, my YES! often led to overdue realizations that I had stretched myself too thin, and then delays, cancelations, and apologies. I forced myself to start using the script, “I will think about it” as a pause button, a small but powerful tool to help me break this habit of overcommitting.

But strangely, since moving to Portugal and beginning this new life we are building here, saying YES! has come to mean something else entirely.

My YES! here, in this new context, is often a gateway to unexpected opportunities, creative adventures, and meaningful connections – even when the invitation doesn’t seem directly aligned with my long-term plans.

I realize that this likely sounds counterintuitive, so let me explain.

There are countless actions I could take to grow my art practice and business: improving my social media strategy, pitching workshops, contacting shops, networking more aggressively, sending my jewellery to influencers. I’ve experimented with some of these approaches, but I’ve got to tell you that the hustle of it all often leaves me feeling depleted and insecure, with a massive vulnerability hangover.

Quite early into this journey, I realized that if I wanted to remain true to myself, I needed to pursue a slower, more organic kind of growth. And I’ve discovered that this kind of growth depends on two things: connection and openness.

Connection begins with just showing up – to exhibition openings, workshops, markets, and community events. Accepting invitations when I can, even if the event doesn’t perfectly fit into my own interests and vision, has led to such awesome friendships and discoveries. There are so many people out there trying to build community and start meaningful projects, and simply showing up for one another matters more than we often realize.

Openness means resisting the urge to stay rigidly attached to my own carefully imagined path. Some of the most meaningful opportunities in my life here have come from invitations that initially seemed only loosely connected, or even completely unrelated, to what I thought I was trying to build.

Let me give you a few examples of this connection and openness in action.

Shortly after we arrived in Portugal, a woman named Filipa contacted me on Instagram because she had realized that we lived near each other. She invited me to join a small group of local female artisans who gathered occasionally to experiment, brainstorm, and share ideas.

I said YES!

At one of these gatherings, someone suggested that each of us teach the group a skill from our own practice. I volunteered to demonstrate small-scale raku and barrel firing techniques. One of the women there, Catarina, worked at the local library. She is one of those rare and wonderful humans who naturally brings people together – a connector – and she asked whether I might be interested in facilitating some kind of weekly activity for adults at the library.

I said YES!

And so I started facilitating a creative writing club at the library. I shared this on Instagram, alongside the photos of my morning walk and growing garden, and soon, I started receiving messages from folks telling me they wished they lived close enough to join, and – TA DA! – the idea for Thinking Through Your Pen, an online creative writing club, was born. It makes perfect sense, really, but I only arrived at the idea through a meandering path of YES!es.

Through Catarina, I also met Maria do Céu, who runs a co-working and co-living space. We began collaborating on events together, trading skills in a way that feels organic and meaningful. August and I help facilitate events in her space, and Maria helps us improve our Portuguese.

Through one of Maria’s events, I met Gaby, who later invited me to participate in the biannual markets she hosts at her home.

One YES! led to another, and another.

And somewhere along the way, a community slowly began to form around all these interconnected spaces and events. People from the writing club now attend the markets. People I met at other community events now join in on the writing club or Permission to Play.

I have a wonderful imagination, but I really don’t think I could have imagined this.

A similar, organically meandering path of YES!es led to the summer residency I will soon be facilitating.

Not long after we moved here, I visited a ceramic supply store in Porto. The woman working there asked where I lived. When she heard I was an English-speaking artist living in the north of Portugal, she asked if we knew Joy, an American potter based in Guimarães.

We didn’t, but of course, I looked her up right away, followed her online, and the next day, she messaged me asking whether I facilitated raku workshops.

Soon after, August and I attended an exhibition opening she was part of, then a few events at her studio, and before long a friendship had formed.

Joy later invited me to facilitate a small raku workshop for one of her residencies. Then last summer, she invited me back to lead a two-week residency focused on jewellery-making, beads, and alternative kilns.

And now, this year’s residency has evolved into something even more exciting.

When Joy first invited me back again for this summer’s roster of residencies, I assumed I would simply expand on last year’s ideas. But she encouraged me to integrate the kinds of creative explorations I’ve been immersed in this past year, including projects like Permission to Play and Thinking Through Your Pen.

So this summer’s residency has become a two-week creative exploration centered around uncovering voice and story, through creative writing and playful experimentation with clay. From June 28th until July 11th, I will be facilitating a residency I have titled The Language of Small (But Mighty) Things: exploring voice and story through clay. Together, we’ll use daily multimedia prompts, quickwrites, and creative challenges in our making to uncover and strengthen the stories behind, and within, the things we create.

I honestly don’t think I’ve been this excited about a project in a very, very long time.

It feels like all the threads of the past few years – jewellery-making, ceramics, storytelling, community-building, experimentation, teaching – have slowly woven themselves together into something that feels incredibly meaningful and deeply me.

And all of it began with a few small YES!es.

If this residency sounds like something you, or someone you know, might enjoy, I would love for you to have a look at the website and learn more. We’ll spend two weeks making, writing, experimenting, sharing meals, exchanging ideas, and creating in the beautiful city of Guimarães. It will be restorative, transformative, and heaps of fun, I promise you. This invitation is most certainly deserving of an enthusiastic YES! Join me!

Or… join me for some of the other fun things going on over here…

Thinking Through Your Pen

As we head into a busy season of markets and gardening and summer adventures, I find myself occupied with lots of different projects, and have thus decided to reduce the sessions available to participate in the online creative writing club. I will now be facilitating only one weekly session, on Sundays at 20:00 Western European Summer Time. Each session involves a series of quickwrite prompts, generally thematically linked. We just had heaps of fun with two weeks of writing centred on all things superhero. Before that, we explored a variety of different poetry styles, using Spring as the focus of our writing. I try to alternate so that one week is more focused on our own lived experience, while the next is perhaps more imaginative. I invite you to come check it out!

https://us06web.zoom.us/j/86799810737?pwd=ULH3LPvP5828vQlIFauNzksXOOYCBh.1

Permission to Play

Well, if you are reading this right when it hits your inbox, then you are receiving one last reminder about the next Permission to Play session, which is happening TODAY, at 16:00 WEST. If you can’t make today, then I invite you to join me in June, or July. Put it in your calendar. Permission to Play is always on the third Saturday of the month. Same time, same place. No need for fancy art supplies. Pen and paper will do. Come and spend an hour engaged in playful creativity, with no pressure to finish or to share.

https://us06web.zoom.us/j/88500956878?pwd=tGG5Fuc326AFcSwHFaibdoyUNUkoff.1

A Little Less Conversation, A Little More Action, Please

This is a little something modeled after a monthly event I used to host at the last school where I worked. There, we called it Shut Up and Write, and the idea was that students could show up on a Wednesday evening and put a dent in all the assignments they had been putting off. It was slow burning but became wildly successful, because the truth is that it is simply much easier to get difficult things done when you are doing it in the company of others, even when that togetherness is digital. So, I invite you to come and check it out. The next session will be Saturday, May 30th, from 14:00 until 16:00.

https://us06web.zoom.us/j/81516924637?pwd=xbDoiRrSLqAaB7bWWeTHWKaPs1MaQe.1

A few other things to bring to your attention…

• Maria do Céu of Nowhere Desk is hosting another market on Saturday, June 6th, from 14:30-17:30. The market will feature local artisans and producers, including some lovely ladies from Maria’s village. I invite you to come check it out, and if you are interested in being a vendor, you can fill out this form.

• Now that my studio is built, I can finally host folks to come and make things. How exciting is that?! I am offering a variety of studio experiences, each ranging from 1-4 hours. I also am totally open to offering private lessons, and other workshops – in person or online. If you are interested, please message me!

• Keep your eyes on the shop. I have had trouble prioritizing my making lately, but with my new space taking shape, I feel re-energized and motivated, so I anticipate soon having some fun new things to offer in my Etsy shop, like some especially “extra” bells, wearable vases, and fidget spinner necklaces!!