I officially launched Wishmoon Studio on October 1st, 2019. In a couple of days, it’ll be five years of my little creative venture out in the world. I simultaneously can and can’t believe it.

It took a long time to carve out the shape of Wishmoon Studio as a venture. By that I mean what I wanted it to be – and, in some ways more importantly, what I didn’t want it to be – how my life molds around it and vice versa, and its purpose. My idea was simple: Make my art, put it out in the world. Hopefully connect with people because of it.

But sometimes the simplest shapes are the most challenging ones to make.

I had no intention to try to make Wishmoon Studio into “something”, whatever that means – a business that enabled me to quit my day job (nice, but unlikely), an influencer account (as if), etc. – but it’s hard not to feel the pressure to do that anyway. It’s an internalized thing, cultural, that you’re supposed to turn your hobby or passion into a business, and then into a successful business, as measured by all the cold-blooded metrics of capitalism. It comes with the unasked question, “Otherwise, what’s the point?”

Well, I’m interested in the Otherwise. I think there’s a whole lot of point in the Otherwise.

By my own measures, Wishmoon Studio has been successful in ways I could only hope for and ways I couldn’t have guessed. There are Wishmoon Studio prints and cards and stickers out in the world, on people’s walls, tucked up high on the mirror they look into every day, on their favorite water bottle. There’s a lovely shop in Portland that sells Wishmoon Studio items alongside creations from other makers. I get messages and emails from people who tell me they’ve picked my art to decorate their daughter’s room, to send to a friend going through a hard time, to remind themselves that they deserve to love themselves. There’re one-of-a-kind Wishmoon Studio originals out there, that people saw and said, “Oh yes, I must have this one.” They send me pictures of my art hanging by their desk, of their own art that they’re learning to make because they were encouraged by my exhortations for creativity, of their daughters proudly holding up my Bitty Girls prints. Do you know how amazing all of that is???

This is the Otherwise.

I have thought about closing down Wishmoon Studio several times. Especially this year: health scares, family health issues, loss, slow sales, worries for the future, the stage of life I’m in…all of these have contributed to a lack of creative energy that I’ve felt to varying degrees for awhile. Ebbs are a natural part of the creative flow, but having a venture that relies on your creative energy adds a pressure that can be…unhelpful. Truth be told, that was a risk that I worried about from the time I started contemplating this venture in the first place. It’s a big reason why I wanted to be very intentional about what I wanted Wishmoon to be. It’s hard enough sometimes to find creative energy anyway amidst regular life, maintaining a home, and of course having a day job. (That’s not even talking about living through the last five years, which you don’t need me to recount. You were there, you know.) Life comes at you fast. I didn’t and don’t want this outlet of mine to get lost in there.

Which is why I’ve asked myself many times: Do I still want to do this? Do I still want to incur expenses that may or may not be covered by sales? Do I still have the same desire to share what I’m making? My answers have varied at different times, and sometimes, the answers have been “no” to all three questions.

Creating is a form of putting your vulnerable heart into the world, and it can be really hard to do when you feel battered by life or need to focus your attention on other things for an extended time. This is where the internalized pressure to turn your passion into a side hustle can be especially deleterious; when you’re already feeling low is when you’re most susceptible to listening to that unhelpful voice saying this is yet another thing you’re not doing well, or enough. That toxic cultural obsession with success is insidious, and even when you are conscientious about definitively rejecting it, it seeps in right when you are least equipped to push back against it.

But this is also where that foundation of the Otherwise has helped me the most. Whenever I’ve felt wobbly about what I wanted next for Wishmoon Studio, focusing on the Otherwise helped strip out all that business-grind-side-hustle-ROI-speak garbage and ground myself on what the actual point always was.

Make my art, put it out in the world. Hopefully connect with people because of it.

I have no plan for Wishmoon Studio. Sure, I have ideas and projects I want to do or try, but I haven’t known what’s ahead for Wishmoon Studio since I first decided to start it. For as much of a planner as I am, there’s been a curious blank space in my brain where A Plan For Wishmoon Studio should be. It used to stress me out – how can I be launching/continuing/growing this venture without a plan??? – but I’ve made my peace with it. I make things sometimes, I share them sometimes, I sell them sometimes. That’s enough of a plan.

Happy Birthday, Wishmoon Studio. Here’s to five years in the Otherwise.