It’s that time!
The end of my month-long residency at the Louisville Public Library is approaching, and it’s been an exciting month. I’ve had a really wonderful experience building out this next body of work and leading workshops, and I think I’m ending on a high note, being surrounded by so much love and community. Alongside that warm, fuzzy feeling, though, has been a bigger question lingering in the background: what does teaching look like for me moving forward?
As I’ve mentioned in earlier posts, I’ve been organizing and leading workshops throughout the month, and it’s been incredibly gratifying to share so much about my identity and my work. The structure of it all—the planning, the logistics, the rhythm—has reminded me of my time in Alaska, when I was running workshops and paint parties regularly through my previous business, Play with Pigments. There were a lot of pros to that pace, especially the financial stability and the feeling that I could truly sustain myself through my art.
When I look back on that time, I remember that security fondly. But I also remember how exhausting it was. I was constantly moving, constantly preparing, and constantly teaching. In the middle of all that, I didn’t have the time or space to create new work for myself in the way I wanted to. Now, being back in a similar rhythm, I find myself wondering about that balance again, or if it’s even a balance I want to try to maintain at all.
It’s also made me think more broadly about teaching, and what I want it to look like in my life. I’m still figuring that out. Do I increase the amount of workshops I teach? Shift toward more private teaching? Scale back entirely? I also work as a teacher with an art academy, and over the past few months I’ve felt really grounded in the teaching role I’ve stepped into. But at the same time, I can feel myself approaching the edge of something new—like I’m being asked to reconsider how I want to spend my time and energy moving forward.
It’s easy to say that I just need to find a “balance” between everything. But the reality is, we all have the same 24 hours, and I’m not sure mine are meant to hold all of it at once. Maybe this moment isn’t about balancing everything I’ve already been doing. Maybe it’s about letting something shift, and allowing myself to move forward differently. For now, I know something is shifting, and I’m ready to follow it.
Yours truly,
Makara