I’ve been noticing a few things lately.

In December, our daughter bought a camera while we were on holiday. An actual camera. One used simply to take photographs, not texts, not messages, just photographs.

Then I heard about something called a “Brick” on a podcast. A small physical device paired with an app that locks distracting apps on your phone. You tap your phone to it to block them, and tap again to unblock them. A physical barrier to doomscrolling. A literal object enforcing attention.

What if we skipped the resolutions and just kept going? In this January studio note, I reflect on choosing gentle continuation over dramatic reinvention, and why devotion, not hustle, is where meaningful creative work truly begins.

I recently listened to a podcast about storytelling, and one project really stuck with me.

In 2009, two writers launched Significant Objects. They bought cheap, second-hand items - Pez dispensers, salt shakers, rubber duckies - and asked writers to invent fictional backstories for each one. Then they sold the objects on eBay with these imagined histories.

I come from a family with green fingers. As a kid, I would wander around the garden with my mom and gran, not really paying attention to the names of plants I was being taught. Fast forward a few decades, and here I am with a small avocado nursery of my own.