I used to think the hardest part of being an artist was making the work. It turns out, it’s everything around it. The thinking. The doubting. The starting again and again.

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.