As 2025 winds down and I start looking toward the new year, I’ve hit that strange part of every art-show artist’s calendar where we essentially start from scratch. My 2025 show schedule is almost wrapped, and a small mountain of applications has been sent out into the universe… now I just wait for results.

Did you know all the shows I do are juried? Which means every year, I have no idea what my schedule will look like. I toss all my cards into the air and hope the right ones land face up. The process starts months in advance: crafting the “perfect” set of 3–5 images that feel cohesive and tell the story of my work. These images carry so much weight that I spend hours obsessing over every detail—what pieces to include, how they’re positioned, what colors they should be. It’s agonizing, and there’s virtually no feedback until the acceptances or rejections finally roll in.

One year I was waitlisted almost everywhere. Truly, it’s a wild way to make a living. But aside from becoming a pet sitter, I’m pretty sure my skillset (and temperament, lol) makes me more or less unemployable—so here we are…waiting.