Significance > Success

Photo by Rush Jagoe

As each year comes to a close, we start the endless cycle of reflecting and projecting. Cindy and I pray over a word define the next 12 months. This year hit a little different.

There was a stirring already happening in my soul long before the clock struck midnight this time last year. A longing for freedom. Freedom takes the shape of many things for each of us. For some its relational, others it is financial, some to leave a 9-5 but for me it meant to feel the unbridled nature of creation deep in my soul.

Flash back to January 2025: The way the year started out was nothing remotely similar to “freedom,” in fact there was a heaviness that can’t be described.

Cindy is my business partner, but she’s also my best friend. She was in a season that was marked with heavy weight….the weight that comes by walking through the end stages of cancer with her mom. And let me just say, when she’s walking through the valley, then I’m in the valley too. It is hard to look ahead at earthly goals when watching a loved one suffer and their imminent death is your reality.

The struggle is real, but so is the juggle! In the season of caretaking and loss, the Studio continued on….commissions continued to roll in, opportunity continued to call and by the grace of God, we kept our heads above the water (barely).

In just a couple months, we cared for and buried Cindy’s sweet mom, was featured in Garden and Gun Magazine, and had our first Museum Exhibition. It was in those weeks that things started to pivot in my heart.

Is the goal to grow for “success” or is growth a path to greater significance?

If I am being honest, the hype and attention that came with the success from Garden and Gun was a checkpoint in my career, but mostly in my life. I became keenly aware of how many people were watching me. It was unsettling. Not because I was worried about people liking me or not. I have an abundance of love and support (mixed in with some haters). I am generally a happy person. Anxiety is not a struggle that I battle, but I felt it.

Influence is a great responsibility and this is the point in my journey that my mindset truly started to change about my gift and its purpose. Being creative is a gift, it's a chosen calling from God Himself, but influence is a responsibility.

Summer approached and so did Plein Wild with fellow artist and friend, Ellen Ogden. Opening night was indeed WILD! We both were just a few pieces short of selling out on the first day! It was a hard fought uphill climb to get our art on the wall by the gallery deadlines, but that hill gave birth to new concepts for future shows with a purposeful body of work. Stay tuned for Plein Wild 2.0, 3.0……. More on that later!

As Plein Wild was coming to a close, alligator season was just beginning! This year we kicked off the season with an invitation to be included in the Governor’s Annual Alligator Hunt - a multi-day hunt with hundreds of people (from both sides of the aisle) seeing the printing process first-hand. That weekend was surreal but the opportunity was very real. Our Studio family hit another growth milestone that weekend. Gators from that weekend went to all corners of our beautiful state and across our great country. And somewhere mixed in all of that was a feature in 64 Parishes Magazine.

I don't know what all of the success has to do with freedom. To be honest, all of it came with some chains. But I feel in my spirit that there is a different kind of freedom waiting to be set loose.

When the year started and as Cindy and I prayed over direction and what we felt was a defining word, we were in the midst of a season of incredible heaviness. But “freedom” continued to resonate and we both felt that it was God speaking.

If I can be real, I loved the word freedom because it was self-serving. The kind that gave back to ME. The kind that gave Me greater comfort. But as 2025 unfolded, it became more evident with each milestone, that the kind of freedom God wants is so much more.

I want to be free to live a life of purpose more than the comfort of prosperity. And maybe, just maybe, if I live in the fullness of who I am created to be, somebody else may experience freedom. What if my obedience to God is directly related to the breaking of chains for somebody else…for their freedom story to begin?

My job as an artist isn’t to chase success. It's to be the creative daughter He chose me to be and to create work that points to Him. It's to have a heart that wants significance and eternal impact more than success!

Lord, help me to have an eternal heart and not a viral mindset. I submit my eyes, mind, and hands to create….and I trust You for the harvest!