Choosing your own way.

On showing up, trusting the process, and building something your own.

Valentine’s Day arrives with a lot of expectations attached to it.

But here in the studio, the day looks much like any other. The light is winter-soft. The work waits where I left it. There’s no grand gesture, just the familiar act of unlocking the door, sipping my morning coffee and beginning again.

Building this studio - and the business that holds it - has taught me that belief isn’t something you decide once and then possess. It’s something you practise. Every time you show up. Every time you choose to continue, even when the outcome remains unclear.

There are days when working for yourself feels expansive, and days when it feels exposed. Choosing your own way means there’s no external structure to lean on. The studio asks for presence rather than confidence. Attention rather than certainty.

Self-care, in this context, looks less like retreat and more like commitment. Protecting time for the work. Returning to unfinished paintings. Trusting that progress is happening even when it can’t yet be measured. Learning to move at a pace you can sustain.

Showing up day after day has a quiet power. Momentum builds in small, almost invisible ways. Paintings deepen. Skills sharpen. Trust grows - not just in the work, but in your ability to stay with it.

Building something of your own requires a particular kind of bravery. Not the dramatic kind, but the steady kind. The kind that keeps going without guarantees. The kind that believes in the value of what’s being made before there’s evidence to prove it.

Living unapologetically doesn’t mean being free of doubt. It means continuing alongside it. Letting uncertainty be part of the process rather than a reason to stop.

On a day often framed around outward expressions of love, I’m reminded that commitment to your work - and to the life you’re shaping - is a form of care. One that’s practical, embodied, and earned over time.

This is how trust is built.
This is how a studio becomes a practice.
This is how a business grows - quietly, steadily, by showing up.

Something to hold

On days when the work feels slow or uncertain, I try to remember this:

• It’s enough to show up. Even quietly. Even without clarity.

• Care can look like keeping the door open, returning to the same work, trusting that small efforts matter.

• You don’t have to feel brave to continue. Courage often arrives after the fact.

• Building something of your own takes time, and you’re allowed to take it.

• The way you’re working -steadily, honestly, at your own pace - is already a form of belief.

If nothing else, let this be close at hand:

You’re doing the work.
You’re allowed to grow slowly.
You’re allowed to believe in what you’re building.

That, too, is worth holding.