It’s rejection season, baby. For creative beings who bravely put themselves out there this fall and winter, I tip my hat to you—regardless of the outcome. The first months of the year are a notoriously brutal season for artists because, while a small percentage of us just received happy news (you finally got that grant!), the vast majority of working artists are questioning why they poured hours of their precious free time into applications that go nowhere.

When it comes to repetitive tasks, no one does it better than Wall-E. Besides being undeniably cute, the dude really knows how to roll up his…sleeves? and get to work. When I’m knees deep in emails, laundry, accounting or [insert your least favorite, most mind numbing task] I try to channel Wall-E. But his space odyssey is more than an allegory for the power of perseverance. It also foreshadows a world in which humans are increasingly detached from their planet—and themselves. A world not unlike our own.

In our newest series, “Gentle Reminders,” we provide working artists with essential and convenient reminders for the care and maintenance of a nimble and flourishing creative practice. If your art is a garden, this series is about the continual weeding, watering, and miscellaneous upkeep it requires. To kick it off, we’re digging into the importance of regularly rewriting your artist statement.

The best thank you note I got this year was a 16-word email. But before we unpack what made it special, we need to talk…

Fellow perfectionists, I invite you to imagine the following scenario: you just printed a huge, adhesive sticker. It’s the height of a fully grown hobbit, and feels like a perfect, two-dimensional newborn (“they have your eyes!”). Now, imagine slowly unpeeling it, heart pounding, painfully aware that you have one chance to get it right. To your horror, the sticker begins clinging desperately to every surface it can find, including your skin, your clothes, and itself.

I’ll never forget the first time I took myself on an artist date. Okay, to be honest, I forget most of the details. But I’ll never forget how it felt. The clarity! The creative freedom! The subversive undertones. It was my first taste of anti-productivity.

A high stakes barter exchange takes place in my apartment every morning. My cat, Zart, has determined that the fair market value of one (1) hour of additional sleep in the morning is equivalent to ¼ cup of dry food. Most recently, he has stipulated that ½ can of wet food can be exchanged for two (2) hours of additional sleep. If neither of these goods appear in his bowl at 6AM, I will not receive any additional sleep.

My measuring stick for rising inflation is the cost of an iced oat milk vanilla matcha latte. It used to be $5, then $6, now a harrowing $7. Every time I reach the checkout screen, a familiar, condescending voice comes blaring through my head:

Being transparent with your followers, friends, and family is scary. I’ll go first: