When I was a little girl, I loved to hold my breath. I especially loved to hold it through the long, dark tunnels we passed through on our trips to visit our Texas cousins each year. As we drove through the stone channels bisecting the Ozark mountains, I often competed, both with myself and my siblings, on who could last the longest. Just as the hood of our big Suburban touched the shadowed edge of the tunnel, I would take a tremendous, desperate breath of air, intent on making it the entire length without opening my mouth.

After a certain point, however, that breath, which had seemed so refreshing at first, began to feel more like a burden, every passing second providing less oxygen… less purpose to my body.

 

 

As I’ve been working on my 365, I’ve begun to realize that this project is a lot like that breath of air. Like taking that desperate gulp at the beginning of my childhood tunnels, this project was something I needed when I started it. I had been so entrenched in the process of planning and executing my images that I had almost forgotten how to be spontaneous, or how to create, just for the sake of creating. Over the past six months of constantly creating new work, I rediscovered that ability, bringing a handful of images to life that, despite a lack of planning, turned out beautifully.

However, like that pent-up air in the tunnels of my childhood, I have come to the decision that it is time to let the old air out and breath in anew. This is not to say that my 365 was a waste of time. Rather, I think working on this project was crucial in helping me in creating habits and acquiring skills that will make me better on many levels. A better photographer. A better artist. More organized. More ready to stop thinking and start acting.

 

 

It taught me how to be creative again, something I think I had lost a little bit of in the past three years. I had become so entrenched in the process of planning to perfection that I needed to once again learn how to spontaneously grab a dress and my camera and run off into the woods to tell a story. Because somewhere in the middle is that happy spot. Where my images are purposeful, but not excruciatingly slow in their creation. Where I no longer find myself delaying because everything isn’t “perfect.” My 365 taught me that there is no perfection… there is only growth.

 

 

It also taught me how to share. To show all the details behind the scenes in a way that felt genuine to myself. Sharing all the videos, blog posts. and sketches gave me a way to be a better storyteller. I believe that, in some small way, I learned how to bring you, even if just for the length of one blog post, into my world and immerse you in the fairy tales I envision.

So to say I am sad to be leaving this 365 behind is both incredibly accurate and strangely wrong. The perfectionist in me.. the finisher, the “DON’T QUIT!”-er, absolutely despises the fact that I’m doing this. Because I know in my heart that I am capable of finishing the last 215 days. However, my heart knows that it is time to release and breathe in again. To turn my attention to something even better.

 

And that is Passages.

 

 

A new series that has been growing in my heart since July 2014 and will now, finally, come to life. Because of what I’ve learned between Days 1 and 138, the story of a young girl named Chloe, who ventures out into the world, intent on starting her own adventure, won’t just be a story for me to read to you. It will be a story we can read together.

Through small stumbles, moments of despair, lessons learned, and challenges triumphed, we can watch Chloe’s travels together, as they lead her to the person she is meant to be: a tenacious heroin, intent on, and capable of, achieving all that she was destined to be.

 

 

But I want this to be special. Like a handwritten note in the mail, or a favorite childhood story read just before drifting off to sleep…

So I’ll only be sharing it with my email subscribers.

If you’re not already an email subscriber, you can join and read along with me by filling out the form below. New images, behind the scenes videos, and excerpts of stories will all be sent to your inbox, where you can join and share all the updates and news about this exciting new series I’m thrilled to begin.

Subscribe Here!

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You know that feeling you get when you’re just about to open a brand new book and dive into a new world? Well that’s how I’m feeling right now as I sit here, typing this and anticipating next week’s email arrival in your inbox. That’s when the story begins! I hope you’ll join me!

 

Yours,