Shortly before the New Year, I met with an old friend from early days here in the ATL who had happened to be back in town with various family stuff. He asked what I’d been up to these past covid years and, more importantly, where I will be heading.
It was easy to answer and show what I’ve been up to (as he’d been following my photographic journey on my instagram), but not so easy to answer the rest of his questions. For the rest of the internet world– it seems like I’ve disappeared.
Admittedly, 2023 was a busy year for me in real life with many family things going on that changed how I spend my weekends as well as an explosion of work and recreational travel. As such, I’ve gone relatively silent online. Not streaming or putting any new effort into artwork or the merchandise shop.
I’ve really not sorted out what the plans are for 2024. I do want to be creative and make content while living my life. That said, trying to do it in a structured manner feels difficult when I lack a schedule. Work and family stuff always is chaotic. Still, I hope after the midpoint of 2024 I’ll have something predictable back in play as I really do want to create content.
As for travel, I would say after 2023 I don’t really want to do this again. Work travel was rarely scheduled well in advance and was logistically difficult; imagine convening meetings in other cities with people who we met only virtually and without meeting support. There were certainly upsides in engaging people direclty in person but I always came back physically and mentally exhausted. Twice I caught COVID from these meetings.
As for recreational travel — these were planned fairly well in advance, but having work trips dropping themselves around these trips just made it hard to feel relaxed.
But I do not regret going back out on international tours — the Alps are beautiful and well worth seeing. (continuing post below this block!)
That said, there’s a lot to see in the U.S. Was in Texas for work, and Seattle for fun — there’s always a bit of character and flavor in every town you go to– things to see that are different from your normal every day thing.
One thing I really enjoy about other cities is seeing stuff like artists in a different context. In Seattle, the Chihuly museum actually finally puts Chihuly on a scale I could appreciate. I always thought he was overrated as he seems to have an installation in every city and museum in the U.S. However when you see a much larger collection of work, there’s something impressive about the scale of his pieces all together.
But what I enjoyed quite a bit about Seattle was both the diversity, the mindset, and their Public Market. Most people talk about the food vendors, but I really enjoyed the artists, artisans, and crafters. It’s hard work to vend every day and have to ride the vagaries of weather and where you’re located inside that venue. I also liked discovering some of the shops underneath the entry floor — in particular, if you’re ever there, go downstairs into the ‘vintage’ portion (one level) and find Marnin Saylor’s shop (https://www.marninsaylor.com/). It’s very pink! They started off vending in the upstairs (and in artist alleys on the West Coast), but moved to a more permanent location within the Market. I am glad they’re doing well enough in this location; certainly watching these indie artists grow out of the AA into a more retail type location is inspiring.
Lastly to round out the year in travel are some shots of Las Vegas which returned to for work. It’s far more passable in November, but the Formula One stuff that creates detours for pedestrians to have to walk around the strip is really annoying. I love the Sphere btw, just weirdness galore.
Last few weeks I also wandered through some of the new geeky stuff popping up in Atlanta for the weeb culture. There’s a new Kinokuniya that had its grand opening among some other Japanese “life” stores around Atlanta. I actually was able to chat up a few of the artists invited to table at the Kinokuniya opening and offer support by buying their stuff. Even if I don’t plan to return to that kind of life, having been through it makes me appreciative of how hard they have to work. I’m just thankful I have a job in which I can have an allowance to buy from these independent artists. (continuing post after images)
All in all, I’m not sure what kind of 2024 relationship I’m going to have with art and travel. I’m getting older and physically and mentally my brain is not really adjusting well to the post-COVID work-life balance. I have been toying about returning to content creation more as a variety streamer and not as an artist. I don’t really find much inspiration from fandom at the moment (FFXIV and gaming/anime) as it feels like an oversaturated and noisy space whereby there’s not much dialogue or connection involved with it. With the way visual and gaming content just comes out so fast, the side stuff is really crazy . You miss the “timing” and you’re content is already kind of done — or at least that’s the way it feels.
I’ve been asking myself then “what do you want to create”? Is it back to original works via writing or cute art ? I don’t have that answer yet. Just going to spend early 2024 trying to wrangle the “real life ” space into some kind of order while feeding my creative side.
2024: ”The year I became a hibernating bear” sounds pretty good though.
PS: Twitter/X stinks and so I’m on there mostly to look at what people are posting, but I’m on Bluesky and Instagram. Otherwise just chat me on Discord under ‘elisaswann’!
The Swann Lodge 