There was an ominous feel moving into 2025. January wound up being a rough month across the board with Evan being laid off from his job and me having my regular weird health issues that always crop up around the winter. I wonder if it’s something symbolic about us being a rat household and this being the year of the snake. We have to be especially cautious city rats.
Speaking of which, I joked with my husband about creating a funny little comic about the Country Rat and the City Rat. It would wind up being kind of autobiographical, since I consider myself to be pretty country and Evan’s heart belongs in the city. My family absolutely hates everything to do with Philadelphia and it makes sense when you first get here. People seem really aggressive and there is trash everywhere, to be fair, those were also my first impressions. I originally moved to Philadelphia because I believed that this was a place where an arting starvist could thrive and find their people. The trick to discovering other artists though, is to convince them to come out of hiding. Thankfully we have a few friends that we’ve known awhile, but we’re still branching out.
I’d like to spend more time at the Society of Illustrators this upcoming year; it’s about time we take advantage of the fact that we live so close to one of the art capitals of the world. Sterling Hundley actually mentioned to me that it would be worth it to stick around the cities here, since there are so many connections to make. Even Robert Henri of “The Art Spirit” used to teach at the Philadelphia Academy of Art.
