New & Full Email Series

Today, Friday April 5th, is a New Moon and I’m beginning this lunar cycle with a brand new approach to my newsletter email which previously was simply a boring newsletter that went out occasionally.

Though that’s all changing now! Starting today, every New and Full moon I’ll be dropping insight and musings into your inbox intended to nourish your creative rhythms and keep your art tethered to your soul. I’ll also send event updates from time-to-time as well. All good stuff of course!

Here is a peek into today’s new moon email…….

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On the Summer Solstice—this June 21st—I will officially let go of Dirty Footprints Studio and will step fully into the next evolution of my work as an artist, teacher and writer at ConnieSolera.com.

For over a year now, my designer Quinn and I have been plugging away at a new website and branding. At times, this process has been excruciating as I decided what needs to stay, what can be released, what has to evolve and what is longing to be born.

Since day one of Dirty Footprints Studio, I have let my intuition and creative process lead the way. The past couple years, my inner guidance has commanded me to make decisions that many times felt impractical and risky. What I now realize is that my work as an artist has been going through a distillation.

This next evolution feels like I’m finally allowing myself to be the artist I was born to be.

It’s funny—really funny, actually. Because for the past eleven years, encouraging others to be as great as they were born to be, is exactly the work I have been doing when it comes to elevating and supporting my beloved students. Everything I do as a teacher has been to help women own their unique voice as artists and express their creativity fearlessly.

But the last couple years, my truest self has been hiding behind Dirty Footprints Studio and many days I’ve been doing what feels like simply going through the motions. Inwardly, I’ve been struggling with feeling uninspired, restless and burned out. The business I love so dearly and spent over a decade to build, started to feel suffocating and heavy. I cannot tell you how many times I wanted to burn it all down to the ground and quit. And in many areas, that’s exactly what I’ve done.

But it’s been my devotion to painting that always calls me back home. It’s the women I paint again and again that tell me to hold on, be still, go deeper, stay steady. They ushered me to this place I am at right here, right now and it is with great gratitude that I know this next evolution requires a more expansive definition of service as an artist.

For me that means opening the door and letting others in.

In the last couple years I’ve learned a lot about the creative process by feeling burned out, stuck and at times, even resentful. I’ve learned about the dangers and pitfalls of making your creative and spiritual practice a commodity. And I’ve experienced both the power and fragility of creative community in times like these.

But through it all, including the stuckness and the facade I kept up, I learned what matters most to me and that’s what ConnieSolera.com will represent and embody.

Today on this New Moon, I am so grateful for the darkness. I cherish it, actually. In it, I received the nutrients I needed to birth the next phase of my creativity. At the same time, I am ready-as- all-hell to dance out of the darkness and celebrate new life!!

That is why ConnieSolera.com’s official birthday will be on June 21st (SAVE THE DATE!)— the longest day of the year—the Summer Solstice. So save the date! I have lots of fun stuff in store that I’ll be sharing with you in my next email on the Full Moon.

And yeppers!! One of the big changes I am making as I let go of Dirty Footprints Studio is that I will be emailing you each New and Full Moon with insights and musings to nourish your creative practice, keep your art tethered to your soul, and inform you about events and programs, too!

As you can see, things are just getting started. In the following months, I’ll be sharing more of my process and plans over on Instagram and at my blog. I also promise to make these emails much more juicy and delicious. For today, I just wanted to pop in and say thank you for being a part of my journey. Exciting things are on the way for all of us!

Let’s Do This!!