It’s been one year, six months and change since my last blog post. So what have I been up to?

Over this time period, I was first in a period of intentionally low productivity. I had moved my family to a new state, I was teaching at night, podcasting, freelancing, and being a husband and a father all while holding down a full-time job.

I wanted to (NEEDED TO) stop and smell the roses. The reason we moved was to be in a beautiful place surrounded by nature and enjoy ourselves more. I wasn’t enjoying myself.

I always placed a super high emphasis on productivity and could never seem to be doing just one thing at a time. I always had to tackle ten projects at once. Without ever really thinking deeply about what I actually wanted to be pursuing.

Art and design were always about how I monetize this, how I make more money, and how I create something for someone else’s vision. Never my own. Never just for me. Never just for the fun of it.

However, a year of doing nothing but being a dad, husband, and employee also didn’t scratch the itch. I needed something to dive deep into.

I tried a UX coaching program geared at helping you launch a successful Freelance UX/UI Design business but realized before the program was over that I was just building another full-time job.

I wasn’t pursuing anything that I was going to enjoy.

I had the skills to do UX design, land UX design clients, and run a freelance business. I did it before for eight years.

But that wasn’t the dream.

So what was the dream?

I found another coach after that previous program with a guy named @CoachScottyRussell from the Side Hustle Perspective. I met Scotty at the Creative South Conference in 2022. I kept in touch and kept up with his podcast pretty regularly.

I took a shot at one of his 3-week boot camps which got me thinking much more internally about what I wanted.

Along with some one on one conversations with Scotty, it became apparent that what I wanted to be doing was creating my own art, own products, and own business outside of my day job and UX Designer persona.

I joined a much more intense 12-week program offered by Scotty with 5 other artists and designers trying to work out their own vision for their creative futures.

I can’t say enough about the program and the people I met. It was inspiring, challenging, and eye-opening.

Whether or not it was life-changing will be up to me to continue on the path of hiring my inner child to design my future self.

I’ll write another blog post detailing my time in this program in more depth. In the meantime, you can watch, listen or read about the experience on Scotty’s Podcast.

When I was a kid, we used to cover our school books in brown paper grocery bags as makeshift dust covers for our textbooks. This was my canvas as a kid who couldn’t sit still or listen in class. I covered my textbooks with doodles and drawings.

There was one continuous theme throughout my school years. Music and music-related artwork. Whether it was icons from bands like the Grateful Dead, Metallica, or Iron Maiden. All those bands with fantastic art and fan-generated content.

I couldn’t get enough of drawing their logos, lyrics, and images that the music inspired.

So during the 12-week program, we had to figure out what our Intentional Personal Project would be. Seeing that it’s been 30+ years of listening to the Grateful Dead and never tiring of them.

Plus knowing their lyrics backwards and forwards. I decided to take a stab at that childish pastime and make 13 pieces of art inspired by the Grateful Dead and their lyrics.

I called my series “Songs of Our Own” which is a Robert Hunter lyric from one of my favorite pieces of music ever written. Eyes of The World.

I was able to complete the 13 pieces. Am I ready to start a new career in art?

No. But I did have a lot of fun and continue to have fun doing it.

My plan is to put out at least 25 new pieces this coming year. Some will be inspired by music, some inspired by messages, some just inspired by something inside me.

The idea going forward is to “Ground myself in intentional work rooted in play targeted at a clear vision, with accountability, rest, and productivity systems built in.”

The only thing keeping me away from that is my Tyrannical Mind.

It will be a slow build but the idea is to create an endeavor for myself over the next three years that will allow me to retire from my career as a UX Designer and Creative Director and focus solely on creating products of my own that bring me fulfillment.

Without surrounding myself with other hungry, determined, and searching artists. I don’t think I wouldn’t have gotten to this conclusion.

I may not be creating any masterpieces as of yet, but I’m creating something I’m happy to be a part of and feels good. Hey, feeling good is good enough for me.

I’ll be creating some items that will be for sale going forward. Stickers, wall art, T-Shirts, and more. Let me know what pieces you like the best and which You’d like to see as merch.

Listen or Watch a Podcast about my time on the 12-week program.

Follow my journey on Instagram @hightidelowcountry