being okay with the onlooker's image

It is 2004: My eyes open and dappled light illuminates corners of the room, spilling onto my pillow and swaying gently in the late spring breeze. The window near the head of my bed is open. Soft, cool air. I have drawings of odd little characters in my sketchbook, which lay open over my unfinished homework as per usual. But I can’t enjoy it here in the quiet morning light, because it’s time to get ready for school.

It is 2018: Only a few cars emerge from the stillness as I take my 5:25AM walk around the neighborhood in early July. Crickets between trees where light hasn't yet reached, sound of sparrows, a few robins left as the heat of summer takes hold. I’m increasing my pace so I can make it back home in time to get ready for work. I have two shifts today, at two different jobs in two different towns, with hopes of having enough time and energy to make it to the gym afterward.

It is 2024: I’ve figured out how to build my skillset, play the role for social networking (kind of), & craft culturally appropriate statements to get people interested in my work as a fine artist. I’m at home now - not rushing to clock in somewhere else - but I am still missing out on the slow morning beauty at the ocean every day. It’s funny, because I paint the ocean now. But the act of painting and managing large, technically elaborate, and exclusively priced art takes away all my time to enjoy the very thing that moves me to create in the first place.

It is 2026: I am sitting outside on the porch, facing midsummer’s glassy morning sea beyond the dune grass, sipping coffee and cream as I type this. I hear a mockingbird, seagulls in the distance, gentle waves as they roll into land. My day began with a quiet routine of laundry and sweeping sand away from the door, followed by checking in on my “secret” art shop to see if there have been any new orders overnight. I say “secret” because in 2024, when I was sinking into a very not-relatable form of depression triggered by the realities of my ‘dream job’, I started making small, weird, childlike art behind the scenes and selling it online.

For most people who know my fine art, my childlike art is nothing but an odd phase to grow out of, to come back to my senses from, so I can continue onward as the ethereal fine artist who floats around in her elven-vibe dresses and paints beauty sold at a high price. So I’ve kept it secret. But within that secret place, I rekindled what I’ve always loved most. My technical skillset allows me to make the art I once dreamed of before adhering to the rules of desirability and respect. Learning how to run a one-person art business from my kitchen table showed me that the fine art world (that I was now trying to get out of) isn’t nearly as lucrative or enjoyable as it’s propped up to be. By tuning into my natural tendencies as an introvert, and recognizing that no: it isn’t something I need to (or care to) change about myself, I’m seeing that life is worth living through one’s own experience of it - not through the image others may or may not see when looking at it.

Here and now in 2026, I am doing my best to embrace that which I love most: simple, cozy, (and a little bit odd) frog art & a very slow, quiet daily life. I still struggle to trust that my frogs mean anything at all to the world, so I still struggle to make and share them as much as I would like to. The whole idea of running a one-person art business (of frogs, mind you) still makes me feel insecure when I respond to people who ask me “so, what do you do?”. I still have my fine art publicly available to look at, and when they ask me that question, I send them to that website. I still don’t mention the frog thing to anyone outside the internet. My husband and I still struggle to pay bills and have shrunk areas of our life to make enough room to call the place we love home (and actually be able to enjoy it). But it still isn’t stable enough to know if we’ll even have it a year from now.

But it’s only 2026. I still have 2027, 2028, and who knows how many more (hopefully). Maybe in 2029 I’ll have a thriving frog art business being run from my kitchen table (or maybe I will have upgraded to a whole room in the house) and will be getting dressed up for some art event in which I display all these chonky frogs - and I won’t have to pretend to be simultaneously extraverted and demure and ethereal, because those attending to see the art of frogs simply understand a world in which the art of frogs actually does mean something. Maybe I'll have the confidence to let myself be seen as myself, living without a socially constructed need to strive for all that respect, desirability, or approval I’ve been taught will keep me “safe” and “happy”.

What often spikes my stress is when I wonder how on planet earth I’ll ever be able to keep the good things in my life going (that have happened mostly out of ridiculous luck or miracle or whatever you want to call it). I think we’re often told that the things that come to us unexpectedly are guaranteed to leave us even faster. “Oh, that will never happen. Quit dreaming and come back to the real world. Oh… it did happen? Enjoy it while it lasts, that kind of thing will never happen again.” Maybe that’s why we try so hard to control the outcomes of our lives, while also rejecting the sweet little things that come to us and change our whole experience for the better. Maybe it’s why so many of us feel like no matter what we do, it isn’t enough. Is it not for fearing that what we love - what we do have - will be taken away from us? That if we just do enough, we can be deserving enough to keep it?

I can’t read the future, and when I think about wishing I could, I realize it’s not actually that bad for it to remain mostly unknown. Today then becomes my highlight. I’m going to continue making frogs and building something with them that makes my life better and hopefully others’ too. I’m going to keep exploring what it’s like to be myself out there in the world, and knowing that regardless of the reactions to it, my experience is still my own from moment to moment. I’m going to keep choosing what I love and enjoying it without worrying when it will all end.

If you’d like to support my work you can collect a frog or join my mail club:

⭐ Frog Art Prints: mychonkyfrog.com/prints

💌 Art Mail Club: mychonkyfrog.com/frog-mail-club