Mid-Year, Full Life

Halfway through 2026 and I genuinely don’t know where the time went. The first half of this year has been a lot of first times, personal milestones, quiet wins that haven’t made it to the internet yet. Consider this your update.

A year and a half in and I’m still standing. That feels worth saying out loud.

When I started my art + travel coffee table book I knew it would be ambitious. What I didn’t fully anticipate was how much it would ask of me, not just creatively but emotionally. Imposter syndrome showed up more than once, sitting heavy in the room while I tried to write chapters about experiences I’d spent years collecting. And then there was the moment my first designer, who had completed nearly 75% of a nearly 400-page book, burned out and had to step away. I understood it. But sitting with that reality and figuring out how to keep going was one of the harder moments of this whole journey.

I kept going.

My second designer came in and she has been nothing short of a godsend. In our last check-in she told me I’d set the bar — and I think what she meant was that I showed up prepared. For each city, each chapter, I rebuilt my itineraries from scratch and created full art direction briefs. Including fonts, layout inspiration, color direction, the entire world of that place distilled into something she could enter. She takes it and translates it into something that makes me emotional every single time.

Here’s a sneak peek at Bali. Proud of this work!

One chapter left and the cover, which I’ve already sketched. I can feel the finish line. I’ve documented a lot of this process intentionally — partly for myself, partly because I want it to be useful for anyone who has a story they want to tell creatively. I collect art books from exhibitions I’ve visited all over the world and that’s always been the vision. Not a novel. A book that lives on a shelf and holds a whole world inside it.

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Quarterly vacation season is almost here and I am ready.

Can you guess where I’m going? Three hints…

A house that defies gravity.

A waterfall you can hear from the bedroom.

An architect whose name you already know.

Fallingwater!

It’s been on my 2026 wish list and when the opportunity came I said yes before I finished reading the message. I’m going with one of my closest friends, a lover of architecture who has been my co-conspirator in Mexico City, Puerto Escondido, and Japan — all of us chasing buildings the way other people chase concerts.

This trip also marks something I’ve been building quietly. I’ve been pitching myself to tourism and hospitality brands for partnership. Expansion is the word I keep coming back to this year. It’s all practice for everything that opens up once the book is out. (If you have connections in the Pittsburgh tourism or hospitality space, my pitch portfolio is here. You never know who’s reading;-)

And of course the fashion looks are already in motion. Fashion is part of how I move through and document a place. For Fallingwater I wanted an Issey Miyake Pleats Please energy — architectural, effortless to pack, pieces that photograph beautifully against a building that’s been documented a thousand times and still manages to surprise you. I’ve been hunting a specific Long Madame-T situation that has been its own journey.

But I’ve pivoted to a different style and I’ve also been shopping my own closet, which is always the move. Took a few pieces to the tailor — things that weren’t fitting quite right, now back in rotation. That’s the quiet power of a capsule collection. Always ready.

My Mickalene Thomas print arrived and I am not over it.

Girlfriends and Lovers, released in collaboration with Avant Arte. Mickalene’s original work sells for millions and that’s exactly why this collaboration matters — it makes her accessible in a real way. Getting a Black woman artist’s work into more homes at a price point that isn’t reserved for institutions and major collectors is something worth pausing on.

She’s not on the wall yet because I refuse to rush the frame and I’ve been sitting with it. One color keeps pulling my eye back. Indigo. This deep, saturated blue living in the piece that I can’t stop thinking about.

Recently I met an artist, Kolpeace, whose work has been incorporating indigo blue as a direct reference to its history in South Carolina — indigo was one of the state’s top economic drivers, and it was enslaved people who developed and sustained that entire process. That history lands differently now when I see that color. It adds a layer to Mickalene’s work that I’m still sitting with.

For the frame I’ve been thinking about texture. The scene — women, a dining room, a home — keeps making me think velvet. There’s something about the weight of velvet that echoes the intimacy of the image, the way it conjures a certain kind of domestic luxury. An indigo velvet frame feels like it could honor both the color and the history it carries.

When I finally take her to the framer I’ll bring you along. Drop your thoughts in the comments — I want to hear what you’re seeing in her too.

Halfway through and I’m proud of where I’m standing. The book is almost done. The next trip is booked. The art is waiting for its frame. And I’m just getting started.

More soon.

Sincerely,

Kimee