December notes: looking back at 2025

The few days between Christmas and New Year’s are always the most relaxing for me. There’s no expectation to get anything productive done, so I can take my time to unwind and reflect on the previous few months.

Recently, I’ve been thinking about how much I’ve done in 2025, and how much I still want to accomplish. I have big dreams for how I want to improve my artistic practice, and sometimes it feels daunting to compare where I currently am in my journey with where I want to be. But when I think back to the beginning of this year, I’m amazed at how much I’ve accomplished already. Since this is the first year of moonkat studio, where I’m learning on the fly and failing more often than succeeding, I thought it would be interesting to share some reflections from the past year. Once moonkat studio is (hopefully) bigger and more established, it would be fun to look back on the account of these beginning few months.

In the very beginning of the year, I quit my full-time job. It wasn’t exactly on a whim - leaving tech was always something I knew I would do eventually - but some personal issues made me move up my timeline abruptly. I’d normally describe myself as a fairly practical and cautious person, someone who thinks for a long time before making big decisions, but this was the one big exception in my life. It only took two hours from the time when I started considering quitting to when I actually handed in my notice to my manager. I’m not sure why I was compelled to act so quickly when I usually mull things over for a long time, but once I fully made up my mind it felt like a huge weight had been lifted off me. Thankfully, my manager was understanding, and I was able to say goodbye to my coworkers on a good note.

The first few days of “freedom” felt really overwhelming. I had taken some metalsmith classes in 2024 and had always hoped to continue my jewelry practice with the goal of one day doing it for a living, but that was a safe daydream that helped passed the time while I was feeling unfulfilled at work. It felt sobering to have it become my reality. To suddenly not have the stability and routine of a full-time job (along with the benefits *cough* healthcare *cough* that came with it) was scary, but now that I had so much free time and no “next step” for the first time in my life, I was determined to make the most of the opportunity.

I made myself a promise: I would take one year to experiment with my jewelry practice, and if at the end of 2025 I didn’t see results or didn’t like what I was doing anymore, no harm done! And so my year of making began :)

I iterated on some ring designs I had been working on and signed up for as many art markets as I could find. Most of those markets rejected me, but in February I had my first pop-up! I was only given a week’s notice before the event, and spent that week frantically making rings and cobbling together a table display from what I could find at home. Looking back now, though my table was sparse and my rings still imperfect, I’m proud of past-Kat for gathering the courage to display her jewelry to strangers for the first time.

By the end of the night I had only sold one ring, but that was enough for me - I was so surprised that someone who didn’t know me would want to buy my stuff. It gave me the drive to want to do even better next time.

I spent more time refining my ring designs, working through kinks in my crafting process, and updating my website to be a little less bare bones. This was also the month I started inviting friends over to make rings with me. What started as a simple craft night slowly turned into something deeper - we would all gather at my home, I would teach them how to carve rings out of jewelers wax, and later I would finish them in silver and present them with their finalized ring.

Wax carving was always something that I did alone, so it was a nice change of pace to share the creative process with my friends. And soon, this turned into something even bigger!

I was invited to teach a ring-making workshop at RecCreate Collective, a community-building art studio in Brooklyn. Imposter syndrome hit me like a truck - I still felt like a beginner, why was I suddenly teaching people? And not just friends coming over for a simple craft night either, but actual participants who paid to attend these classes??

I practiced leading my workshop countless times with friends before the first session, constantly tweaking my timings and agenda, and the official event went by without a hitch. I had so much fun sharing this craft with everyone. Through the highs and lows (especially the lows) of the event, everyone who started off as strangers became friends and partners in craft - chatting about life, commiserating as they accidentally snapped waxes they spent hours on, and exclaiming over each others’ finished ring models. It was heartwarming to be a part of building a community of makers.

I suddenly started getting jewelry commissions, mostly from my very lovely and supportive friends. These were always a pleasure to work on: I was able to collaborate on designs, work with expensive materials that I usually wouldn’t have been able to afford, and know that I was making something handmade for people I cared about.

This was a pair of signet rings I made for two sisters who are childhood friends of mine, with their family name carved in Chinese and cast in solid 14k gold. I was so nervous working on this, especially since it was my first time working in gold, but I’m so proud of the end result!

At this point I started getting accepted into art markets, and I signed up for every one I could. At my busiest, I had 4 markets over the span of 5 weeks, which in hindsight was pretty crazy. During this period I was a rollercoaster of emotions - I was so happy meeting other art vendors and talking to the people who saw value in my work, but I was also constantly stressed and pulling late nights to figure my booth setup out and make enough inventory in time for the next market. Despite it all, I felt really good. I was living my dream.

This was around the time that I started thinking about the branding behind moonkat studio. I have a beautiful orange cat, and thought it would be great to have a logo that involved her curled up into a full moon shape (one of her favorite sleeping positions). I also wanted to tie in some Chinese symbolism in the color or form of the design. Unfortunately, I have no skills when it comes to drawing or editing - but what I do have are wonderful and talented friends that came to my rescue.

It was here that I started getting a bit worn out with the constant rhythm of:

prep inventory for market → vend at market

teach at workshop → finish workshop rings

prep for market → vend at market

teach workshop → finish rings

… over and over again.

I was traveling every week to NYC, sometimes twice a week, to attend these markets and workshops - and while I was lucky enough to be able to crash at friends’ places, it still felt a little weird to be away from home and living from a suitcase so often. And with my busy schedule, I wasn’t able to see my partner or our cat for long periods of time.

Alongside all that, the price of silver was increasing - slowly, and then more rapidly as the year went on. When I started making jewelry in January silver was $29 an ounce, but by the end of September it topped out at just under $50 an ounce. I didn’t want to raise my prices, so with every dollar that silver ticked up in price, I was getting less money for the amount of time I spent making jewelry.

This was the month I hosted my first ring-carving workshop in Philly! For the longest time, I wanted to have my lost wax carving workshops in a cafe environment, with vibes less like classroom learning and more like the origins of this event - going to a friend’s home for a cozy craft night.

Although at this point I had already taught three workshops at RecCreate, before this I had never gone through the logistics of setting everything up myself. This was one of the things I was most proud of myself for doing in the latter half of the year. If you’re curious about the details, I wrote more about it in my November notes.

Keeping with the schedule that I had signed myself up for earlier in the year, I attended more art markets and led more workshops. Markets especially are tricky to plan for: for most of them, applications are due months before the actual event, and multi-hundred dollar table deposits lock you in once you agree to vend.

Many of the markets that I signed up for in the spring and summer were now kicking into gear, but they unfortunately coincided with a low-point for me in terms of creative motivation. There were a few design ideas that I wanted to experiment with and new techniques that I wanted to learn, but I found myself de-prioritizing those amorphous goals in favor of making repeats of rings that I knew were popular at markets or polishing workshop rings that I knew participants were waiting for. At this point, I knew I was in a creative rut, but I didn’t know how to shake myself out of it without throwing myself off schedule, especially knowing that the holiday season was right around the corner.

This month, and the holiday season in general, has been overwhelming in a way that I am still turning over in my head. Many parts have been very fulfilling - meeting so many new people, and talking about my work to people who took time out of their day to connect with me. But I overloaded myself when agreeing to events - I packed my weekends full of markets and workshops in the hopes of catching the holiday shopping crowd, but didn’t leave myself enough time or space to recuperate. What I loved about my jewelry practice - making slowly, and with intention - was swept away by the pressure of making enough inventory for the next deadline.

Now that I’ve gone through this holiday season and have had some time to reflect, I know that I want to make changes to how I want to approach next year: prioritizing my own creative pursuits and focusing on slow, sustainable making in a way that feels more true to me.

Despite ending on a mixed note, I’m actually feeling really good about where I am at this point in my creative journey. In the beginning of 2025 I had only the vaguest idea of what I wanted to do and what moonkat studio was going to be, and now at the end of the year I feel like I’ve found my footing. I’ve learned so much (about myself, metalsmithing, and the business world in general) and I’m excited to apply all that I’ve learned to improving my craft next year.

Thank you for everyone who has been with me through this journey, from the friends who have supported me since the beginning to the lovely people who have just discovered me and have come along for the ride! I appreciate you all.

See you next year ♥️