You made 'Catching Shower Flowers' a Substack Bestseller!

A prose, a back story and all my gratitude.

I find myself writing

from a small sense of place, 

it’s lasting a little while, here

and if you know, you’ll know

it comes,

and goes

often too quickly—

so while the electricity 

is floating above

in both colour and sound

and my feet

feeling the ground in a way 

that they often feel heights

you’ll find me here, 

in this sense of place 

listening to sounds... 

...I don’t feel it to be a painting

or poem

although it could be 

but I’ll call it communion 

while I’m still looking or not looking

for the word. 

I’m learning I must see water,

and what holds its masses is less of the matter—

and so my hair it floats here 

softly in its rivers

and the absence of salt is made up for

in the way words are exchanged with people

around the table.

It’s a different kind of breathing here

and I must admit,

I’m teaching my lungs their natural resonance

but not on my own—

the trees are kind 

and mountains too

bringing their ease to the cause

and I’m thankful

so darn thankful

for the things that are right on time

in all kinds of time.

It was the weekend just passed that my sleepy eyes awoke to this unbelievable email announcement from

Substack

…

I entered this year with the words “Come sit at my table” floating around me.

These words landed softly taking residence in the places and spaces within me that would normally be all pens, paper and the forming of plans and big ideas for an expectant year ahead.

Late last year after a series of life events and a niggling feeling that wouldn’t budge or negotiate—I had this stirring feeling that the art I had created over the past 6 years needed to take a bow, have a curtain close and be honoured with a timestamp.

My practice as an artist was beginning to ask something different of me and with no real point of reference or clear plan, this conviction informed my announcement to take an extended Lacuna (Lacuna being a poetic word for a gap) and discontinue all the art I loved and created over a period of 6 years leaving only but my three book titles sitting as time capsules from which the art all came.

At midnight, Dec 31st, 2022, I took down all the art off my website, discontinued it and entered into a season of play.

6 months into my Lacuna —

I began to write on Substack.

Since early this year when those beautiful and grounding words found me, I have been intentional about cultivating a life from a gentle posture at the table. This new writing practice that is ‘Catching Shower Flowers’ is me honouring that conviction with an earnest attempt to see if it is at all possible to create from an unhurried place, a place true to the pace that feels instinctive to me as person and an artist… and potentially as a way to provide for my family.

I acknowledge my privilege in being able to even consider my nervous system in the equation of what I do for work or how gently I choose to create art as a means of my livelihood.

In a two piece love-letter that I am currently writing and shaping up surrounding my process as a creative, I’ll share the ins and outs with a little more depth and transparency in terms of the financial aspects of these kinds of decisions, pauses and changes, and what it has actually involved. These leaps have corresponded with other big changes surrounding my husbands way of work and I’ll preface the piece I’m still writing by saying that these leaps have been done mostly without the guarantee of soft landings or the promise of anything really— but we have both held our fair share of timely confirmations and there have been light posts too.

So as I always say, If you can celebrate it, celebrate it! and this feels worthy of that…

And so it’s here, 4 months into this new writing practice,

moving at a pace that feels unhurried and true to me,

that your generous support has titled Catching Shower Flowers

A SUBSTACK BESTSELLER!!!!!!

Every week as this publication continues to build, reader upon reader, generous sower upon generous sower—I feel hopeful, particularly in the early dawn of this publications humble beginnings. To receive such a title— A Substack Bestseller is a light-post I’m beyond grateful for.

Sincere Gratitude from me and my nervous system,

Tess x

ps. Life has these beautiful synchronicities that feel far beyond happenstance, thank you for this moment, a little lighthouse in a big ocean of hopeful thoughts and sometimes doubtful dreaming. Thank you for coming along for the process.

---

THREE WAYS I’M CELEBRATING THIS LANDMARK AND THANKING YOU!

1. I am offering the below discount on annual subscriptions. This celebratory offer is available until October 17th. Enjoy!

2. I’m gifting a beautiful bespoke ‘Tenderness has time here’ print with the purchase of any of my three books, this gift is exclusive to Catching Shower Flower readers only (valued at $39.95).

Free 'Tenderness has time print with every book purchase.

3. I’m further sinking into my two part series on creative process, part one will arrive in your mailbox next week, read the preface below as entrée.

Love Tess xo