So you’ve maybe realized that I haven’t done a real Alt Summit recap on here, huh? Well, it’s come to the point where I don’t think I can cover anything that hasn’t been said. Over the past month—I can’t even believe it’s been a month already—there have literally been hundreds of posts going up. Yes, Stephan Sagmeister was out of control awesome. Yes, I made so many wonderful new connections and friends. Yes, it was super sparkly. You got this I think. In case you want to get your hands on some of those posts, my new friend Callie of Call me Cal has put together a wonderful pinterest board full of round-ups and everything Alt Summit. You could totally get lost in there for hours if you’re up for it!
Instead of posting everything that I did and learned while at Alt Summit, I came home a little overwhelmed with catching up, but I also took the knowledge I had gained and started to put it to action here on the blog. Maybe I don’t talk about this enough on here, and rather in my head or to friends and family, but what I’ve really been striving for over the past year is a journey towards happiness.
I’ve been designing for a little over six years now, all while in school. I’ve gone through the internships, the taking-jobs-for-free-expereince thing. I’ve tested out a lot of different artistic venues: concert promotion, working on magazines, marketing, advertising, etc., etc. I’m just ready to find my place—and blogging has really been helping me figure that out in a lot of ways. It gives me a place to experiment with new things on a smaller scale, and test if they are adding to this goal of happiness, or taking too much away from it. Of course, you’re always going to have to do a little of what you don’t like—not everything’s gravy. What I’m searching for is more of a balance—where I feel like I’m doing what I love more of the time than I’m doing things that make me unhappy. I’ve realized if you can’t stay on the happy side of that equation, it’s just not worth it. You feel miserable, and you start to dislike even the small parts of that something that did bring you joy—aka my concert promotion stint.
I guess the point of this story is that I kind of started to feel this way about blogging before Alt. A little before Thanksgiving I took an unexpected extended hiatus from the blog. I was feeling uninspired, and it started to feel more like something that I had to do—I fell towards the unhappy side of the equation. After Alt, what was most significant, is that I got my spark back. While you hear time and time again that it’s not about the numbers, it’s not about sponsorships and how many fans you have on Facebook, sometimes those things just get to you a teeny bit. I felt like I didn’t have a voice, and I was more or less just adding to the clutter of the blog world in a really insignificant way. I’d lost my vision of why I started blogging in the first place—to find my passions and explore on a more regular basis. Since Alt, I’ve started cataloging my inspirations, I started planning with an editorial calendar—I got organized! With this organization I was finally able to see the bigger picture and make this space more of what I needed it to be. It’s getting there, and I can clearly see what a positive impact this has been having on my creative life—and yes, even my numbers—and the not-so-surprising part of that, is that I’m not worrying about that anymore! Rather than scrounging last minute to come up with posts, now I marinate on them for a couple days—or weeks—and feel like I’m contributing things that are more significant to the community and to my personal creative journey. It’s been great, but it sure has taken some time to get to this mind-set! I’m so excited to come on here every day and share the things that have been going on in my life, the artists that I’m inspired by, and looks into the lives of other creatives. It keeps me going, and I hope that it gets you rilled up to get a little creative juices flowing in your own life.
Going through my research for my thesis, I’ve been studying how blogging and other self-curative media—aka pinterest, twitter, etc.—can aid in the experience for the creative professional. I was inspired by my own ventures and I wanted to intricately study why this experience has been so meaningful and life-altering. Through my research, I’ve seen one thing that comes up time and time again as something that is important for any learning potential: reflection. What’s great about blogging is that you’re constantly putting together life experiences, images, thoughts, and inspirations and putting meaning to these items in a new way. You’re reflecting and taking that time to work out new items of knowledge so that you’re actually aiding in the learning process rather than letting these experiences happen and not making any significant meaning out of them for you to use in the future. Anyways, I realized that while I’ve been practicing this and aiding in my knowledge in a visual way, rarely do I take the time to write on here and really work out my thoughts. I want to start doing this on a more regular basis. I firmly believe after my research that doing this will significantly impact the personal learning potential that the blogging process has. I hope I impressed you with that professional research-lady sentence. Hah. This has probably already been one of the more cathartic posts that I’ve done in the past couple months. It’s not going to be perfect—I’m new at this writing thing. I’m akward in my opinions and jumble my thoughts, and probably won’t make many points for the first few of these. The important thing is that I’m trying, and it’s an experiment to test out if this research really has any ground. Have any of you been doing this? I seriously applaud you if you’ve read this far ;) Have you noticed that when you take the time to reflect on your blog that those reflections have had an impact in your life beyond the post? I’m so curious about how this effects the learning process, and I’d love to hear from you!
Cheers to our journeys, friends! Thank you thank you for sticking with me on this one. It’s going to be a fun ride, I think.
PS: I’d really like to give a shout out to my girl Katelyn Brooke. She gifted me a coveted dribble invite, and I’m excited to get started and see how this venue aids in the creative process as well! I haven’t posted anything yet, but if you want to follow me now, I promise to get some process and goodies up there shortly. Are you on dribble? Let’s be friends! xoxo
OK, for reals signing off now.
All photos taken by Kelsey Cronkhite specifically for Pinegate Road
Blogging has been so good for me over the changes and transitions in my life over the past couple of years. I don’t know if my friends and family read it, but the connections I’ve built with wonderful people like you have truly made me feel supported and valuable. I’m so grateful.
Absolutely loved meeting and getting to know you at Alt! And I hope we meet again on another adventure soon! xoxo!
Comment by Whitney — February 22, 2013 @ 2:14 PM
Whitney — I feel so honored and lucky to have met you and to have been able to spend such quality fun-having with you at ALT. You’re such an inspiring person, and I’m enamored with all that you’re able to accomplish! I really hope that another adventure is in our future soon too, that’s for sure :) Thanks for stopping by and taking the time to comment! xoxo
Comment by Kelsey — February 22, 2013 @ 2:20 PM
Thank you for this, Kelsey! I am fairly new to your blog and though I have yet to comment (I am shy, ha!), I really felt the need to comment on this because you and I are in the same boat- as far as being in the pursuit of happiness. Yes, I realize that everyone wants to be “happy”, but I am talking about intentionally living and working (sometimes in baby steps)to get there. To make a long story short, after working in the design world after college I began to feel so uninspired by my work and my industry that I quit and to be honest, I completely regret it. So now I am jumping back in feet first, YIKES!
I admire you for your acknowledgement that even creatives struggle at times- but sometimes, you have to push through it because at the end of the day doing what you do is what makes you happy. I’m so interested in your thesis research! I am VERY new to this whole blogging thing, but am excited for the journey. I want to get back in design and am hoping to implement your thesis research findings. It’s so easy to get on pinterest and pin 4587348 things that mean nothing. Thanks for the eye-opener. I will work on creating and inspiring with intention.
Looking forward to your future writing posts- us design nerds like words and thoughts, too, ya know. ;)
Comment by Alyssa — February 22, 2013 @ 2:29 PM
Hi Alyssa! Thanks so much for commenting — I seriously love hearing from readers, and to tell the truth, your comment literally brought tears to my eyes. I think I’m being a little hormonal or something, but to know that me opening up about this kind of thing is helping inspire others is just, well, amazing. You bring up a really great point about working towards being happy — I guess I talked about that as my goal, but I never thought about the fact that happiness IS work. To truly reach it, you have to work for it, and be sure that you’re having happy moments along the way. Sometimes it’s this back and forth that really gets your brain clicking!
I wish you so much good luck heading back to the design world! I know how it goes quitting that thing that you thought you loved so much. I’ve personally never made the transition to going back, so I applaud you for thinking it through and re-trying it. I’ll be interested to see how it goes after you took the time to reflect on why you wanted to go back, and what you’re going to do differently to make sure that you don’t reach the uninspired burn-out phase again. I know as creatives we all flirt with that line sometimes, but it’s knowing we’re hitting the line, and knowing what to do about it when we get there that’s key. I’m sure you’ve learned a ton along the way!
I’ll definitely keep up the writing, thanks again for your support! xoxo
Comment by Kelsey — February 22, 2013 @ 2:46 PM
Great post. I was feeling really overwhelmed after Alt too, and took a couple of weeks to just push everything aside, put pen to paper and then organize my thoughts in to an editorial calendar. I felt so discouraged after Alt, but I’ve since gotten over that and can’t wait to go back next year more prepared. I’ve never been to your site before, but it is so gorgeous that it’s going in my google reader as soon as I finish typing this. Sad we didn’t meet at Alt, there were so few Georgians there (I’m in Atlanta!). Kepp up the good work, you are a rock star.
Comment by Katy Dennison — February 22, 2013 @ 4:52 PM
Such a great post, Kelsey!! I’m so glad we met at Alt and I’ve loved following along on your blog. I think you are so incredibly talented and just an all around awesome person!!
Comment by Callie — February 22, 2013 @ 5:00 PM
Hello Katy!! So, I’m two brownies in — they are TOO GOOD. If you’re calling me a rockstar, you’re a double one for dealing with dark chocolate. They key to my heart, I swear. As for alt, it’s nice to hear that I wasn’t the only one overwhelmed. While I used that power for good (eventually — and I think you are too) I was a little shaken with all the crazy positive recaps, and felt like I might have been missing out a little. My Alt experience was generally so amazing, but sometimes that pensive reflection after an experience like that is totally necessary. My roommate Whitney of The Curtis Casa is from Atlanta! (http://www.thecurtiscasa.com) Did you guys meet? If not, please be friends, she’s wonderful, and it’s always nice to have local blog friends! Thanks so much for writing, you’re going in my reader as well! I’m sad we didn’t get to meet too! boo!
Comment by Kelsey — February 22, 2013 @ 5:09 PM
Callie, I’m SO glad to have met you! I think you’re an awesome person too :) And you put up with me when I awkwardly interrupt interviews and am too tired/mental to realize such things ;) Thanks for gathering all those Alt resources! Such a timesaver!
Comment by Kelsey — February 22, 2013 @ 5:10 PM
I did meet Whitney! She is indeed wonderful and we’re meeting up for lunch next week! I so wish you were in Atlanta, we’re planning an Atlanta bloggers meetup in April. Yeah, I was shaken too by all the peppy recaps! I had mixed emotions about the whole conference and a lot of self-doubt being surrounded by the big blogs who already have their act together…who wants to write about that?? I did get over that though, but I decided not to do a recap at all because, really, it’s not mandatory and with your post, now it’s all been said :) Also, I like how we’re commenting on each other’s blogs and on facebook posts pretty much simultaneously – internet is so weird and wonderful.
Comment by Katy Dennison — February 22, 2013 @ 6:51 PM
great post. i’m currently going through something with my blog… feeling like it’s a task to be completed instead of a joy. this was really encouraging. going to bookmark for the future.
oh and i’m following you on Dribble!
Comment by Amanda — February 22, 2013 @ 7:03 PM
If there’s one thing that I learned from my break, was that I really needed to take that time to move away from the computer. I suggest snuggling up with a sketchbook and just journaling — free-writing to find your true goals and passions is something that has always helped me :) You have this lady! Also, I’m excited to have you as a dribbble friend :)
Comment by Kelsey — February 22, 2013 @ 9:46 PM
Ah, how neat! Seriously, what a small blog world! Good luck with the meet-up — who knows, let me know about it and I might be able to make the trip up! So glad to have found you through this kind of weird blog process, looking forward to following along with you! xoxo
Comment by Kelsey — February 22, 2013 @ 9:48 PM
Way to go Kelsey!! So glad you got this post off your chest & you are so right. I can’t wait to hear more about your findings for your thesis and really hope you do start to use this space as a place to process & reflect. So cool!
Comment by Stacy — February 23, 2013 @ 1:54 AM
Thanks Stacy! I’m really looking forward to taking this direction — the responses from this post were so kind and it really makes me feel like I am heading in the right direction with all of this! Thanks for your continued support with everything, you’ve been amazing! xoxo
Comment by Kelsey — February 23, 2013 @ 12:10 PM
This is fabulous! Boy can I relate…this was exactly how I was feeling! Thank you so much for sharing this!
Comment by Sarah — February 24, 2013 @ 1:11 AM
You’re so welcome! Glad to have been able to help, even in a little bit! It’s nice to be honest and open about stuff like this – no need to fake all the excitement and happy thoughts when you’re working on figuring it all out.
Comment by Kelsey — February 25, 2013 @ 11:20 AM
Love this post, Kelse! I don’t think I have to tell you how
much blogging has changed not only my life, but my skill set as a
designer. It is quite certainly The Reason I am where I am. I think
that’s why I (like you) am protective of the environment and want
so much more for the community as a whole (less: “How do I make
more money!?!” / “How do I get more attention?” …and more: “How
can I get even more out of this experience?”) Looking forward to
seeing how this evolves for your thesis! SCAD love. ;)
Comment by Sarah — February 27, 2013 @ 6:36 PM
Thanks for stopping by and for your support Sarah! I feel like its taken me a while to let a lot of this sink in and I’m just now starting to grasp it :) I’m excited to see how this works into my thesis too ;) hah. Xoxo
Comment by Kelsey — February 27, 2013 @ 8:11 PM