Spring can feel beautiful, energizing—and strangely overstimulating. In this piece, Sue shares how she’s borrowing a little deadline-driven structure from her television career, then softening it with creative-minded supports like “handrails,” “palette cleansers,” and visible progress.

That feeling when time disappears and ideas connect isn’t accidental. Psychologists call it “flow”—a state where the brain quiets self-criticism and enhances creative thinking. The more we understand what creates flow, the more we can design our work and our environments to support it.

Before stepping into the next phase of ENSOhello, I decided to try something different. Instead of ignoring my fears, I wrote them down—logical, illogical, rational, and irrational. What I discovered surprised me. The fears weren’t about failure or capability. They were much smaller and far more human. And once I could see them clearly, I could redesign my week in a way that actually worked with my creative mind instead of against it.

If your newsletter is suddenly landing in spam, you’re not imagining it. Google recently changed how it evaluates newsletters. Since it handles most email worldwide, those changes matter. This is a gentle overview of what artists should know and a few things worth checking, without getting technical or overwhelming.

Our founder made a profound discovery. She procrastinates selectively. While researching creative minds for ENSOhello, she realized the dread she was seeing in our early testers… was the same dread she felt about certain tasks on her own to-do list.

It wasn’t laziness. It was protection. Once she saw the pattern, everything shifted.

In Zen calligraphy, an ensō (en-ZOH) is a circle drawn in a single brushstroke.

No revisions.
No corrections.
Just one honest movement.

That imperfect circle carries a philosophy that inspired ENSOhello.

Creative growth rarely happens all at once. It unfolds through small moments of connection, familiarity, and trust. This story traces how a single gallery visit became something much more—and what it can teach artists about showing up online in a human, sustainable way.

At 29, I left NYC for a summer job that included backpacking with llamas and working with kids with ADD/ADHD. I didn’t know it then, but I was being trained for the work—and life—I’m living now.

If step-by-step instructions make you freeze or feel overwhelmed, it’s not a personal failure. Neuroscience shows creative brains often work differently. This post explains why—and offers practical ways to move through linear tasks without fighting how your brain works.

I set out to build a tool for artists. What I discovered instead was something much bigger: creative minds don’t just work differently, they quietly adapt to systems that weren’t designed for them. This is what building ENSOhello revealed about how creatives move through the world, and why awareness is where better design begins.

Building ENSOhello has meant confronting visibility, age, and fear. And choosing to step forward anyway. A reflection on showing up when it’s uncomfortable.

January has been about laying the emotional groundwork for ENSOhello — sharing why it exists, how it’s being shaped, and what it’s taken to get here. In the coming weeks, I’ll begin sharing what the next phase looks like.

ENSOhello was created to help artists share their work without disrupting creative flow. Here’s why it exists — and the problem it was built to solve.

ENSOhello is entering its testing phase, and I’m inviting artists to help shape it. This early version isn’t about perfection — it’s about listening, learning, and building something together.

This New Year, try a gentler approach to setting art goals, one rooted in inspiration, clarity, and creative direction. From pop-up shows to new mediums to visibility opportunities, even the simplest goals can help guide your art practice in meaningful ways.

This holiday season, consider giving yourself a gift that fuels your creativity: an art workshop. Whether close to home, online, or abroad, workshops spark new ideas, connect you with fellow artists, and offer a refreshing break from studio isolation. It’s a meaningful way to invest in your growth as an artist.

The first version of the ENSOhello app is officially complete, and our founder, Sue, is spending December testing it on her own art accounts before opening it up to early adopters in January. In this behind-the-scenes update, Sue shares what’s working, what still needs refining, and the very real doubts that show up in the early stages of building something new.

Over eight weeks in American Underground’s Idea to Entrepreneur Cohort, I learned to dig deeper into the real problem ENSOhello is solving, refine my customer discovery work, and strengthen the foundation of the app. The program pushed me, taught me, and ultimately affirmed that I’m on the right path. And I’m excited to share that ENSOhello was chosen as one of the cohort’s winners.

Artists aren’t inconsistent on social media because they’re lazy or unmotivated. Far from it. The shift from the slow, tactile world of artmaking into the fast, digital world of marketing is a huge mental leap, and no one taught artists how to navigate it.

When your studio is buzzing and your schedule’s full, creating new content can feel impossible. The good news? You already have great posts waiting for an encore. This guide shows artists how to reuse their best-performing social content, refresh it with small tweaks, and understand what their analytics are really saying. All in less time than it takes for your paint to dry.