‘Talking about substack, color and word of the year, dark academia, and historic homes and shows and more’

Hi friends! Hope your new year is off to a great start! I’m happy to introduce a new format we are trying for the studio + shop, called the ‘things worth sharing’ newsletter hosted on substack. We’ll be writing once or twice a month to share what’s going on in our studio, plus other things we think are worth sharing in the world of art, design, personal growth, creativity, lifestyle, etc. 

We are hoping this will serve as a way for us to better connect with you, our community. Hope you enjoy it!

Things worth sharing - studio news

Snapshots around the studio this week

• As I posted about here, getting back into the groove of things can be overwhelming after a break, like coming back from the holidays. As a small business owner, it often feels like full steam ahead, all the time. It can be hard getting back into things after breaking the momentum. Returning to and noticing the breath is such a simple, grounding exercise for quieting the mind and connecting with yourself. ('Inhale Exhale' art print available here)
• Do you make resolutions for the new year or perhaps you’ve chosen a word of the year? I’ve liked doing the latter in recent years. You can learn a bit more about choosing your word of the year and what word I’ve chosen this year here. 
• Pantone’s color of the year is ‘peach fuzz’ and we’re all for using more of this warm, soft and delicate color in our work this year. We’ve written more about it here and included a curated board we made, showing how to use this color with other colors in your home and design.

Things worth sharing - art, design, creativity, entertainment, etc.

• This wintry song, White Winter Hymnal by Fleet Foxes, has been in rotation this month. It feels like the perfect song to listen to while watching the snow fall. A friend reminded me of this song, Snowman by Sia. I forgot how great the melody is and it has the cutest stop motion video. My kids love it! I’ve learned how to play it on guitar and we’ve been singing it around the house all month. 
• I recently read The Secret History by Donna Tart (suspenseful, interesting characters, loved the descriptive New England college setting) and watched Saltburn (shocking, ridiculous, but beautifully shot) and am overall having fun exploring this whole Dark Academia theme. So mysterious, so sordid, so entertaining.
• We’ve finished the show, The Gilded Age. Our whole family, even the children watched it together and loved it. It’s set in the late 1800’s in New York and explores the societal issues between new money and old money. A fun way to explore this historical time!
• On a related theme, over the holidays we visited the Biltmore in Ashland, NC. Our family loves touring historic homes, as one of the most grand historic homes in the US, it was a delight to see. An unexpected bonus was the impressive art collection that was on display home. It was like visiting an art museum and historic home at once. Highly recommend a visit to this home and the funky little mountain city of Asheville.
• Are you all on Substack? So much interesting content and inspiring writers over there. I don't know about you all, but I miss the longer form content of blogs over short and fast snippets of places like Instagram. I would be remiss if it didn’t mention and recommend one of my favorite substacks that this newsletter format happens to be based off of, which is Austin Kleon's. I thoroughly enjoy his Friday emails. His books on art and creativity are incredibly inspiring as well. 

Hope you enjoyed this issue, ‘till next time! 

As always, thanks for being here,

Pauline Stanley
Founder/Designer
therarebirdco.com