The Just Joyful Collection
Have you ever done anything just because you wanted to do it? Maybe it was taking the long road home at the end of your vacation, knowing not even five cups of coffee would fix it come Monday. Or maybe it was lingering a little too long saying goodnight after curfew back when you were barely 18. Some things are worth the cost, although I’ll never forget the ghostly image of my mother in her flowing cotton nightgown at the front door when I did that to her the summer before I left for college. For half a second I thought she was a ghost!
Life is full of funny choices. Responsibility and what we should do creeps in and cuts deep into our souls as caretakers, providers and regular folks just trying to make it to the weekend…every…single…week. Sometimes responsibility is too heavy to bear. Sometimes we just need to lighten up, live a little and relax for a few. After some heavy years where I shouldered more shoulds than I could humanly manage, I decided it’s my turn to revel a bit in the joys of living. You know what else I learned? Nobody is going to give you permission to do it—If you need it, you just have to take it.
That’s what this collection is about. It throws caution to the wind and embraces the now, the color, the happy, the blooms, the sprinkles, the rainbow and especially the joy. Give me all the giddy joy.
I have had so much fun brushing beautiful color on canvases and meditating on the images that take me back to my happy places. They might be gorgeous spring blooms in a vase, a sunshine flooded field, or the low country as the last light fades from the first day of vacation.
There are so many things I can’t control in life- but I can hang a pop of color on my wall and be giddy every single time it catches my eye.
If I could sing, I’d probably break out in “These are a few of my favorite things” in full Julie Andrews reverie right about now, but that’s not my gift… AT ALL. Instead, I'll turn Tom Petty’s Free Fallin’ way up to drown out my worries, roll those windows down in my car (now a minivan) and let the silky summer breeze float in and take me away— right down those back country roads to never never land— just because I still can!
I’ll see you out there! Maybe we’ll find some wildflowers…or each other along the way.
Katie
The Just Joyful Collection launches on Thursday, May 19th at 9:00 a.m. for Studio Insiders and at 11:00 a.m. for the public.
To shop before the public, join my Studio Insiders here.