Constellations No. 10

"The Good Dark"

Good Morning and Welcome to Constellations No. 10—

Here we are again, at the dawn of the year’s shortest day. This time of year always feels like it is holding a great secret; there is a quiet power in the murky collision of endings and beginnings. I suspect it is this that poet and writer Maggie Smith refers to as the good dark in her poem “How Dark the Beginning” (below).

The good dark.

When I read “How Dark the Beginning” a few weeks ago, I let these words roll around in my mouth for a while. They gave a name to this precise moment in time that is laden with meaning and significance personally, metaphorically, seasonally and culturally.

If we could think of the good dark as a place, I would confidently say I am in it, looking backward and forward as I take steps toward a new beginning. My autumn entailed surgery and a longer-than-anticipated recovery, as well as stepping back into aspects of life that felt like a distant dream only a short time ago — like frequenting my studio, and dipping back into work. I am (still pinching myself) finally back: standing here in my own body after a hellish two year sojourn. The acute steps of cancer treatment are now behind me, and my energy is slowly reemerging. Before me is an open road. And along side it, tremendous questions.

I am familiar with beginnings – I have a fair amount of practice with them at this point in my life. But now I am more comfortable than ever in the unknowns inherent in them. I feel a new ease when I say out loud that I am reconsidering everything about where I want to exert my energy; what shape it might take and just how I want to express it. I am examining my own ambition, and asking what it means to me now – here, on the other side of what I just faced.

In the darkness of these long winter days, I feel at home swirling in my thoughts without seeking a necessary resolution. Instead of pushing them away to clear a path for certainty I am enjoying the way they cloud together and tug at one another, creating new questions, desires and goals.

There is freedom in the good dark. In it lies the liberating reminder that there is no one right way to move forward, and that every day – the shortest of winter or the longest of summer– brings with it an inevitable amount of vulnerability and unpredictability. I like to think that while I was traversing the perpetual darkness of the last few years, a bright lantern within me remained constantly lit, patiently waiting for me to return to it.

The good dark is full of gifts–solitude and rumination, quiet and mystery. I do not wish it away. Rather, I attempt to bathe in its shadows because they are necessary for reinvention. Winter’s low light is a resting place to reinvest in curiosity and drive; a chance to reconnect with my creative purpose and this healthy body that allows me to realize it; a time to show up for myself, my family and my friends. It is the important, beautiful space of anything could happen. As Smith writes, let us talk more of how dark the beginning of the day is.

In reflecting on my year of writing, making and healing, I am profoundly grateful that you have chosen to join me here. In a complex world of newsletters and fragmented attention, your readership is a huge gift that I do not take for granted.

Thank you for encouraging me to keep writing and sharing. It means more to me than you’ll ever know.

NEWS

2025 Farm Club Calendars have arrived!

This my fourth year collaborating with Farm Club to support Leelanau Conservancy’s Farmland Protection efforts to preserve the rich farming history in Leelanau County. Over the last four years, calendar sales have allowed us to donate more than $15k to the Conservancy’s important work! Thank you for your support!

Reminder: if you ordered a 2025calendar, it is available now for pickup. Farm Club still has (a very few) calendars available for purchase in the market if you did not order in advance. Preorders for 2026 calendars will go live in November 2025.

Paintings in my studio for the 2025 Farm Club Calendar

Middle School Art Lab at Leland’s Old Art Building

I’m thrilled to announce I am joining uber-talented art educator, Tracy Smedes-Hepler at Leland's Old Art Building to co-teach an art class for middle school students, beginning in January, 2025. Read more about the class and register your 6th, 7th or 8th grader HERE.

A BRIGHT LIGHT

Letters to a Young Artist

While rearranging my studio, I rediscovered this gem that has been tucked away in my bookshelf for 20 years. Letters To A Young Artist (2006) was the only thing I could afford to buy the first time I visited Crown Point Press when I was in graduate school in SanFrancisco. I had spent the afternoon by myself at SFMOMA, and wandered over to Crown Point afterwards. The revered space, site of monumental print collaborations with scores of artists over the years, was as silent as a chapel. I remember being self conscious of my footsteps, which echoed as I walked around looking at first editions on the walls. I wanted to take home a souvenir, and this book was it.

In its pages are letters from artists such as John Baldessari, Kerry James Marshall, Jessica Stockholder and many more - responding to a fictional “young artist” seeking advice on their career. The replies range from wonky to heartfelt to practical. I still refer to it and find new useful tidbits.

Here’s a solid gold excerpt from Elizabeth Murray:

“The art world seems to conjure up a lot of nonsense right now and seems to be only about trends, money, and fame. Try to stay focused and centered in what you want in your work, keeping in mind that your art is about describing your spirit and your life force makes the work better.”

And another from Mierle Laderman Ukeles:

“I believe that art is the articulation of human freedom. Remember, above all, you are the boss, The Boss, of your freedom. No one else. Your art, if it is original and worth something, expands all human freedom.

Art, after it comes through you, will be different. Art comes from you, you all by yourself, unique among anyone who has ever lived in the history of the world; AND, art comes from you in your world with the choices you make as free being, and the glue, even, with the relationships that you create and stick to; AND art comes from you as a citizen in the world; AND you within history and in nature.”

Letters to a Young Artist is out of print but used copies can be found here and here.

A POEM FOR THE MOMENT

HOW DARK THE BEGINNING (from Goldenrod, 2021)
By Maggie Smith


All we ever talk of is light—
let there be light, there was light then,

good light—but what I consider
dawn is darker than all that.

So many hours between the day
receding and what we recognize

as morning, the sun cresting
like a wave that won’t break

over us—as if light were protective, 
as if no hearts were flayed,

no bodies broken on a day
like today. In any film,

the sunrise tells us everything
will be alright. Danger wouldn’t

dare show up now, dragging
its shadow across the screen.

We talk so much of light, please
let me speak on behalf

of the good dark. Let us
talk more of how dark 

the beginning of a day is.

---

MOOD FOR 2025