Where do I start? The past years were wild!
I registered Aini as a business in 2017 and began creating my flower corsages to accompany my lolita fashion ensembles!
I dabbled in many different mediums, sewing animal head pins to ribbon embroidery.
I got to illustrate for lolita fashion events that I never even dreamed of attending and I even got to take part in my first art exhibition!
I jumped into the business side of things as an extremely shy and inexperienced introvert and got face to face with my first customers. Emotionally it was a roller coaster but I have grown leaps and bounds!
I learned a lot through my time with the Lolita Collective and attending local events while travelling through the US. I got to meet the people that gave my work a home in person! I built many new friendships and I outgrew some of them. But with the highs came some lows. At the end of 2018 I lost almost all my stock in a package theft and only slowly recovered from it emotionally.
Then depression put a halt on my life. I was in a state of emotional standby and as a result I became extremely overweight. The final straw came when anything art related that I touched just didn’t feel right anymore. I was struggling so hard to pick up my tools in order to work on anything artistic for the longest period of time. I needed to overcome my inner demons.
So I made some changes.
My eating habits changed, my emotional health became a priority and I got a job again! I healed. Life has been kind to me and I learned that I needed to value myself more and slowly overcame my self loathing.
It’s been a year and I think I’m ready to come back. Incidentally the new decade just started and it just feels right to try again! I’m planning to use this momentum to the fullest!
I’m trying to pick up creating art on a regular basis again. I need some accountability though, so I’m going to start blogging on my Patreon once more.
A majority of my posts are going to be public and I am switching the Patreon rewards to a donation / tip based system. If you’d like to support me you can still do so by becoming a patron. I will continue to add my finished line work as downloads and full art live streams to my middle tier, but they are no longer connected to a dated system and will become available as I finish artworks over time.
I posted two blog pieces already so you can get a feeling for what I’m up to!
I’m ready to tackle this journey, and I am inviting you to join me, if you’d like. 💖