A mirror dog is not exactly a professional nemesis or a frenemy, though it can be those things too. A mirror dog is someone you see yourself in—often the parts of yourself that are the most shadowy or problematic. In a world of limited professional and relational resources, our mirror dogs seem to be capitalizing on the things in ourselves from which we shy away. Not only are they leveraging those aspects—they are apparently profiting and thriving.

This morning on the way to the airport, my cup of beauty again feels full. I imagine that this is how extroverts feel after a particularly satisfying party full of interesting and compelling social interactions. A few years ago, I would have taken the unambiguous and deeply intuitive feelings from this experience as an indication that I needed to quit my day job and get back to the cultural sector.

For the past few years, we’ve been toying with the idea of building an addition. We hired our neighbor, a well-regarded Santa Fe architect, who has personal experience enlarging these robust little Stamm homes. We’ve hemmed and hawed and tweaked the plans and have absolutely been the most insufferable clients. At some point last fall we had exhausted the invented reasons for which we had been dragging this out. We pulled the permits, picked a contractor, and got a loan.

I’m standing here in the turreted shadow of an 1880s hotel-turned-boarding school, shivering in a swimsuit while snow languidly filters down from an ashen sky. The thirty mincing, sandaled yards from my impromptu changing spot (read: a stand of pine trees with less strategic branch cover than I would desire) back to the hot springs seems to elongate in some deep, relativistic way. My commitment to this plan hasn’t wavered but I’m starting to wonder if the friends I recruited are regretting their decision to tag along for what I had advertised as “a real northern New Mexico adventure.”

So this year? My big goal is to STOP accomplishing and get back to the WHY underneath. I’m not going to stop making, doing, creating but I’m going to stop attaching deadlines, end products, and benchmarks to these things. I’m embracing this as a season of reorientation rather than striving toward the next big thing. I’m opting for steadiness and sustainable creative practices over performative outcomes. The doing itself is the goal. In other words, 2026 is the year of process over product.

My brain and heart are still full of other places, other moments. I’m surrounded by tea lights and flowers in the courtyard of the Georgia O’Keeffe Museum. I’m watching as the sun clears the pashmina of fog from the Welsh Hills on the porch of Tan-y-Deri at Taliesin. I’m sandwiched in a vinyl booth at a Quad Cities diner alongside three friends who worked there for a few summers back in the early 1970s. I’m racing the fading light back to my lodging at Taliesin West; the saguaros glowing an unearthly pink. I’m in your local indie bookstore, smiling fast, shaking hands, fixing my lipstick in some sliver of a mirror.

I was a footnote in other people’s vacations, an unexpected opportunity to kill an hour at  the local indie book store, or a chance encounter that set someone’s trajectory on a slightly different course.

After wrapping up my midwest mini-tour (three states, three talks, three days), I had about ten days at home before getting in the car and driving to Taliesin West. I spent eight days in Arizona doing book stuff at Taliesin West, squeezing in a family vacation, and attending a marathon 48-hour conference for my day job. I got home on Thursday, and then on Saturday gave a talk at a charming indie bookstore in Albuquerque.

At Taliesin, the ephemeral nature of life sits heavily on the land like the fog that mantels the Welsh Hills each morning. I learn how the brush is burned from the creeks and how to estimate the age of the trees; that even the massive, seemingly permanent weeping willow looming over the pond is maybe younger than I am.

I gave this short gallery talk on Friday, October 3 at the Georgia O’Keeffe Museum. The text for this talk and the research in it comes mostly from the chapter Vessel & Void. I’ve left it largely as I delivered it with only light editing.

Ever felt like a ghost helped you write a book? The researchers behind a landmark Alexander Girard exhibition did — and I have to admit, I hoped for a little of that spectral magic myself.

Yes! And why art books cost so much and a spirited defense of biographical art history.

On TV and in books, archival research always feels glamorous, romantic, and a little dangerous. There are secrets lurking conveniently at the top of a thick pile of folders, some arcane illuminati conspiracy ready to be unearthed by a precocious grad student who may also be a witch and/or vampire. The reality is considerably less enthralling. Archives are routinely colder than you’d prefer and someone is likely watching to make sure you’re wearing your gloves.

How I spent a summer obsessing over Georgia O’Keeffe’s sitting room window.

The untold story behind Georgia O’Keeffe’s biggest painting, Sky Above Clouds IV (1965), featuring cameos from some of midcentury design’s biggest names.