Reflecting on 2025 (Feeding the Monster)
This is a reflection on 2025, on diversifying creative practice, on creative side quests, and on letting process lead. I’m sharing what I got up to last year and walking you through the zines and journals that shaped it. (Definitely watch the video to actually see the pieces)
Watch the full video here:
I didn’t make as many zines as I intended to. But that’s okay. Because I had a very full creative curriculum.
And something important about 2025 is that a lot of it was for me. A lot of it was processing. A lot of it was internal. Not everything was meant for the internet. Some of it was just meant to move through my hands.
My Favourite Zine of 2025: A Soft Hunger
My favourite zine of 2025 is A Soft Hunger.
It’s based on a clay sculpture I made in a process art group I participated in. (In the video I show the sculpture — it’s a two-faced creature, and seeing it makes the whole concept land.) The sculpture became a vessel. The title is A Soft Hunger: Feed the Monster, and it’s essentially a creative philosophy of how creativity works for me.
The creature has two faces. One receives. One releases. Together they form a cycle of nourishment, creativity, and return.
The zine explores:
hunger as creative force
feeding the monster through play
digestion as alchemy
creativity as a cycle
It’s about understanding that what we consume, experiences, sensations and questions, gets transformed. Creation digests the world into meaning. Meaning becomes the next meal.
I’m really proud of this one.
It’s currently printed on sugar paper, slightly gritty, almost like newspaper but thicker. I love the texture. I’ve experimented with different paper and bindings too. The version in the video is a simple three-stitch bind, but I want to explore more.
If you’d like to trade, this is one I can send. (DM me on IG)
Bookbinding: A Creative Side Quest
Bookbinding. I’m sorry — what a craft!
I have so much respect for bookbinders now. The stitching alone took real brain power. It required a different kind of focus.
There’s nothing inside the journal yet because I don’t know what it wants to be. Writing? Collage? Creative journaling? I already have a few journals in rotation.
But I might keep this one blank for a while. Because it’s the first one I made. And it looks so cool.
Side quests matter. They stretch different parts of the creative muscle.
Two Grief Zines
I made two grief zines last year. These helped me put words and feelings into form.
Sharing my writing is vulnerable for me. Most of my writing is process-based. Everything I do is process-based. It’s not about the end product, at least not first.
The first is Grief Leaks. Let It.
A poetic exploration of how grief pours out of me even when I don’t want it to — and how you have to let it come. You must feel it all.
The second is Grief Is a Portal.
Both are simple folded A3 formats — my favourite way to make a zine. Accessible. Immediate. Low barrier. You can just whip one out.
“Brown” — A Mini Zine
I made a mini zine called Brown during a July zine challenge.
It focuses on the color brown — the color of my skin, the color of the earth, of roots and return.
Sometimes a single colour can hold an entire philosophy.
A Collaborative Zine with My Art Club Girls
This one is very special.
I made it with the girls from my Art Club. We focused on the concept of love. I showed them a short clip of bell hooks speaking about love, and we experimented with lino prints, another side quest of 2025.
Each girl wrote about what love is to her, how she practices love, what love feels like. After they finished their writing and prints, I scanned everything and compiled it into a shared zine.
We all have the same inside pages, their collective words, but different covers. We each made our own. They have their copies. I have mine.
That one feels like community as artifact.
Writing Journal: Morning Pages & Creative Purge
I’ve been writing a lot. Morning pages. Creative purge. Word-vomiting thoughts that need somewhere to go. Things I’m feeling. Things I need to do. Loosening the tightness in the brain. Oh and I started my fountain pen collection (yay!)
Repurposed Art Journal (My Father’s Diaries)
This one is layered. When cleaning out my father’s house, I found stacks of his old appointment diaries. He used them simply, for his work (daily appointments and bookings).
There were so many. So I turned them into a process art diary. I paint in them. Draw. Collage. Whatever wants to happen. There’s no aesthetic goal. And I’m definitely continuing that in 2026.
Junk Journaling & The Anti-Precious Project
In the second half of 2025, I went deep into junk journaling.
I completed one at the end of the year and started something I call the Anti-Precious Project — just for myself.
Using scraps. Storage box leftovers. Random paper. Nothing fancy.
Low barrier. No preciousness.
Just exercising the creative muscle.
Closing: Intentions for 2026
All of that to say:
This year, I’m giving myself grace and space to explore again.
I’m not setting goals like “create X amount of zines” or “produce this many things.” That freezes me. I feel blocked. I feel pressure, especially when it feels like I’m creating just to put things on the internet.
That’s not why I do this.
I have so many ideas. So many concepts. So many things to explore. But not enough time in the day. So instead of goals, I’m choosing intention.
To play. To experiment. To follow more side quests.
If I were naming the intention for 2026, it would be this:
Challenge myself through side quests.
Play more. Connect more. Care for myself in as many creative ways as possible.
