#1 Letter from the Atelier
Hi there,
Thank you so much for being here. This is the very first letter, and it means a lot to me that you’re reading it.
I hope this weekly note will feel like a gentle pause you can look forward to.
Now, let’s begin.
✦ What I left behind
I never thought I’d write this letter. And yet, here I am, almost a year after having left everything behind.
Not just a job.
Not just a house.
No, I left an entire life behind: my shops, my home, my bearings, and everything I had spent years building. To start over… or almost.
A year ago, I sold my three shops, my house, and I moved more than 6,000 km away, with my family, towards a new life.
For seven years, I had given everything to those shops. I loved designing the layouts, choosing the products, creating atmospheres. I loved the creative side, the independence. It was a life you could call “successful”: stable, built, normal. The kind of life that was expected of me.
And then, Covid happened.
Barely a month after opening my third shop, the world came to a stop. The shutters came down. And with them, all the obligations, the numbers, the Excel spreadsheets.
After more than ten years without touching a pencil, I grabbed the tablet I used for checkout in one of my shops, ordered an Apple Pencil, and there, in that imposed emptiness, I started drawing again. I rediscovered a part of myself I had buried deep down, and a quiet intuition that wouldn’t let me go: What if it was time to pick up the thread of my dreams?
✦ Why I took the leap
I had a thousand reasons not to: a child to raise, doubts, the fear of failing, of not being good enough. But an even bigger fear came and swept everything else away: the fear of never trying.
The fear of looking back one day, and realizing it was time to add “become an artist” to my list of regrets.
So I decided to try.
I decided to take myself seriously. I started learning again. Searching. Dreaming. And little by little, I started becoming the artist I had always wanted to be.
✦ What I’m building now
Today, I have a small studio at home, a room just for me.
And every day, I move a little closer to a goal that’s simple, but immense: to make a living from my art.
It’s not easier than before. But it feels truer. More aligned. And much more alive.
I don’t regret taking the leap. Even though I was scared. Even though I’m still scared. Because what I’ve found again, day by day, is a curiosity, an energy, a joy I had lost.
✦ What you’ll find in these letters
Every Friday, I’ll write you a letter from my studio.
I’ll talk to you about:
- what I’m learning,
- my trials, my mistakes, my routines,
- the behind-the-scenes of my paintings,
- what I’m reading, what inspires me, what I’m creating.
Sometimes it’ll be personal. Sometimes very practical. But it will always be sincere. And above all, meant to help you—if you, too, create, doubt, and search.
Thank you for being here,
Thank you for reading these words.
And if this first letter speaks to you, feel free to reply. I’d love to know who you are, and what you’re creating too.
See you next Friday ✨
Laurine