TreeBed Design

Winter Solstice... Slow Down/Reflection... Returning 

We have come through the Winter Solstice, and have made the very first steps towards the returning light. This particular solstice feels potent for me. As the dust settles from my holiday push... I am sinking into what feels like a more natural rhythm for this time of year: slow, dark, pulling in the warmth I can find, and looking back at the past year. How did this (ever faster) unfolding year fit into the larger arc of my life, and the growth of TreeBed Design? It was a big year for TBD, and there is much to celebrate in recounting what has been accomplished! 

2021 began with Covid surging (again), and this felt especially hard after getting a taste of things starting to re-open up in the fall of 2020. My body processed this return to isolation with a great deal of heaviness and anxiety. I realized I would need to make some changes in order to dig out of the darkness I was slipping into. So I asked for help. This was the first big move of 2021 (not something I am always very good at). I checked in with my doctor (I thought my heart was failing, before I realized anxiety was getting the best of me), who pointed me towards different support options for my health. I share this mostly to normalize asking for help (the more I remind myself the better), and to maybe encourage anyone reading this who is struggling to reach out as well. Soon after taking this step I had the thought, "what if I had help with TBD... what could I accomplish?" That very day I saw an Instagram post by Camila (someone I started following by way of coffee connections) talking about the virtual assistance work she does... so I reached out! Camila was sharing on IG in a way that resonated with me, and I instantly felt supported in moving TBD forward. Check out her website, art, and the Pause Project (so awesome)! 

With Camila's support, I began creating many new aspects of tending an ecology for TreeBed Design to grow from. There was a consistent social media strategy... sharing my story, process, and products. The first TBD newsletter went out in the Summer. I opened my doors for the return of the Vallejo Art Walk (as well began volunteering to run their IG account), and I did my first intentional holiday release! 

The first full year of returning to self employment was no easy road, but 2021 was the most productive TBD year yet! I made more pieces this year than ever before, and all of that in spite of supply chain problems that created major headaches to production. Along with hundreds of plates, bowls, growlers, mugs, tumblers etc... I tackled a new skill: mural making! In August I got to translate the 90 year old blue prints of a boat built on Mare Island into a giant wall mural for the new Mare Island Brewing Co. Whaleboat Room (click for a video of the making). 

So on this winter solstice... I slow down, and go inward to reflect on how the journey of the past year has fit into my longer story. I can see reminders that my asking for help... is helpful. I can feel the support of that help, and celebrate new structures in place to make moving forward easier. I can honor the struggle and resistance that I had to move through in order to make those things happen. A big part of 2021 was just the simple act of starting. After the trauma of the fire (or pandemic, or loss, etc) it can feel incredibly hard to start (or re-start) anything, and I spent much of the year wobbling between survival mode (patterns long engrained)... and choosing the sturdiness of success (which is still an evolving definition). I am so grateful for all of YOU who have been a part of this process, and the support I have felt while I wobble. I am not totally sure what 2022 will be for TBD. There is a lot in flux, but it feels like in 2021 I gave myself a foundation to grow into something beautiful!

- Micah

The week I moved back to Vallejo (March 2020) happened to be the second Friday of the month, and so there was an Art Walk! I was so excited to wander downtown Vallejo and see the changes that had been going on in the years I had been gone. I had set up numerous times for previous art walks in Vallejo over the years (including the first versions long ago), and was looking forward to being downtown to participate from my own studio! Then a few days later the whole world change, and everything shut down for COVID!

Vallejo Art Walk 2015

Tonight the art walk returns for the first time since that shut down, and I am so excited to open my doors to people! So if you are close enough to Vallejo to come say hello... Please do!

Downtown will be buzzing from 5-9pm, and you can put it on your calendar for every 2nd Friday of the month!

Summer 2021
Welcome to Summer and my first ever newsletter! This has been something I have thought about doing for MANY years, and it is finally happening! What took so long?!? To answer that question I have to go back to the beginning of TreeBed Design, and how it started after the loss of my father. My dad was HIV positive for over 20 years (pretty rare in those early days of the AIDS crisis), and he finally lost that battle on Father’s Day 2004. My brother and I inherited his house in Vallejo, and I was able to set up a small studio space to make ceramics again.

My dad wrote a note to me when I left for college that said, “I don’t care what you do… as long as you treat those around you honestly & fairly. Besides that do whatever is meaningful to you.” I did my best to apply this to what I thought HE might want me to do after his death, and so I rushed into trying to start a business that could sustain my creative passions. I had a lot to learn about grief. I also had a lot to learn about how to apply those words of wisdom that he offered me… for ME.

I was very young when my dad came out to our family as gay, and then a few years later I learned about his HIV (after the loss of his first partner). These traumas shaped my understanding of the world (only beginning to understand the full extent of this in the last few years), and it informed how I started TBD after his loss. I had plenty of passion, ideas, creativity… However, I didn’t understand what I needed to grieve/heal in order to build a proper foundation for starting TBD. So I made mistakes. I stumbled, and got off course. In fact, I was never really clear where I was headed in the first place. I was operating out of a lot of fear (buried deep), and not fully living into all that was possible.

Dad and I (1999)

So as I reflect and move through this potent month of remembering (Father’s Day, Solstice, Pride Month)… It felt important to take a big step towards re-launching TreeBed Design (with love). I am making the newsletter happen now, because I have finally laid the foundation to make it happen (along with asking for support). I have used those stumbles and detours to discover/know my grief. To feel it more fully. To heal (which is a continuous process). To more fully understand the privilege I have in this journey, and be grateful for all the support I have been given. I still can’t say exactly where TreeBed Design is going (it is “TBD” after all), but I look forward to using this newsletter to tell you about where I am finding myself at the moment. My hope is that there is value in the process of sharing my work (for us both), and the stories that the work is rooted in. Sure it is partially about making and selling products/services that I design… However, underneath that it is about creating community in the shared experiences of being human.

Thank you for being the first people to witness and support this next chapter of TBD! Some of you have been watching this evolve (start/stop/pause/etc) since the very beginning… I’m so grateful for the continued interest and investment in my unfolding!

Process:
I don’t need to tell you that it has been a wild year! With no in-person dining there was not much need for my restaurant/winery customers to have ceramic dishes. However, once things started opening up… I am happy to say I got VERY busy. You can interact with my work at: Mare Island Brewing Co. (Vallejo), Compline (Napa), Katz Farm (Napa), Donum Estate (Sonoma), Stone Edge Farm (Sonoma), and more added soon which I’ll post on my FAQ page! There has been a lot to learn navigating my new Vallejo work space, supply chain issues, and shifting a side hustle into sustainable full time work. The goal is to balance all of those logistic/production things with finding the energy to re-spark creativity. I discovering how do I want to be in relationship with my work (especially the work I do in my living space), and nourish/care for all the parts of my being?

Mare Island Brewing Co. "Squealers"

Product:
I have been making a lot of vases lately, and having so much fun doing so! It often feels like getting back to my ceramic sculptural roots… adding details, seeing where the clay takes me, and thinking about how the vase will be viewed/used. I love the idea that people will add their own creativity to the vase: flowers, kitchen utensils, and whatever else might fit! Summer is such a great time to forage in the garden for different colors/textures/etc to add to a vase. Each time you fill it up, a new work of art is created! Check out these new vases with the little “rivet” detail!

TBD Vases

Sale: (gotta sign up for the actual newsletter for that part)

Next newsletter will be in the fall with perhaps a few emails of big stuff in between... if you aren't signed up... click the link so you can get discounts and first access to new products/events!

Thank you so much for reading and following along!

-Micah

2020 is coming to a close, and winter is now officially upon us. Always a time of year for many to reflect, but this year has been especially... well, you fill in a description!

Perhaps one ending gift of this year is that for many this holiday season will be very different due to COVID-19... yes, a gift. Along with all of the struggle, grief, and uneasiness... perhaps there will be a bit slower pace, and more space to slow down, go inward and reflect (which lends itself to this solstice season naturally... despite the normal holiday craziness we are used to). 

For me it has been the year of landing, and planting myself in a new way. Since the 2017 fires, I have been scrambling to find my footing. In March (2020) I moved back to Vallejo to do just that, and give my full attention to TreeBed Design. A week later... everything shutdown due to the pandemic. At first this felt like a continuation/escalation of my disrupted life, but now looking back... it was actually the beginning of the "pause" (plunged deep into the soil) that I needed to look at myself, the world (and how I participate in it) differently. With each new layer of 2020 that unfolded I was given the opportunity to slow down again, and re-evaluate what is important in my life... how I need/want to show up for myself, my community and beyond. This wasn't easy. It still feels pretty uncomfortable... and yet, there are glimpses of the beauty found in turning towards creativity, towards healing, towards racial justice, towards standing up for better ways to take care of each other. These are the things I want to find my footing in, and my "work" will grow out of that. At this transition of the solstice... that is the light I am stretching towards. 

 It was a year that brought me back to projects that I was about to start on right before the fire... a second growler for Mare Island Brewing Company, more TBD Tuesday Tumblers,  and new recording projects have taken shape this year. For the first time in 3 years I have the space to paint (hooray for Stripes!), record music, have hands in clay, and relax/recharge! I am so grateful for that space and feel incredibly privileged to be re-connecting to my own creativity. Thank you for being a part of all of this... with orders from the website, support of places that use my work, following/liking pictures posted along the way, and cheering me on! I hope there is more of all of this to come.

Striped

I can't say I know what 2021 holds... However, I do have the sense that I am ready to press "play", and emerge from my "pause" with new creative energy. I hope to collaborate more, make space for more creativity/healing/beauty, and connect with my community in deeper ways. I want to celebrate more joy as I grow into the light ahead... oh, and hopefully hug (everyone)! 

- with lots of love and gratitude... see you in 2021

It has been a while since I have posted any news (or done much of anything with my online presence), but things are changing... I have been extremely busy the past few years finding my footing after the wild fires of 2017. At the beginning of March I finally landed in a place that felt like it might be the stability I was seeking, and it also felt like a homecoming of sorts back in Vallejo! And then everything changed...

Our new reality with the COVID-19 pandemic has thrown things right back into uncertainty for me and most everyone else in the world. However, I am grateful to have a stable place to be, and a space that I can continue to create. I am taking this slowed down time... to rest, resource, and re-evaluate what TreeBed Design means in this new time

In the meantime... I will be cleaning out some old stuff from the website, and beginning to add some new things. There is no great announcement or unveiling to be done, but simply me calling in what is important. So, I share with you a song I wrote some time ago, and recorded for my Kitchen Sink Concert series. May the work I've done over the past few years (and beyond) to find a new way of being... allow what I am doing in this next chapter to be of service to the health and happiness that is possible in this new world.