after 10 years, otherworldly...
hello after a hibernation, and the birthing of a new business website
hello friends,
it’s been a little while. I sent my last letter in early November, then disappeared from digital life. in the meantime, I traveled to the US, got a small surgery — and spent the holidays with my family resting and recovering.
it’s taken me a long time to understand the value of rest and integration work — growing in circles, spiraling around deep truths that might take minutes to understand or explain, but many months or years to fully inhabit. this period of absence, for me, has been full of gold.
since returning to Istanbul and my normal routines, I’ve taken things slowly. I felt like I could barely remember 2024, so I started keeping weekly visual diaries to give narrative, texture, and shape to my 2025. I returned to my podcast, started writing about website as cocoons, and shared the story of cocoonery — one of my first digital homes.
a new business website vessel
last friday, I finally completed a project that’s taken me nearly 10 years to integrate, many months to articulate, and only a few sessions to create:
I decided to build a new digital home for my (existing) web design business — at otherworldly.place.
I’m very excited to share it with you, below…
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💌 new newsletter rhythm — twice monthly
for the sake of integration, I’ve decided to combine my monthly artist digests + weekly guide.notes into one letter — which I’ll send twice per month. this will help me commit to showing up consistently, even if I’m feeling a little shy…
🌑 otherworldly, a web alchemy studio
otherworldly is a web alchemy studio imagining and building environments on the internet.
it’s my labor of love, an integration of art, philosophy, web design, and business — and an ongoing collaboration with my partner K.
explore the version 1.0 of the website here —
🌕 the birth of otherworldly — 10 years of integrating art & business
here’s the “how it happened.” I reflect on the decade long journey that led me to this integration of art, business, and the internet — with thoughts on the multiplicity of a business container, pricing & boundaries, and upcoming plans & dreams.
the birth of otherworldly: 10 years of integrating art & business — kening zhu
a new world to birth more worlds
🌸 WEEKLY VISUAL DIARIES
a few visual distillations from my month of January
chinese new years noodle therapy
on the melancholy — and private joys — of passing chinese new years in a country/culture that doesn’t know it exists
chinese new year noodle therapy — kening zhu
making noodles while feeling homesick
inside the leviathan hydra monster
deployment for a year-long client project… the feeling of working with developers on something bigger than any of us.
inside the leviathan hydra monster — kening zhu
a portrait of project process
three waking times
on returning to my daily routines after months away, and introducing a robot vacuum to our household.
the beginning of weekly visual diaries — kening zhu
why I’m starting this new series
🌿 art, business, & internet
recent thinking out loud — on digital ecosystems as vessels for artist & business process
a website is a cocoon for becoming
on the website as a semi-public place to be seen, in process
a website is a cocoon for becoming — kening zhu
a web vessel to hold your processes of change
cocoonery: the story of my first internet home
a story of how I started writing on the internet, age 22. I almost forgot about the digital cocoon that came before all else.
cocoonery: the story of my first internet home — kening zhu
how I started writing on the internet
digital presence is a place
on thinking of digital presence as place, not production-labor
digital presence is a place — kening zhu
on permission to be absent & human
🎴 tarot work diaries
using the tarot as intuitive guide for creative business. this year, I’m drawing one card a week to guide my work.
page of wands: the potentiality of beginnings
on reconnecting to playful creativity, even when feeling depleted
page of wands: potentiality of beginnings — kening zhu
reconnecting to possibility — at any creative phase
the tower as a guide to surrender
transforming a card I used to dread into a guide for change
the tower as a guide to surrender — kening zhu
a container for change and surrender
🌻 inspiration log: things i’ve enjoyed lately
reading: the millenium series by Stieg Larsson. a guilty, purely plot-based crime thriller pleasure. despite the awkward language, flat characters, and cringe-y sex scenes, I fall asleep tapping on my kindle, turning pages.
films I loved: edward scissorhands (1990), the corpse bride (2005), elemental (2023), coco (2017)
film I felt conflicted about: the one I love (2014), coraline (2009), the substance (2024)
read: art monster: on the impossibility of new york (2024) by Marin Kosut. this one deserves a proper review. given my life and career choices, it was extremely validating to read — it made me glad that my younger self knew the futility of that rat race, and opted out.
listening to: Angela Carter’s BBC radio drama collection — an immersive and sensuous performance of fairytale stories from “The Bloody Chamber,” which I adored and want to make websites-fairytale-storybooks about.
listening to: meditations for mortals by Oliver Burkeman. I wish I came upon this book 10 years ago. generally speaking, I tend to be resistant to productivity advice dispensed by think-y white men. that being said, this one is the best of the genre — cross pollinating practical advice and philosophy (as is 4,000 weeks), and, Oliver Burkeman has a very soothing and energizing reading voice.
🏡 house on the webs course
house on the webs is my guided 7 day adventure for building a website that feels like a creative home to inhabit with your integrated self.
course registration is $360 for the self-paced course + forever access
this year, I started monthly office hours for HOTW students to drop in, talk about their work, and say hello. I’m dreaming of more community-based evolutions soon…
🪷 advising sessions
I offer a few 1:1 advising intensives per month — where you’ll have my full attention, for two hours, deep-diving into your creative processes, systems, and business. together, we’ll gently shine a light on your inner patterns, and chart a clear roadmap forwards.
rather than the frictionless-ness of Calendly, I’ve been inspired by the inconvienence of hand-illustrated availability calendars.
here’s my advising calendar for March, up to date, as of today ~
🌱 creative systems: a new course for spring (?)
recently, I’ve been incubating an urge to build a 4-6 week course around creative systems — on building flexible structures for channeling creative energy into clear momentum.
the course will be self-inquiry & experimentation — designed to help you investigate beliefs, align with inner rhythms, harness creative chaos, and run gentle experiments on process. above all, I hope this course helps you fall in love with the idiosyncrasies of your private creative process.
for the first time in several years, I have an urge to teach this course as weekly live, small-group class (?!?) — in interest of live, real-time engagement and community support. as a full-time hermit, I’m a bit shocked and hesitant to even announce this before I’m totally sure.
if this urge continues in the next weeks, I’m thinking of running the course March 17th-April 21st. the live launch will probably be priced somewhere around ~$360.
I’ll keep you posted — and will mention it on my podcast, which I’ll be resuming weekly.
🪼 thank you for reading
I’ll look forward to writing you, here again, in two weeks.
take care till then,
kening
🌔 visit otherworldly, a web alchemy studio
🍃 find me on my podcast: botanical studies of internet magic.
🏔️ explore my course: house on the webs
🪷 inquire about advising sessions
💧 send me a gift: water my world