I wanted to start being more active here with something simple and honest.
Lately, I’ve been doing a lot of thinking about how I want to share my work — not in a “big relaunch” way, but in a way that actually supports my creative life and my health.

That means fewer grand declarations and more behind-the-scenes truth. Grand declarations trip me up every time — which is why I don’t do resolutions.

But I digress.

What I’ve been working on

• Getting clearer about what I’m making right now versus what’s still incubating

• Re-centering my energy on creative work that genuinely restores me (writing, reflection, small experiments)

• Quietly rebuilding a rhythm that feels sustainable, not performative

⠀What I learned
I don’t need to do more to be worth supporting. I need to do what I’m already doing — and let people see it. That realization alone has let me give a huge exhale.

What’s next

• Regular studio notes like this

• Sharing resources and links that actually shaped my thinking

• Keeping this space human-sized and conversational

Thank you for being here — truly.
Your support (and your attention) gives me room to keep making without rushing or spiraling into spinning my wheels on planning, instead of creating and publishing the work. That matters more than I can easily put into words.

Creative: On Process (and Fish)

I’ve been considering the idea of process — specifically how impatient I get with it — and how the creative spirit keeps nudging me to insist that my impatience is misplaced.

It advises: Be impatient with society’s ills (knowing that everything is incremental — until it isn’t).

Be generous with my own creativity.
Take the time to savor each step in the process.

About a month ago, I woke up at 2am intending to take a Pen & Watercolor course with Danny Gregory from Sketchbook Skool… learned enough to work on it and promptly fell asleep on my writing desk. When I woke up later, I made screenshots of the process and decided to try it on my own. So these four watercolor and pen fish below were born.

Then I had the idea to use my camera to shoot “fish in the field.” It sounded good. But my image did not match my ability. Still, I want it on the record that I tried — and kept trying — even after the freezing wind in Saitama blew my fish away.

Back home and considerably less chilly, below are my process fish:

1. Barely recognizable

2. Still not great, but better

3. Something you might find in a river if you had the wrong glasses on and there was a thunderstorm. At night.

4. This one calls itself fish — not with pride, but in quiet, contented surrender

⠀Anyway. Go, process.

*(For tokyoterrisrebellion readers: I’m sharing the first three fish here.
 *If you’re curious to see the fourth fish — and a bit more from this process, and if you’d like more behind-the-scenes posts like this — including deeper notes on creative work as it happens, curated resources, and occasional civic or community-focused projects — I share those on Patreon. It’s a small, human-sized space, and support there helps me keep this work sustainable.
→ Join me on Patreon: tokyoterri on Patreon

Links that shaped my thinking

Martin Luther King Jr. → James Baldwin

A reminder that public truth-telling and private encouragement can coexist — and that Black genius recognizing Black genius is its own form of resistance.
Instagram post: “You are not only a great Negro writer; you are a great writer.”

The death of consensus, not the death of truth — Nieman Journalism Lab

This helped me separate “everyone is arguing loudly” from “nothing is real anymore.” Those are not the same thing.
https://www.niemanlab.org/2018/12/the-death-of-consensus-not-the-death-of-truth/

The Empathy Gap — Rich Benjamin (Instagram)

I’ve been sitting with the idea of an empathy gap — the ways mainstream American culture hates to fully register Black humanity, even after centuries of supposed progress. This piece helped me put language to something I’ve felt but hadn’t fully articulated yet.


Onward,

Terri