Hi! I'm Yuko! I'm the illustrator/artist at Honeyberry Studios. I live and work out of my home studio in Seattle, Washington. I like to create art that is joyful, happy, and accessible. I get my inspiration from everyday small things, nature, animals, and food.
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At the time this post goes out, I’ll just have gotten back from my trip to Yellowstone National Park with my mom 👯♀️
(I’m on sabbatical next week, but I’ll probably share some pics with you 😉)
Rather than skipping my post for a week, I wanted to send you a quick reminder…
Yes, that’s right. Say YES to yourself!
Give yourself what you need to feel good and whole. It’s not selfish. Your mental, emotional, physical, and spiritual well-being is very important. As important as your family and friends’, if not more.
And according to my therapist, whom I trust very much, needs are not negotiable.
So here you go, my friend. You have my unconditional permission to say yes to yourself. Today and always.
I celebrated my 4th “freedom anniversary” a.k.a. the day I quit my job to work on Honeyberry Studios full-time on July 31st🎉
(If you’re interested in knowing more about my transitioning process, you can read this blog post and many other entries from 2015.)
A few days after I quit, I went on a solo retreat to set intentions for my artist/business journey.
and here is the manifesto I created on my retreat. most of it still rings true except for creating every day and the health-obsessed bit 😀
The past 4 years have been a marathon self-development therapy session, I tell you.
I’ve learned so much about myself and am so proud of the accomplishments I’ve made so far.
I’ve been reflecting on some of the things I’ve learned and wanted to share them with you today ✨
First thing that’s come up is this:
You don’t have to be the best artist. But you need to be fiercely, unapologetically, you.
I used to feel insecure about my art. I even felt a little cringy calling myself an artist. I’m mostly self-taught, and my technical skills aren’t that advanced. I thought it was cute and child-like but not “real” art.
I thought art should be more, shall I say, deep? whatever that means…🤷🏻♀️
When I saw the work of other successful artists I admire, I’d think “oh, I wish my art looked more like that. It is so _______ (sophisticated, elegant, cool, hip etc. <- things that my art is not)”
Over the last several years, I’ve slowly learned that you don’t have to be the most technically advanced artist to be successful, but it needs to have your distinct voice.
I’ve gotten to internalize this as I started selling more at shows and markets last year and kept witnessing my customers’ happy reactions in person.
People’s face light up as they walk by my booth. I can see them mouthing to their friend “cuuute.” I hear “awwwwww” and “so adorable” every 5 minutes.
It’s reinforced to me that yes, cutenss is valuable, and it makes people extremely happy.
And it’s ok if that’s the only thing my art offers.
I may be oversimplifying it, but you get what I’m saying? I mean people pay a lot of money for therapy, drugs, and experiences to be happy, no? 😀
Sometimes I make something and say to myself “wait, is this too cute? Should I tone it down?”
like when I made this adorable baby card…😍
Fortunately, I can snap out of the silliness of the situation pretty quickly now. The answer is, OF COURSE NOT.
It turns out so many people love cute things. I know you do! Tone it down?? I’d be doing a disservice to you and humanity.
I want to give you what you came here for. Adorable, happy art that makes you smile.
The more joy I express through my work, the happier I get doing what I do.
And that brings more joy to you, and that gives me the fuel to keep going, and it’s a never-ending love fest ❤️
You may have been in my community since well before I quit my job 4 years ago. Or you may have just found me last week.
I still feel like a baby in my biz journey and without you, there is no Honeyberry Studios, so yeah, you’re awesome. Just wanted to make sure you knew that.
Ok, I had more reflections I wanted to share today, but this is getting a bit too long 😀 so I’ll parse it out later.
Have a cuteness filled day!
xo
ps. my mom is coming to visit me next week 🥰 and we’re going to Yellowstone 🌲🦌⛰🐐 our first time!! If you need anything from my shop, come to Fremont Sunday Market today 10-4, or place your order online before Monday and I’ll ship them out before we head out!
I’m a glass-half-empty kinda gal. Does that surprise you? Or you knew that already?
I still haven’t figured out if it’s nature or nurture. It’s probably a little bit of both.
I suspect my grandparents on my dad’s side played a big role in instilling pesimistic tendencies in me at a young age.
My dad was the eldest son, so we lived with his parents, which I loved as a kid. My grandma was my main caretaker until I was about 4 since both my parents worked outside of home.
The thing about my grandparents was, especially my grandma, they didn’t have a lot of boudaries or filters 😬 They’d often criticize our neighbors or family members openly. They never ran out of things to complain about and lamented about life in general.
I don’t blame them. Life did deal them bad hands especially for my grandma.
She went through WWII as a terrified and hungry teenager, had an arranged marriage to my grandpa when she was 18, forcing her to move away from her family in the city to a rural area where she was expected to do physical farming work while raising 3 boys – she desparately wanted a girl and told me how dissapointed she was when my dad and uncles were born 😅 She also told me she never loved grandpa. Like, all the time.
Yikes.
But you can understand why she was so bitter about life, no?
One of my earliest memories of her is me feeling an intense sadness for her when she was telling me how she’d saved up little money she had as a teenager to buy this delicious looking bread that she’d been ogling from outside of the bakery – and when she finally saved up enough money to buy the bread, it turned out so nasty tasting and she was extremely disappointed.
So, so sad.
Most of my adult life, I’ve been working to reset my mind to a default that says life isn’t full of sadness and suffering.
Staying positive takes me a lot of practice and intentionality.
I started meditating in 2013, and it’s helped tremendously with staying centered when things get hard.
Another thing that helps me with my positive mindset is my daily journaling. I jot down three things I’m grateful for in my journal before I go to bed.
It only takes me a minute, but I love having the time to reflect on the day and focus on the good things that happened before going to sleep.
I’ve been journaling for almost two years now, and here are some of my most common entries:
– laughing with Dave
– walks in sunshine
– going to bed
– good show & meeting awesome people
I rarely have big, over-the-top things to be grateful for. It’s the small, seemingly unimportant things that make me realize how good my life is.
And I’m grateful for my grandma for teaching me that – the little things I take for granted could be taken away at any moment. I’m lucky to have choices that she’d never dreamed of having.
Do you have a grounding practice or ritual? Are you a glass-half-full or empty kinda person?
Reply to this email and tell me. I genuinely enjoy hearing from you 🥰
Neither of my parents understood my intense need to have cute furry feline friends, and it was very sad.
We had a shiba inu, Alex, but he and I were never good friends.
So I thought about cats pretty much 24/7.
I’d check where the neighborhood cats hang out on my way to and from school every day.
I fantasized many scenarios where a kitty would show up at our doorstep and my parents would magically OK me keeping it.
As I got a little older, my parents finally understood it was ok to have a cat, and I’d adopt cats from my friends or just off the street throughout my early teenage years.
My parents had a strict “No Pets in The House” policy (except for our giant gold fish. Seriously, those things grew to be 9 inches long!), so the cats had to live outside, and none of them lasted longer than a few years, sadly 😿
Fast forward 15 years, I adopted two cats with my ex, and we (cats and I) had a nice, long-term relationship until a few years ago.
lulu & sheppie respectively
I haven’t had any kitty of my own since then, but I do make a point to visit friends with cats from time to time and get the refill on some kitty love.
Cats also inspire my creativity a lot. Surprise!
Many cat-themed drawings were made during my Happiness Is 365 day project back in 2014-2015Kitty doodle in my sketchbook
And, here are some of my fan favorite kitty designs in my shop.
This is my ideal birthday party!You did it!oldie but a goldieWorks for pet sympathy or every daywinter kitties
Do you love cats, too??
In case you didn’t know, I have an entire Cat Lover’s collection😽 in my shop that you’ll love.
In addition to these adorable cards, you’ll find prints, wrapping paper, and ceramics, too!
I know hate is a strong word, but I’m not even going for a dramatic effect. I really do hate. it. so. much.
When I’m in a confrontational situation (especially the unexpected kind), I feel sweaty-palmed, my stomach gets tied up in knots, my body is shaky, and my brain gets all scrambled.
I can’t think of the right words to say in the moment so the whole experience is extremely frustrating and unsettling.
Usually after an incident, I’d have an intense inner monologue about how things went and what I should’ve said/done differently in the situation.
I’d run many different scenarios in my head and imagine how the outcome could’ve been different, Dr. Strange style.
Or trying to find reasons why it wasn’t my fault and it was about the other person.
Because most of the time, it isn’t about me even though it may feel sooooooo personal at the time.
This cycle might continue for a week or comes back months, sometimes years later 👻
So when I had a few unexpected interpersonal confrontations/conflicts/awkward moments in the last few weeks, it’s thrown me off balance.
For example, I was being courageous and said something in a meeting that stirred a very emotional reaction from another person and it became very messy very quickly 😱
In another setting, my behavior (I don’t even know what I was doing specifically) hurt someone’s feelings, and we had to have a follow-up convo about it.
And most recently, I accidentally shared certain information about a mutual friend to someone, which was not public yet, and had to do a minor damage control…🤦🏻♀️
(Wait, am I just becoming more insensitive?? 😂 Something to ponder…)
I was in my usual super analyzing mode after an incident and then learned it was Mercury retrograde this month.
I’m not an expert astrologist and don’t usually track when they happen. But I get the gist of it.
When Mercury retrogrades (i.e. it looks like it’s going backwards from where we are), you may feel things are out of wack and stressful for no good reason. I understand Mercury retrogrades impact the areas of travel, communication, and technology, in particular.
You may think it’s a bunch of woo woo nonsense 🔮 and it’s ok!
But as soon as I found out it was Mercury retrograde, instead of staying caught in my negative thought spiral, I said to myself “Well, it’s Mercury retrograde. No wonder it didn’t go well 🤷🏻♀️”
I was able to move on much more quickly and stopped blaming myself or the other person.
There are lots of memes about Mercury retrograde. And I totally think they’re funny, too.
I ❤️ Adam J. Kurtz
But it does help me be more forgiving and compassionate towards myself and others.
Wouldn’t it be wonderful it we could be so understanding when Mercury isn’t in retrograde? 😀 which is most of the time?
Who am I kidding – you probably already are, you beautiful magical unicorn. But me? No 😂 I try to be. I don’t always succeed.
I put this card up at my desk where I see it every day as a reminder.
Maybe I need to pretend it’s always Mercury retrograde. Or create an imaginary entity that influences us beyond our control at all times.
Oh, wait, I guess we don’t have control over anything anyway wether the stars are aligned or not 💡
So maybe just remembering that would help??
And, if you’re feeling the effects of Mercury retrograde like I am this month, good news is, it’ll be over in a few days 🥳
I take every 7th week off to rest and recharge. 6 weeks on, 1 week off, then repeat. (I still take the weekends off in the meantime, or the weekend equivalent 😬)
It’s on my Google calendar perpetually, so I don’t even have to think about it.
Brilliant, right? The idea is not mine. It’s seanwes.
(BTW, he’s writing a book about it. Totally check it out if you want to learn the hows/whats!)
I’ve been practicing it since October 2015, and I’m pretty certain I would’ve been burnt out in my biz a long time ago if I hadn’t been taking the regular time off.
During my mini sabbaticals, I still engage in my biz to keep it going, like replying to my customer emails and fullfilling orders.
But other than that, I try to keep my calendar open and do what I feel like doing.
Last week, I had a few obligations that took me out of sabbatical mode, but I still got to do things just for fun.
Here are some highlights 👇🏼
I’ve been baking more lately. I wanted to eat chocolate-y cookies, so I made these Chocolate Crescent Cookies. They were delicious 🌙These porcelain cuties came out of the kiln. I turned them into little pins ❤️ They’re not for sale, but I’ve got a few more kitties and birdies and plan on putting them in my shop when I have the time. Sign up for my newsletter if you wanna hear about it first!Dave’s working on Orcas Island for a couple of weeks, and we share one car, so I took him there last Wed. I miss his big smile 💗On my way back from Orcas, my ferry was late for over an hour 🤦🏻♀️ so I doodled this. I’d had a difficult confrontation with someone the day before and had been processing it. Making art about my emotions and situations always helps.And then I was back to work at Redmond Arts Festival last Friday – Sunday. It was a great show and I was so happy many of you came out!
Self-care is super important, my friend.
And NOT selfish.
Hope you’re doing something to recharge your energy as often as you need!
When I hear a little voice in my head say, “Don’t do it! It’s dangerous. You’ll fail and everyone’s gonna know about it!!,” I have to pause.
I remind myself of what I’ve heard on a podcast once that the regret of not doing something is much worse than the regret of doing something.
So when I created a bunch of new work for my 2020 calendar (coming in October!), this message resonated with me the most.
Here is the thing – I tend to deflect when someone tells me I’m brave.
I think, “No, I’m not brave. It’s no big deal. It happened because of _______ (my parents, my partner, my situation, my age, my luck, fill in the blank!)”
Do you do that, too??
(Did you notice I did that earlier when I mentioned it was Dave who was the brave one when I quit my job? 💁🏻♀️ Correction: It took both of us to be equally brave to make that decision.)
I’ve been practicing owning my own bravery – no matter how small it is.
The more I notice myself being brave, the more confident I feel in business and life. And it helps me put myself out there more and share my gifts with others.
See? It’s a win-win.
You’re brave, my friend 💛
xo
ps. My new collection offers this and other encouraging new designs 😘 Go get inspired today.
I usually don’t do anything on the 4th 😅 but this year we’re going to a BBQ at my friend’s. They’re grilling up some steaks and salmon, they said. So fancy ✨ We’re bringing a salad from our garden. A proper celebration!
(However, I guarantee you I’ll be in bed by the time fireworks start 😂 I got earplugs.)
Just like my new birthday card implies, I’m not much of a partier. Cozy celebration that ends at a reasonable time is def my style.
No matter what you’re doing, be safe and enjoy your day 💙❤️
[👉 trigger warning – I talk about loss of a partner in this post]
Hey friend,
Loss of a spouse is popping up in my life a lot lately – not my own, thankfully, but it’s showing up in a podcast I listen to, a Netflix show I watch, artists I follow on social media, a book I’m reading, and recently, a friend of a friend.
I haven’t had death in my close relationships yet but know it’s inevitable.
Like the writer, Elizabeth Gilbert, joked about in this podcast episode, death rate has kept it up at 100% since, well, always. Yet we’re still flabbergasted and appalled when someone we love dies.
This book had sat on my “for later” shelf in my library account for a few months, and honestly, I forgot what it was about.
I was jolted awake in the opening scene where Sheryl’s husband, Dave, dies suddenly and unexpectedly on their vacation in Mexico.
(Pretty much my worst nightmare.)
I have a tendency to fantasize about terrible situations on a good day, and loss of close loved ones has been on my mind a lot lately.
My Dave makes fun of me that I have such a morbid imagination and I “pre-mourn” stuff.
He’s Mr. Silver Lining – always looking for positives in life and doesn’t spend whole a lot of time and energy thinking about the negatives.
You may agree with Dave and think it’s unhealthy for me to dive deeply into the world of loss and grief when things are fine in my real life.
I can understand the argument. It does seem unproductive and harmful to intentionally picture your spouse dying suddently and experience the loss and grief on purpose.
(Granted, it’s an “imagined” loss, which cannot be compared to the real thing. I acknowldege the real loss would be 1000x more devastating and horrifying and life-changing.)
Yet, I can’t help but wonder, how would I survive such a loss? Would I ever be happy again? Could I feel true joy after you lose someone you love?
From what I’ve been learning (and from my experience working with domestic violence survivors for many years), it seems the answer is yes, even after you experience a tremendous loss and trauma, you can still be happy again.
One thing I want you to understand is when I’m in my dark fantasy world, I’m not feeling depressed.
Rather, I find overwhelming gratitude for what I do have in life.
Clearly, Dave is alive and well today. I don’t want him to go anytime soon but even if he did (sorry Dave!!), I’ve had wonderful 12 and a half years with him. It could’ve been 3 years instead of 12. Heck, maybe we would’ve never met if the stars hadn’t alighned in the first place!
And let me state the obvious that I’m choosing to imagine this situation. If this were real, I’d have no choice but to live it.
I do believe in silver lining. It’s just that I need to fully embrace the bad before I can appreciate the good. It’s not helpful for me to jump right into the positives before giving time and space to honor the negatives.
Only then, I can move on to celebrate the good things that surround me. And my art allows me to express joy in life.
Thank you for letting me share what I’ve been thinking a lot about 😘 I know it’s not very easy to hear or think about loss.
I hesitated to write about this today but did it anway in case you’re struggling with loss and grief, whether it’s from death, divorce, illness, or rejection from your family.
I wanted you to know I’m thinking of you. You’re not alone.
xo
ps. I highly recommend the book and podcast episode I highlighted above ☝️if you or someone you love is experiencing grief. Great resources.
pps. I’ll be back next week to tell you about my new collection! 🥳
Honeyberry Diary 