Oh, 2025. So much of this year has been cast in shades of grey. It was a year of toiling in empty fields for future harvest. Promising myself the new growth would show itself, hopeful and bright, eventually. On all fronts. With a few scattered glorious moments to propel me forward, like a carrot on a stick.

“The Gleaners”, Millet, 1857.

This year we expanded Doll Funeral! We took on a second unit for our events and then have turned it into an additional store full of artists and makers pieces! Being able to showcase and share the work of so many creative people has been such an amazing experience. We will also continue our events in the space.

The expansion was far more work than I’d ever anticipated. Much of it was me solo on a ladder patching walls and assembling furniture and hanging shelves etc. I have never been so stressed out and over-exhausted in my life. I discovered there’s nothing more overstimulating than curious strangers trying to walk in on you mid construction stress fury. I was not always patient (honestly though the space was empty, the fuck did y’all think you’d see?!) about that sort of thing (I’m very sorry!). Sudden task interruption is not something my neurodiverse brain does well with. However it’s set up now and we couldn’t be more excited for the space! And grateful for your patience during it’s set up.

I can’t thank our Doll Funeral community enough! Your support and participation in the shop means the world to me. You’ve given me purpose, even in a grey year.

My personal life, though thankfully less flavored by immediate grief than last year, was also largely grey for most of the year. A few hopeful spring flowers wilted so quickly, they never saw the summer’s sun. I spent the season with a cinderblock of sadness dragging behind me. Running events and managing the shop and expansion while carrying this heavy grey feeling.

However I did manage to take myself on the second solo vacation of my life. This time to Ireland (where I finally saw the painting above IRL)!!! The trip was astounding. I toured castles and walked the streets of Dublin endlessly. It was a dream come true. The above photo is me losing it falling in love with a ruined castle surrounded in a medieval cemetery. My heart’s home.

Our second shop anniversary came and went, marked by an excellent party! I also managed 34 Gloomth shoots this year, some of which I am very proud of.

Curiously as the season most associated with decay and fallow fields arrived the new growth has begun to appear! New friends, new passion, tremulous blooms reaching through the frost like early crocuses. Art saves and I will follow it to a new season of joy, the same way spring follows winter.

“And there’s a field somewhere within me, an open space where things used to grow. Pain I can’t take it never quite kills me, it leaves space for what I don’t know…”

Annabelle Dinda (“logging field” )

Taeden