Happy New Year, my friends! 🤍
It likely comes as no surprise: I love a fresh start. There’s something deeply energizing about the collective inhale that comes with a new year: a moment to reflect, reset, and realign with what actually matters.
2025 was a year of experience, learning, and growth. It asked a lot of me, in the best…and hardest ways. I tried new things, stretched myself courageously, followed curiosities, made mistakes, stepped WAY outside of my comfort zone, and gathered data about what truly lights me up…and what totally drains me.
Every year, I set a word of intention for the year as my inner compass:
2023: Inner peace
2024: Creative discipline
2025: Empowered
Each one felt like exactly what I needed at the time, and I’m proud to say, I had 100% follow through :)
So, for 2026 (drum roll, please)...
OPTIMIZE.
This year feels less about adding more, and more about refining what’s already here. I’m here to analyze, shed, integrate, and streamline. The goal is to move with more clarity, intention, and sustainability. To honor my creative energy, workload, and wallet. To build in ways that feel aligned rather than overstretched.
Without further ado, here are the 8 things I’m exploring creatively as an independent artist in 2026:
1. Sharing the process > outcome: the beautiful, the messy, and everything in between. the process is the reason I love being an artist, and the process is a…rollercoaster. But, it’s also the reason I love being an artist. Life, art, healing…none of it is linear. I want to be a subtle, human reminder.
2. Softness as power: this is my artist mantra for the year. An aspect of this is also reminding myself that self-care is an important aspect of creativity, and that I don’t need always need to operate on high-octane
3. PERFORMANCE! This is my highest priority this year. I’ve been preparing a spectrum of performance options, from hours-long feathery-ambient sets, to a live Chiesa signature set, to clubby organic & tech house DJ sets that make you hug your lover on the dance floor.
4. Duality content: my artist project follows a very clear range/style, from ambient to house. I used to worry that the range was too broad, but now I find that my greatest asset is the ability to do both. I’m officially owning the space-in-between.
5. Honing my visual experience to connect with my audience: my favorite artists' worlds & channels that I am able to tune into when I listen to their music. I’m as invested in them and their journey as I am their music.
6. Playful, cheeky, house bangers: because God & the angels have a sense of humor, too. The majority of what I *actually* listen to is, ridiculous tech house with silly soundbites.
7. Re-purpose a few of my favorite previous releases: produce a few mashups & club edits of my own songs, and perhaps, even a few more ambient edits of my more danceable tracks! You can spin a song many ways :)
8. World-building through specific themes: historically, I would sit down and write a song about whatever was on my mind in a specific moment, and I found that many of my songs tended to revolve around self-doubt and rejection. I’ve realized lately—that’s not aligned with the world I am living in artistically, nor the way I actually feel the other 90% of the time.
What are you exploring in 2026?! Let’s fly :)