This week marks the 4th anniversary of Maple Key Studio.
This past year was quite a crazy one with several high-profile projects coming out for New Belgium, Mountain Dew, and Pepsi, plus I got to do a couple of concert posters for artists I love which has always been a dream. It was also a really hard year. I lost a big project in the middle of last year that would have been about 1/3rd of my annual earnings and I never really recovered from that.
Being self-employed is such a weird thing. There are moments of joy and exhilaration and moments of terror and despair. There’s days I feel like I’ve got this and days where I feel like no matter how hard I work, it’s not enough. All that to say, I’m grateful for what I get to do. I’m grateful for those of you who have believed in me, for those of you who have hired me, for those of you who have encouraged me, and those of you that have prayed for me. Being self-employed has forced me to lean on God, lean on my family, and lean on friends in ways that have stretched me personally and professionally.
It has also forced us (Virginia and I) to reevaluate if Colorado is the best place for us to continue to live. Fort Collins has been our home since 2010 and we love it so much here, but the cost of living keeps going up and I’m not making enough to keep up with it. For a long time we’ve considered moving back to our home state of Arkansas to be closer to family and it feels like now is the best time to do that. By selling our house and moving we’ll be able to pay off our remaining debt (Student Loans Suck!), lower our cost of living, and be closer to parents, grandparents, siblings, cousins, niblings. This is an incredibly bittersweet decision, but we’re excited about the possibility of having some much needed margin in our life.
Our plan (and we know plans can change) is to move to Northwest Arkansas (Bentonville/Rogers area) at the beginning of this summer. Virginia will continue to work remotely for Wycliffe and I’m planning on continuing MKS. My clients are all over the country, plus I have some new potential local work in Northwest Arkansas. Thanks for taking the time to read this hella-long post. If you have any questions don’t hesitate to ask.
Love y’all.
-Andrew Steger