Trail Side Post Is Growing Into Something More
A funny thing happens when you create something and put it out into the world. Sometimes it takes off exactly the way you imagined it would, sometimes it turns into something completely different, and sometimes it sits there quietly while you realize that maybe you haven’t quite figured it out yet. Trail Side Post has been that third thing for me. I loved the idea from the beginning, but I also knew there was something missing. It wasn’t bad. It just hadn’t become what I could feel it wanting to become yet.
The original idea was pretty simple. I would create a seasonal art print, pair it with a coordinating paper good like a bookmark or postcard, write a personal note, and send the whole thing through the mail. I loved the thought of sharing my artwork in a way that felt more personal than adding another product to my shop, especially because so much of what I create begins outside. A walk turns into a photograph, the photograph turns into an idea, and eventually that idea makes its way back into the studio, where it becomes an illustration. Sending that artwork through the mail felt like another way of completing that circle.
But as I’ve been creating more, hiking more, and, frankly, experimenting with art just because I feel like it, I’ve realized Trail Side Post could tell a much bigger story. I don’t only want to send you the polished piece at the end. I want to share some of the little things happening around it, too. The things I’m learning, what I’m playing with in the studio, what I’ve been noticing outside, and the pieces that may never become an official Wild Ridge Studio collection but that I love making anyway.
Watercolor is a perfect example. I’ve started earnestly learning to watercolor, which means I’ve been sitting down to paint little things simply because I want to see if I can paint them. A rabbit. A frog. A squirrel. A hedgehog. Fruit. Whatever catches my attention that day. There isn’t always a grand plan for these paintings, and that’s actually what I’ve been enjoying about them. I’m not sitting down thinking about products, collections, or what something will eventually become. I’m learning. I’m experimenting. Sometimes I surprise myself; sometimes something goes spectacularly sideways; then I try again.
While I was looking at some of those little paintings recently, I had the thought that changed Trail Side Post for me: these belong in there. Not because they perfectly coordinate with the month’s finished illustration and not because I need to turn every creative experiment into a product, but because they represent what’s actually happening in my studio. If the finished art print is the destination, these little watercolor studies are part of everything happening along the way.
So Trail Side Post is growing.
Each month will still begin with a 5×7 fine art print featuring original Wild Ridge Studio artwork inspired by the trails, wildlife, botanicals, and quiet places I encounter around Virginia. That’s still the heart of the collection, and I don’t see that changing. But now I’m also including a Little Watercolor, a small reproduction of something I’ve recently painted in the studio. Sometimes it may coordinate beautifully with the main artwork. Other times I may have spent the week inexplicably obsessed with frogs, and you’re getting a frog. I rather like the freedom of that.
I’m also adding an illustrated monthly calendar card, and this may be one of my favorite additions because it turns the entire subscription into something you can watch grow throughout the year. January becomes February, February becomes March, and eventually you’ve collected twelve little pieces marking the seasons we moved through together. The calendar artwork will draw on Wild Ridge Studio illustrations and motifs, so it can sit on your desk, refrigerator, or inspiration board and still be useful while feeling like part of the collection.
There will still be a surprise Trail Treasure every month, too, because I don’t want you to know absolutely everything that’s inside before the envelope arrives. Some months it might be a sticker, other months a bookmark, postcard, magnet, mini print, coloring page, recipe card, or something else I’ve dreamed up. I don’t want this part to become a checklist I’m obligated to follow forever. I want the freedom to create whatever makes sense for that particular month and tuck something inside that makes opening the envelope a little more fun.
And then there’s the Field Note, which may actually be the most important part of all of this. I can put artwork on the internet all day long, but you don’t necessarily know what happened before it appeared there. You don’t know about the walk where I found the thing that inspired it, the twenty-seven photographs I took because apparently one photograph of a mushroom isn’t sufficient, what one of the dogs was doing while I was trying to take those photographs, or what I’ve been thinking about while creating the collection. The Field Note gives me room to share some of that with you. It turns the artwork back into a story instead of simply another finished product.
The more I’ve worked on this new version, the more I’ve realized Trail Side Post isn’t really about how many things I can fit inside an envelope. I don’t want to send a pile of random stuff just to advertise that you’re getting 8 items every month. I would much rather send five things that feel connected to the world I’m creating at Wild Ridge Studio: finished art, experimental art, something useful, something unexpected, and something personal.
The philosophy behind it hasn’t changed. In fact, I think I’ve finally figured out how to make it clearer. Trail Side Post is still about keeping one thing, using one thing, and noticing one thing. There are simply more ways for those things to show up now. The art print and watercolor become pieces you can keep. The calendar and Trail Treasure are things you can actually use and enjoy. The Field Note brings you back to the stories, observations, and small discoveries that started everything in the first place.
I’m also making another important change: Trail Side Post is becoming its own thing. It isn’t going to live inside Patreon anymore. I want someone to be able to discover Trail Side Post, understand exactly what it is, and choose whether they want a single edition or want one arriving every month. No extra membership platform and no need to join something else just to receive the mail. If you want to try one envelope first, you can. If you love it and want to become a monthly Collector, you can do that too.
I think removing that barrier matters because I’ve realized I don’t really want Trail Side Post to feel like membership content with physical mail attached. I want the mail itself to be the experience. I want someone to walk out to the mailbox, see that envelope waiting, and know there’s something inside that was created, chosen, written, and packed by an actual person. Preferably they take it inside and open it with a cup of coffee rather than standing beside the mailbox ripping into it like a raccoon, but once it leaves my hands I suppose that’s between them and the envelope.
Mostly, I want Trail Side Post to reflect what Wild Ridge Studio has become. My work is increasingly about noticing things, trying things, wandering around outside, coming home with far too many photographs, and letting those experiences turn into art in ways I don’t always predict. Trail Side Post gives me somewhere to gather those pieces together and share them in a way that feels slower and more personal than anything I can post on social media.
Once a month, a little snapshot of the season will leave my studio and make its way to someone’s mailbox. There will be finished artwork, a watercolor from whatever I’ve been playing with lately, a calendar marking where we are in the year, a surprise tucked somewhere inside, and a note from me telling you a little about where it all came from. Over time, those envelopes will become a collection of seasons, stories, experiments, and discoveries.
And that finally feels like what Trail Side Post was supposed to be all along.
Collect the Trail. One Envelope at a Time.
