It’s Thanksgiving, and I’m sitting here writing this article. That should tell you everything you need to know about me and why I felt this piece was important to write.
The holidays arrive with their usual fanfare. Commercials show friends and families gathered around tables, laughing over turkey and pie. Social media fills with reunion photos—everyone dressed up, everyone together. As I’m writing this, I look out my window and watch cars pull up to neighbors’ houses, trunks popping open, arms full of dishes and desserts, kids spilling out onto driveways. Everyone seems to have somewhere to go, someone to be with.
But not everyone does.
Not Everyone Has Someone
Maybe your family is gone. Maybe they’re across an ocean or a continent, too far to reach. Maybe the distance between you isn’t measured in miles but in years of silence, necessary boundaries, or relationships that became too toxic to maintain. Maybe your friends are all with their own families, living their own lives in other cities, wrapped up in their own holiday traditions. Maybe you don’t have family or friends nearby. Maybe it’s complicated in ways that don’t fit into neat explanations.
Whatever the reason—no family, no friends nearby, or both—you’re here. And sometimes, the only constant companion you have during the holidays is your art (maybe a little kitty or puppy too).
You’re Not Alone in Being Alone
First, let’s name something important: you are not the only artist sitting alone right now. You’re not the only one who will spend these days with a sketchbook instead of at a dinner table, with a canvas instead of with cousins, with clay-stained hands instead of holding hands around a table.
There’s a whole invisible community of us. We’re the ones working in quiet studios while the world celebrates. We’re making music in empty apartments, writing in coffee shops on Christmas morning, throwing pottery while others are throwing parties.
This doesn’t make it easy. But you’re not as alone as it might feel.
Art Doesn’t Judge Your Circumstances
Here’s something beautiful about art: it doesn’t care why you’re alone. It doesn’t pity you or make assumptions. Your canvas doesn’t ask uncomfortable questions. Your guitar doesn’t need an explanation for why you’re not “home for the holidays.”
Art just shows up. It’s there when you need it, ready to receive whatever you bring to it—grief, anger, loneliness, peace, or even unexpected joy. You can express the complexity that doesn’t fit into greeting card messages.
When the Loneliness Hits Hard
Still, let’s not romanticize it too much. Sometimes it just hurts. Sometimes you wish things were different. Sometimes you see other people’s holiday photos and feel the weight of what you don’t have.
That’s okay too. Art can hold that.
Put the loneliness into your work. Let it inform your palette, your compositions, your subjects. Some of the most moving art in history came from people working through isolation, loss, and longing. Your pain is valid, and it’s also valuable—not because suffering makes better art, but because honest feeling makes authentic art.
And if you need to step away from creating, that’s fine too. Art will still be there tomorrow. Sometimes the kindest thing you can do is rest.
Moving Forward
The holidays will pass, as they always do. The decorations will come down, the special music will stop playing, and regular life will resume. Your art will still be there.
You have your hands, your vision, your voice, your craft. You have the ability to transform whatever you’re feeling into something tangible. You have the courage to keep creating even when it’s hard, even when you’re alone.
That’s not nothing. That’s everything.
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For Right Now
If you’re reading this during the holidays, here’s what I want you to do: make something today. It doesn’t have to be good. It doesn’t have to be finished. It doesn’t even have to make sense.
Just put your hands to your craft. Let yourself be held by the familiar motions.
And maybe, in the quiet of your studio with only your art for company, you might even find moments of unexpected peace.
Let art be your family today.
You’re going to be okay.
I am going back to paint…. perhaps you will too!
