Hello from Portland 👋

Hello Dear Supporters-o’-mine, I hope you’re doing well! It’s been a while since I shared directly to the Patreon, so thank you so much for being here. I have some exciting updates about what’s happened in the last few months.

Most significantly, Zach, Pumpkin and I packed up our apartment in a U-haul and moved three hours down I-5 from Seattle to Portland, Oregon. We’d been considering it for a few years, but all at once during a spring visit we stumbled upon an apartment we both liked, for the same price as our Seattle apartment, and in a much more accessible location. It was more rushed than either of us liked, but with the huge help of my mother, sister Kenna, our new friend Leo, and our dear friend Kaila, we made the move.

Why move? We’ve loved Seattle for the almost 8 years we lived there, and more importantly deeply love the friends we made there. But we moved to the area without knowing anything about it, and eventually found ourself interested in Portland’s enormous vegan food scene, lower cost of living and housing, DIY/arty/thrifty culture, and similar weather to Seattle (that we love.) And my middle sister Kenna living in Portland helped, as well as already knowing a few other awesome people in the city from conventions, Patreon, and PIGSquad. Zach has been feeling stagnant in his career, so we hoped moving to a new city might help shake up his routines and inspire a new path. Leaving our friends is by far the hardest part, but knowing they’re only a 3 hour train ride away made it feel possible.

We’ve now lived here three months, and we’ve been really enjoying it. At Kenna’s encouragement, we’ve started exercising every other day, with Zach running and me roller skating on the road. We have a nice park about a mile away that we use as a marker, and we have routes there that are quiet with few cars thanks to Portland’s extensive Greenways program.

Our neighbors in our building our SO sweet, nerdy, welcoming, and all have cats. Which I’m thankful for because we sadly had to leave our sweet, nerdy Seattle neighbors Jamie and Jesse, and their cat Zelda. As soon as we moved in our new neighbors ran up to introduce themselves and welcome us to the building. They have been helping us and each other out with watching our/their cats, playing board games together, and meeting up for impromptu walks. They genuinely inspire me to be more welcoming and generous with my time, to be the good neighbor I want to have whether I live in apartment building or a suburban neighborhood.

Portland is also much more bike-centric than Seattle was (probably ’cause less hilly), so we bought a half-priced used bike on Marketplace, and were kindly gifted an old 1986 gravel bike fixed up by Kenna and her boyfriend Christopher. Biking is SO FAST, the way it extends my radius of vegan restaurant/ thrift store visiting capabilities is MIND BLOWING. We’ve joined a couple of Pedalpalooza events (Portland’s daily community-run themed bike rides), including a cat-themed ride, and one that ended in a vegan potluck. I’m excited to kit our bikes out further with panniers/racks/baskets so I can carry whatever random thrifted things I find, and to strengthen my biking skills so I can bike even further from home.

I’m loving Portland like crazy so far. I’ve never felt so at home in a city right away, or been to a city that felt so me.

Enuff about Portland, you probably want to hear about/see some ART!

My studio is all set up, and my autumn is all set up with a few more exciting conventions that are maybe in YOUR AREA???

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RAGONIA’S AUTUMN CONS

New York Comic Con - New York, NY - Oct 20-24

Sea Meow Con - Seattle, WA - Nov 2-3

Geek Girl Con - Seattle, WA - Nov 9-10

(My first New York Comic Con holy cooooooow!!!)

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In late October/early November I'll be staying with my very gracious friends and patrons Kaila Elders and her husband Ian, since I'll have a lot of things happening in Seattle. Kaila and I plan to use the time as a joint ART RETREAT, making and stimulating our creativity as much as we can. Well, it's an art retreat for me, she's just at her house still haha.

I want to note that I paused my weekly art streaming while I was moving/during this summer, and to be honest I’m not sure when I’ll pick that up again. I think I neglected to post on here as I was spending a lot more time streaming and on Discord, but I think for the foreseeable future I’ll switch back to posting directly to Patreon more frequently. I’m going to change the Patreon reward tiers to reflect that, and I’ll let y’all know if that changes again.

I also want to share a Patreon-specific heads up for anyone considering joining- Patreon will now be increasing new pledges ONLY via the Apple Store by 30%, to reflect the 30% charges that the Apple Store takes from Patreon. (Actually, Apple takes 30% of any purchase through the App Store, and it’s up to the app if they eat that percentage or pass it on to customers - Patreon just decided to be one that passes it on to customers.) If you’d like to support me or any creator via Patreon, you can save a 30% surcharge by pledging through a computer or through your browser. Again, this is only for new Patrons.

HERE’S SOME ART IVE MADE IN THE LAST FEW MONTHS:

(Summer Circuit is an upcoming science fiction podcast hosted by a super cool friend of mine, Ray Dubicki! He's got another podcast already releasing called Millie Salmon, you should check it out and subscribe here: https://www.youtube.com/@MillieSalmon )

Thank you so much for reading and continuing to support me, whether with your donations, your interest, your purchases, your commissions, your recommendations to friends, or your encouraging words.

cheers mates, Ragon