4 Year Anniversary, and we're moving to Arkansas.
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
Langhorne Slim Limited Edition Concert Poster
The title of the piece is “Break Your Heart Until It Opens”. It’s inspired by a quote I heard Langhorne use in an interview by the 13th century poet and mystic, Rumi. The focus of the piece is a wooden and weathered heart floating in the middle of Horsetooth Reservoir. The heart has been broken open and out of that brokenness has sprouted both life as well as ghosts from the past (ghosts of love, past innocence, and past pain). The burning bush represents an act of revelation, a beacon to others whose hearts have been opened and also to those who have still built up columns around their hearts. There’s other symbolism in here too, but I’ll leave the rest for you to ruminate on.
Langhorne is a unique and uniquely talented dude who un-ironically wears his heart outside of his chest and invites others to do the same. He has a knack for being aware of his own brokenness and humanity and he uses that self-awareness to show compassion and empathy towards others, regardless of who they are or what they believe. There is a commonality in our human struggle that we too often throw aside in the name of being outwardly “right”. Last night, also happened to be my wife, Virginia, and my 15th wedding anniversary. At dinner before the show, she asked me if I could go back to that hard first year of our marriage and tell myself anything, what would I say. The thing I would say to myself is “Give her more grace, and give yourself more grace.” Langhorne’s music and show last night felt like a continuation of that proclamation. We all live in a broken world so give others more grace and give yourself more grace. Also, don’t leave your Hertz rental car unlocked in the mountains when it has a to-go container of Whole Foods olives in it. Words to live by.
New Belgium Vertigold which later became Mountain Time Premium Lager
In 2018, I was hired as a freelancer by an agency to work on a new beer can design for New Belgium Brewing in my home city of Fort Collins, CO. As a die-hard local fan of not only New Belgium beer but New Belgium's people, it was a dream-come-true project for me. The concept I was working on at the time was called Vertigold and I did most of the design work while in the New Belgium Liquid Center (tasting room).
We got pretty far into the project, but for various reasons the project was cancelled with the agency. I was fully paid for my work and moved on from there. In April of 2019, I was excited to see that New Belgium had moved forward with the beer under a new name and were using my line-work (which they owned the rights to) on the can. Through some friends at New Belgium, I got connected with the Creative Team and was able to share the story and inspiration behind the design and to let them know it was a local guy who had done the original line work. So, go buy Mountain Time Premium Lager (if you live in Colorado and are of legal drinking age :) ).
Original concept posted with permission from New Belgium.