A Small Course Correction
You thought I disappeared...
Something interesting has been happening here.
When I started Skewed North, I thought I was simply writing stories. Stories from movie sets. Stories from chasing inspiration across continents. Stories about love, loss, chaos, and the occasional WTF moment that makes you stop and ask, wait… what just happened?
I didn’t have a grand plan. I just needed somewhere to put the stories that kept piling up.
But over time something unexpected happened.
The stories started organizing themselves.
Patterns began to appear.
My life—like most lives, it turns out—has chapters.
There was the Globe-Squatting era, when my sidekick and I tried to house-sit our way around the world. There was Panic Quietly, when everything looked fine on the outside but was quietly falling apart underneath. There was the Wandering Widow era, which changed the way I see the world—and myself—forever.
And then came Recalibration: the slow process of figuring out what the hell to do with the rest of my life.
Somewhere along the way I realized something important.
Skewed North isn’t just a blog.
It’s the field journal of a life lived under the influence of inspiration.
And the more I wrote, the more I saw that everything I do—my art, my film work, my travels, the strange detours life keeps throwing at me—comes back to the same core idea:
Aesthetics and awareness shape the way we navigate life.
The environments we build, the stories we tell, and the attention we bring to the world all influence the direction we move.
That realization led to something bigger than I originally imagined.
So I’ve spent the last months quietly rebuilding the structure around the work.
Think of it less like a rebrand and more like a map finally coming into focus.
What Skewed North Is Becoming
Skewed North is still the storytelling heart of everything I do.
But it now sits inside a larger creative ecosystem that connects the stories, the art, and the philosophy behind both.
Here’s how it all fits together.
Skewed North (here on Substack)
This is where the stories live.
It’s the ongoing field journal from a life spent following inspiration across film sets, continents, heartbreak, reinvention, and everything in between.
The publication now has three simple sections:
Skewed North – (for free subscribers) with long-form essays and stories.
Field Notes (for paid subscribers) – shorter dispatches from movie work, the road, the studio, and the in-between moments.
The Atlas (for paid subscribers) – the deeper archive: memoir drafts, journal entries, private podcast episodes, and the behind-the-scenes creative process.
If the public stories are the road, The Atlas is the deeper map.
Skewed North Studio
This is the philosophical home of the work.
After more than twenty-five years designing cinematic environments for film and television, I began to see how deeply environment shapes perception. The spaces we inhabit influence how we think, feel, and orient ourselves in the world.
Skewed North Studio is where I explore that intersection of aesthetics and awareness—and how intentional environments can help people realign their story, their space, and themselves.
Made by Dames
Made by Dames is my online shop.
This is where my paintings, photography, and creative objects live—things designed to bring inspiration and intention into everyday environments.
Some of you have already seen glimpses of this work over the years. The shop and the collections are now being organized in a way that connects directly to the philosophy behind Skewed North.
In other words: the stories, the art, and the environments are all speaking the same language.
Why This Matters
For a long time, these pieces of my life existed in separate places.
Film work over here.
Art over there.
Writing somewhere else entirely.
But the truth is they all come from the same place.
The same instinct that leads me to design environments for a camera is the one that leads me to paint, travel, write, and pay attention to the strange signals inspiration sends.
Everything I create is really exploring one question:
What happens when you trust the compass—even when there’s no clear road?
That question is what Skewed North has always been about.
Now the structure around it finally reflects that.
What This Means for You
Not much is changing about the spirit of this space.
You’ll still find:
🎬 stories from behind the scenes of the film world
🌍 travel and inspiration from around the globe
💔 honest reflections on grief, love, and reinvention
🎨 glimpses into the studio and the creative process
But the publication will feel a little clearer and easier to navigate.
New readers will find a Start Here guide that points to the key stories that shaped this strange map.
And paid subscribers will see more of the deeper material appearing inside The Atlas—including audio dispatches, private podcast moments, and fragments from the memoir I’m currently writing.
Yes, there’s a book coming.
Probably more than one.
Because it turns out when you start writing the map of your life, the roads multiply. And I am also like a run-on sentence that sees all things interconnected.
A Note of Gratitude
If you’re reading this, you’re already part of the reason this work exists.
Substack has become the place where I can write in real time—without a publisher hovering, without a production schedule, just the stories as they happen.
That freedom matters more than you might realize.
It’s what allows this publication to remain a living journey, not just a finished narrative.
So thank you for riding along.
Whether you’ve been here since the early posts or you just stumbled in recently, I’m glad you’re here.
The map may be skewed, but the road is getting clearer.
Hop in the sidecar.
We ride at dawn.
A Note for Paid Subscribers
If you’re a paid subscriber, you’re riding a little closer to the engine of this whole operation—so I wanted to share something with you first.