Thick Mint Co. '24: A Continuum

words by: CL

The anticipation of a new year is growing upon us as we finish out the last couple days of 2023. While reflecting comes easy, looking ahead doesn't always. But stepping into a new year for Thick Mint Co. and myself seem to align; there's a hovering goal to ride along the continuum between creativity and reality--to find the places, people and things where those two overlap.

As the hot air of Kailua Kona summers have faded into cooler rainy afternoons, I'm reminded of how everything eventually resets. There are deep breaths to be taken, minds to be calmed and quiet nights to be had before we wake up to do it all over again. Thick Mint Co. grew exponentially this year in its first official year of business. Setting up for shows comes easy now, ideas flow and the daunting thought of "what's next" no longer eats me alive. Thick Mint Co. has become the quintessence of a fortuitous idea driven by spontaneity and ease with no regard to say or mean anything at all. But while to simply exist may be an indication of staying in the present, it does not detach us from the past; it only means that looking back will help us grow forward. So that's what we'll do. 

I went home recently for San Francisco's West Coast Craft Fair and belongings I had long forgotten about awaited my return. I realized I had left a lot of love in San Francisco--old friends, familiar smiles and bad decisions all existing idly in an immortal bubble just to be picked right back up. But to leave again only felt as if to return all of the good and bad back into its invisible time capsule. Until recently, home in California was my present--that as long as I could get home from wherever I was in the world, I'd be okay. But this year, my definition of home changed and, as simple as it sounds, much of it had to do with the warmth of the Kailua Kona sun upon my skin. 

As a 23 year-old living in the fine spaces between post-academia and actual reality, Thick Mint Co. has kept me grounded. Like myself, Thick Mint Co. has endured large spaces of uncertainty, poor decisions and lopsided growth, and while we are two entities who very much intertwine, Thick Mint Co.  has never had a home until now. The ideas of Thick Mint Co. in its very beginnings came from places I wished to be; they were iterations of what I saw in my dreams. But when you wake up to salty, breezy air, get tumble dried by warm rolling waves and beat down by the sun everyday, what I saw in my dreams are now scenes of my daily reality and therefore have established the sole identity that now embodies Thick Mint Co. For Thick Mint Co., home is under the sun with places that make us smile and people who help us grow; home is here; home is now.

But like most things, that may change, and so might we. But let this be a moment of where we both are in the present on the cusp of a new year; in a place both grounded and curious, forever keen and thriving on not knowing what's around the next corner, behind the next wave, or over the next hill. ​

In the meantime, make a stranger smile, send a card to an old friend, become the funniest person you know and tell someone you love them.

Much love, 
Thick Mint Co. and Claire Lau