*insert care emoji here*
the one all about art
Hi friends,
Introductions are hard, so we’ll just start with our updates:
This is what we…
Ate:
N: I decided to challenge my cooking skills by making Japanese Mille Feuille Nabe and Oyakodon!
J: My primary form of exercise is walking to our local bakery (cardio) and picking up bread (weights). This loaf of tomato ciabatta alone forms the base of my Quarantine Food Pyramid.
Watched:
Money Heist! Since the characters of Money Heist are all named after cities, we thought it would be fun to think about our heist-names. We came to the conclusion that Nicole would be Seville/Sevilla (think: colorful architecture and flamenco dancing), and Justine would be Copenhagen (so basically, Scandinavian design and lots of stationery).
Saved:
N: A poem I’m obsessed with at the moment is Poplar Street by Chen Chen about forgiveness and identity. It’s beautiful. I also really love this Sonnet by Robert Hass - it feels like the poem has no end, and yet is all about endings.
J: After Little Women, I developed a bit of a girl-crush on Florence Pugh (but then again, did anyone not?). My latest discovery is her series of cooking tutorials on IG. This week: pizza dough.
Listened to:
‘The Most Beautiful Thing’ by Bruno Major: please listen, that is all.
N: There is a scene in Alice in Wonderland where Alice is running with the Red Queen in a magical forest, but she notices that as she runs the trees seem to be running beside her.
The Red Queen remarks,
“Here, you see, it takes all the running you can do, to keep in the same place. If you want to get somewhere else, you must run at least twice as fast as that!”
Scientists and businessmen took this scene from Lewis Carroll’s book as inspiration for the name ‘Red Queen Effect’. It is a hypothesis that suggests that in order to succeed, you need to constantly adapt to new surroundings; always moving faster than you were yesterday. I am torn between the beautifully named expression (what a fusion between art and science!) and an internal disagreement with this ideal of ‘productivity’. I don’t see life as a sprint at all. Recently, I’ve been experiencing life more as a peaceful evening amble: reading, cooking, sleeping.
My art journey makes me feel a little bit like Alice in the forest - bewildered at the amount of effort it takes to stay in the same place. The past five years I have sprinted, paused, sheepishly returned to art. Picked up a paintbrush only to set it down again. I don’t necessarily feel further along in my art journey than when I first started.
But thinking back, some of my greatest takeaways are not measurable. Art has taught me how to balance the opposing forces in my life: patience and frustration; attention and indifference; deep work and deeper rest.
I’m getting better at being kinder to myself rather than attaching my worth to productivity. I guess what I am saying is (to reference a piece inspired by this topic): not all growth is visible.
My Art in April, inspired by:
A stock digital picture of a small man under a microscope, looking lonely (Life, Examined)
My brother eating eggo waffles in the living room, the sun streaming in. In the mornings, everything still seems possible (Spring Pool Party, Reimagined)
Overmixing my banana bread: how things can suddenly go from delightful to unpleasant (All Mixed Up)
The name of a song articulating a deeper fear we all share (Fear of Being Alone)
J: Here’s a question I’ve been stumped by recently: can someone be afraid of their own hobby?
I’ve always loved all things art: I remember being in first grade and learning about artists like Wayne Thiebaud and Wassily Kandinsky. I don’t know how Kandinsky would feel about a group of six year olds mimicking his paintings in an effort to learn about the color wheel, but I know that my six-year-old self used those oil crayons with a conviction like no other. In middle school, after essentially appropriating my parent’s camera as my own, I fell in love with photography. After it rained, I would take my camera outside and shoot reflections in the puddles. In high school, I could never keep my uniform clean. My white polos were inevitably stained with bright acrylic paint, and my fingertips were permanently discolored - battle scars from the hours spent toiling away in the studio.
(Pictured: pages from my old sketchbook)
So, you would think that with all this free time, the supposed artist in me would be having a grand old time. As it turns out, I have an irrational fear towards starting a work of art. I can tell you now that drawing is not like riding a bike: as my hands pick up my old art tools, the feeling is almost alien to me.
I’ve been thinking a lot about creative projects recently. Over the past few weeks, I’ve been an avid follower of the internet’s debate on productivity. I’ve witnessed the rise and fall of our obsession with self-help books and crazy at-home workouts, and in the wake of the new cynicism towards hyper-maximization, it seems that we are slowly turning towards hobbies of leisure: baking, weaving, collaging. And yet, I find myself staring blankly at the sketchbook page in front of me. If creativity is supposed to offer refuge, why do I also feel a growing impulse to run away? It hit me that I’ve been treating art the way I treat school work. Like a problem set, I scrutinize a drawing as if there is still a right way, a correct answer.
I realize that I miss six-year-old Justine. While I’d like to believe that I know more about art now, I am jealous of the way my primary school self approached a blank canvas: with an ignorance of others’ judgements, and a sense of humor towards any ‘mistake’.
I was sitting on my balcony the other day, and decided to do a minute-sketch of the objects in front of me. I wonder how six-year-old Justine would react. Despite my doodle’s wonky lines, maybe she’d smile and tuck her pencil into the next empty page of the sketchbook, excited to do it all again tomorrow.
This past week, Facebook launched what has been their only real meaningful contribution during these times: the ‘Care Emoji’. After seeing the dozens of parodies, we thought it would only be fitting if we make our own version, inspired by this week’s theme.
Hugs,
J & N