Process, Pride, Puppies, Painting
Alliteration is really healing, right?
[Photo of my new art desk set up, with a bright light showing oil painting supplies.]
I’ve been trying to solve why I haven’t been working on “wet” media projects (as in, not stuff I draw on my iPad, for tattoos), and it came down to the usual: I needed a “room of one’s own.” When I can leave a project out so I can return to it in pieces, and not have to clean up the whole work area in order to do something else, or in order to even start, I’m more likely to actually sit down and work. We’re privileged to have a 2 bedroom, so the office / guest bedroom has also become the art studio. I already feel better about my art practice, although now that I have the space, I need to make the time…
[Recent cover of a New Yorker magazine that I found hilarious, and I also love this illustration, period.]
Attempting to paint more, draw more, doodle more. Slow things, things that take time. I’ve found it takes three hours to do one hour of work, so finding those swaths of time where I can sink in has been hard. I’m not really a Woman of the Night, so after a workday I’m not really buzzing with artistic energy. I was just telling a friend about how, in 2012 and 2013, working on Girl Sex 101, I would wake up early before work and stay up late just to draw and lay out that book. Looking back, that was… bananas. But I had the energy (that was ~13 years ago soooo), so I did it. I cannot imagine doing it again.
March and April were really very wildly energetic and full of Spring energy. I feel like we’re all entering a new phase — we’re not resigned to this chaotic world; we’re going to fight, grow, care, change through it. I feel it in my interactions, and in how much everyone is out and wanting to connect.
[Photo of a brindle puppy perched in a tree with her tongue lolling out.]
At the end of last year, we had the opportunity to adopt a cute, sweet, very loved re-homed puppy. We did a two week trial period, took some time for holiday travel, and returned with the decision to say a full-throated yes. A lot of Big Feelings came up. Disco was my first dog as an adult, and his sudden passing was devastating, and combined with a lot of other very hard stuff.* So taking the time to love again was hard.
I’ve been increasingly not online (as you know, if you’re here), and so I haven’t done a formal debut of this new cutie. Her name is Joey Pants, and she’s got some great jokes and cuddles. You won’t really see her on social media too much, but she’ll pop up to promote things with me occasionally.
[I came home the other day as she got back from a dog walk with my wife, and she leapt into my arms, so I think the lovefest is mutual.]
~*~ Process ! ~*~
I’ve been working on so many big tattoo projects lately! It’s been absolutely lovely. The exact sort of artistic challenge that I love rising to. Y’all have the best ideas, and I’m honored.
Here’s an in-process major cover-up I’m working on with my client B. Once we’re officially done, I’ll put together a whole before, during, and after post. It’s been so incredible to be so trusted with this project. Plus, every time y’all ask me to do these bigger projects, it truly grows me as an artist.
If you’ve gotten custom work from me, I’ve probably “turned you into left overs,” as I like to say, and wrapped you in saran wrap to draw on you. My client M is being such a peach and we’ve been making a really fucking rad surrealist / MC Escher-inspired half-sleeve, using inspiration from life, artists we admire, and important people, places, and things to M. It has been VERY FUN. We’re about to start the next phase, so I thought I’d show some of the process. I took these notes, placed them on an 8.5x11 piece of paper, snapped a photo, and I’ll be making a detailed drawing to scale based off these doodles.
One of the practices I’ve been doing for a while now is what I call “dress fittings.” After an initial consult, where we look at references and do some of that saran wrap doodling, we’ll set up another in-person consult and I’ll have a sketch ready for stenciling onto you. I’ve found this really helps with several things. When the tattoo wraps around the body, it allows for easy understanding of scale and shape, and I can understand what needs to change. If we’re making something that fits around other tattoos, we can make sure the location is really working. But the biggest win is that you get to go home with the stencil on you — so you don’t have to decide if the art is working for you while I stand there expectantly jazz-handing, and, the biggest biggest, you don’t have to decide to put a huge permanent thing on your body without being able to literally sleep on it. Breaking up the sessions this way has been so helpful for my process, but it’s also erased that anxiety that a lot of clients have expressed misgivings about.
What’s she reading!?
Okay, BUCKLE UP! I’ve got so many books and so many opinions!
Firstly, I burned through The Astral Library by Kate Quinn. It was very cute. If you’d like a book focused, Library as Central Character, magical realism book with low stakes, I highly recommend. You aren’t gonna be challenged or blown away, it’s just a nice cozy ride.
I just finished Where The Axe is Buried by Ray Nayler and this book is the OPPOSITE of a cozy ride, but it’s still, I think, a fantastic solarpunk book. Yes, the world in this story is cracking open due to (many factors but mostly) AI, and yes, a lot of people die in this book. It reads like equal parts manifesto to novel. I loved it, and then M was sweet enough to gift me Nayler’s first book. If you read Walkaway by Cory Doctorow and thought, “fuck yes!” — then this is the book for you.
I also got a little over halfway through Butter by Asako Yuzuki, and I only put it down because Where The Axe is Buried showed up — AND Butter was just slow enough that I decided to put it down. The translation was very good, and the characters are complicated and well written, AND I craved a little more adventure than I was getting. It’s a good slow burn though. I might pick it up again. I am notoriously chaotic with how I read books, so.
My books for my May travel ALL arrived on the same day at the library — I was like a cartoon when someone puts a pie on a window, I was so elated. I just started Hell’s Heart by Alexis Hall, a queer Moby Dick in SPACE re-imagining. I’ve also got The Subtle Art of Folding Space by John Chu, which I am stoked to have gotten so quickly. I’m also gonna be digging into 200 Monas by Jan Saenz, and I am ALSO STOKED to crack that open. All of the cover designs for these books are so good, btw!
I leave you with this literary magic. Thanks for being you. Get messy, make mistakes, kiss your friends, True Believers.