Rainbows. Art Log 004.

The day after my positive COVID test Nathan called me outside to see this beautiful rainbow. 🌈

I’ve been struggling with brain fog and fatigue, but here are a few bits I collected this week.

“Writing a novel, for me, tends to be almost like the process of throwing mud at a wall and seeing what shapes it makes.”

Neil Gaiman

via Instagram

I can’t embed video on my phone, but you can listen to the full talk here. (I haven’t yet.)

Ordered immediately based on this quote,

“When you read children’s books, you are given the space to read again as a child: to find your way back, back to the time when new discoveries came daily and when the world was colossal, before your imagination was trimmed and neatened, as if it were an optional extra.” 

Why You Should Read Children's Books, Even Though You Are So Old and Wise by Katherine Rundell

h/t Austin Kleon

inosculation

“Trunks, branches or roots of two trees that grow together.”

Also known as

Click through to see one tree keeping another alive even when separated from its roots.

Left Davy alone for 5 minutes playing Zelda and he’s setting fire inside people’s houses. 😂

Finished Dawnshard before the brain fog hit. Disability representation, pirate vibes, cosmere secrets. One of my favorite Brandon Sanderson novellas.

Watching Magic School Bus Inside Ralphie episode feels very appropriate (even if he had a bacterial infection and not a virus.)

This haunting image of Van Gogh’s giant eye peering into the London Tube.

That’s all for this week.

I’d love to hear what you’ve been reading, watching, or learning about below.

A note on accessibility

Because I’m sick I composed this on my phone from bed. I haven’t managed alt text.

Please ask if you need it and I’ll add it when I’m able.

Kew Gardens

Palm House

Kew Gardens

London, England

Note from Sarah

I am experimenting with photo essays to document my London trip.

I may write more another time, but I caught COVID on the journey home and have limited capacity at the moment.

This feels like something I might have done in 2013 so maybe it’s reclaiming a lost art.

Accessibility

I cannot add alt text on mobile. Image descriptions can be found here.

London. 003.

A year ago this felt impossible.

Sometimes it’s hard to disentangle what’s actually impossible and what just seems that way.

This is your PSA that mums don’t need permission to have time and space to ourselves. We just need a bit of support and cooperation.

Notes from my adventure to London.

The flights both ways were a total bloody disaster and I lost 2 whole days to them. 🫠

On the plane I listened to Neverwhere by Neil Gaiman and Pyramids by Terry Pratchett.

I’ve never slept on a plane, but I was so exhausted I dozed in and out of both.

I also started reading Dawnshard by Brandon Sanderson, but quickly grew too tired and overstimulated to concentrate. (I finished it since coming home and it’s one of my favorite short stories he’s written.)

I got through the worst of the overnight layover laughing at this podcast episode What Was Going On In The Middle Ages? with Dr. Janina Ramirez & Jonathan Van Ness. Heads up for language. I couldn’t have listened to this one with Davy or he’s be swearing like a sailor.

I ended up flying in to London the next morning seated near singer Myles Smith & his touring band / crew. If you like acoustic music with British accents check it out.

When I finally arrived it was 12 hours after planned and I had to take a bus because of Tube shortages. It was past 1 am when I finally reached the hotel.

28 hours after leaving home. 🫠

While in London I saw…

Japan Myths to Manga at the Young V&A

Brick Lane

RSC’s My Neighbor Totoro

Covent Garden

Trafalgar Square

St. Martins (where I did brass rubbing)

Hadestown (I did a thread for my WoT fam here.)

Kew Gardens

I put together a photo essay for this one… Kew. A portal.

I shopped at…

Oxfam & Oxfam Books (Brits call thrift stores charity shops and they are a great place for inexpensive souvenirs.)

Transport for London Museum Gift Shop

Young V&A Giftshop

Totoro & Hadestown Gift Shops

I ate at…

Nandos

The Albert’s Deli (in Richmond)

Bills (great for a full English breakfast)

Greggs (cheeky bacon cheese wrap)

The Approach Tavern (near Whitechapel - amazing Sticky Toffee pudding)

Paul (French bakery chain and not as good as Greggs to be honest)

Round Table (pub near Covent Garden)

and a picnic at Kew Gardens.

I rode…

a London bus

Elizabeth Line

District Line

Piccadilly Line

Overground

Another photo essay because I am a huge nerd for the London Underground.

This post was cut short because I caught COVID, but I have lots more to say about this trip. Maybe I’ll circle back to it after I recover.

Meanwhile sharing what I have managed to get down.

Recentering. 002.

Illustrated flowers around a sun with numbered arrows

Reflection

I’m attempting to recenter my creative practice.

If this feels cyclical that’s because it is.

My creative orbit spiralling closer and closer to something that’s right for me.

When throwing pottery on the wheel you have to center it first.

The pot builds around the center of mass and if that isn’t the center of the wheel you get a wonky pot. I’m actually not very good at centering clay, but we won’t dwell on this. I haven’t been able to throw pottery since Davy was born due to chronic pain.

That’s the last time I tried to throw a pot. My hands should be controlling the clay not the other way around. I also have a connective tissue disorder that makes this extremely difficult. (I really need one of these.)

The same thing can happen when artists share our work online.

When the platform comes first everything is off balance.

Something still feels “off” about creating for Substack. Over the last 10-15 years I’ve seen platforms come and go. The places that we gather and connect online change and immigrate. The more I think about this the more I want an archive of my writing on my own website.

At the same time, I value the community and comments I find on platforms like Substack. With that in mind I am experimenting with writing for my own blog and cross posting to Substack. (For technical reasons it works MUCH better this way than the other way around. But it’s also a nice reframe about who I’m writing for and why.)

Right now I’m experimenting with a second Substack publication where I can cross post entries in my “Artist’s Log.”

Like a Captain’s Log, but for art.

This is an outgrowth of moving my hybrid note taking practice into Obsidian. I’ve been using it for a month now and it works brilliantly with my particular magpie brain.

So here we are.

I’m essentially turning my blogging process inside out. I’m recentering on my own creative practice. Then cross posting that to Substack. It’s a subtle difference, but it feels like a powerful one.

I’m also rooting more deeply into what I find interesting rather than guessing what you want to read.

Eclectic weirdos are invited to hang out and chat in comments here or over on Substack.

What I’m Reading

I’m still working out how I want to share what I’m reading.

Here are the books I’ve been dipping into this week.

How We Might Live: At Home with Jane and William Morris

by: Suzanne Fagence Cooper

Still working my way through this one. Nothing particular to share this week, but I’m wondering if I can manage to see Red House when I’m in London. If I manage to sleep on the plane (which I never do) I might just be able to squeeze it in. The trouble is that it’s not open over the weekend and is quite a long journey from where I’ll be staying.

Guards Guards

by: Terry Pratchett

I’ve read Terry Pratchett on and off, but never made it through his completed works. It’s hard to explain why I love Pratchett so much. If you’ve never read him it’s a brilliant humorist twist on Fantasy that’s really an exploration of politics and culture. Full of imperfect and wonderful characters. And footnotes. Did I mention the footnotes? One of my all time favorite authors.

A Slip of the Keyboard

by: Terry Pratchett

I’ve just started this, but I’m quite excited about it. I thought it was a book about writing, but it’s a collection of nonfiction that seems to have been published after Terry began struggling with alzheimer’s.

Every Tool’s a Hammer

by: Adam Savage

Loving this! The opening chapter in particular is like an ode to neurodivergent making. (Adam is ADHD although I’m not sure if he identified at that way when writing the book it’s something he talks about a lot on his YouTube channel Tested.) He didn’t mention neurodivergence outright in the opening, but it was the heart of what he was talking about and it made my heart happy to listen.

Because I’m listening to the audiobook while driving I have no quotes.

But I’m loving it so much I’ll likely order a used hardcopy and take notes from that.

What I’m Making

Enter the tray of buttons. These vintage buttons from my mom have been admired, sorted, and strung into various necklaces throughout the week. The first day just looking at these buttons kept Davy busy for hours.

Tray of eclectic vintage buttons in all different colors and size. A small hand reaches into the tray and a tangled rainbow cord sits to one side.

This led me, of course, to remembering this post by Rebecca Holden about sorting her mother’s button tin.

We also went to the thrift shop. I found this for my vintage clothing tag collection. I haven’t decided what to make with these yet.

I’m in a collecting phase with making this week. The tag above and also information.

Check out this flower clock. I love this idea for my fantasy novel.

I want the culture to be deeply embedded in ecosystems and this is wonderful.

Illustrated flowers around a sun with numbered arrows

1833 print depicting Carl Linnaeus’ “flower clock”, a horological device that tracks the day’s hours based on the circadian rhythms of flowers that exhibit “nastic” movement — the “opening” and “closing” of petals and leaves in response to light. Public Domain Review

My work is on exhibition at Mothering at Milwaukee Art Therapy.

This is such an important cause. Art can be such a beautiful way to support mothers. I wish art therapy was more accessible to all.

The show opened this week and will run through May 8.

What I’m Thinking About

Some of the big picture themes that have come up for me this week.

Collective problem solving

I’m not sure if it’s a millennial thing or an autistic thing, but I often feel personally responsible for solving systemic problems. It feels like an important reframe to remember I can only do my bit. Even people who dedicate their lives to solving big problems can’t solve everything.

This piece was a bit of a relief.

“Try as hard as you'd like, you just can't shop your way out of a monopoly – that's like trying to recycle your way out of the climate emergency. Systemic problems need systemic solutions – not individual ones.” Source: Cory Doctorow

I can’t find the video right now (I’ll link it up later if I do), but I remember Hank Green vlogging about focusing on specific problems and working on them rather than getting whiplash with every news cycle. We can’t solve all the problems at once. But if a problem exists there are people working hard to solve it.

We need community and collective action to enact large scale change.

On a related note Cory also shared this on his blog,

“For most of human history, we've treated energy as scarce, eking out marginal gains in energy efficiency – even as we treated materials as disposable, using them once and consigning them to a midden or a landfill. That's completely backwards.”

I come from a family of farmers. Growing up my mom could fix anything.

This is something I’ve thought a lot about since visiting my extended family when Davy was a babe. Seeing my uncle’s workshop reminded me of those roots and I started seeing the world differently. Tapping back into those roots to repair and be resourceful with what is available rather than tossing something out and buying new. There’s still a lot of room for growth and improvement here so I’m glad this post brought it back to mind.

Thank you RSS feed.

Also this gave me wot con vibes.

Especially the singing part. Everyone should have a community like this.

“I don't need you to love football, I only need you to love something that brings you together with others whose love is pointing in the same direction.” John Green

Links

This post by Brad Montague about Mr. Rogers and the concept of guided drift really resonated with me, to be "guided by our principles, but also free to embrace the flow of life".

Brad’s reflection on job hopping and changing majors could have been my own, “What a gift this mindset would’ve been for me early on… Each job transition felt like a mistake I’d made instead of the growing, guided drift I was part of.”

He then shared this page from Mr. Roger’s archives.

Humanizing our creative heroes can be so powerful.

Maybe you’ll find the idea that Mr. Rogers doubted his own creativity inspiring too.

Tap over to Brad’s post The Doubting Hero to read his whole reflection and see his illustrations.

Life

Want to melt a mother’s heart?

Try this,

“i want to be an artist like you.”

Why, yes.

Yes I will get the crayons down.

(We put them away after he tried to decorate the second hand keyboard we just bought.)

He went on to illustrate and dictate a story inspired by Zelda. I think this qualifies as his first story. He’s told me a few others, but they haven’t been written down. The first was almost a word for word recitation of Peter Rabbit. Since then there’s been more mix and match.

"Today Ganondorf went to the sky islands. What will happen next? Soon he needed a paraglider. Soon she was scared for the depths. Soon she needed a weapon." To the right is an image of Ganondorf orange with two eyes, a secret stone on forehead, and red hair.

Davy found some worms while we were gardening. Over winter we read How to Say Hello to a Worm a LOT. Which we discovered through Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library (she sends free books to any kids who signs up!)

He also loves Slimey the Worm (Oscar the Grouch’s pet) so every worm he finds is named Slimey. Here he also found “Slimey’s sister.”

It’s a cloudy day after a rainstorm so the air is cool and the ground is soft. Perfect gardening weather in my opinion. 🌱

We unearthed a patch of phlox and cleared two more patches of dead grass from the giant garden bed. Then we planted some herbs from Atwoods to help fight off the grass.

Other moments from the week…

Watching Totoro: “Not just any bus! A Totoro bus.”

A visit from extended family.

This moment of Davy with my cousin Hank. He was like his little shadow.

This inspired a new photography prompt I’m considering starting up on Substack. I miss shooting black and white.

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Myth vs. Folklore

How We Live Now with Katherine May on Season 5, Episode 5, “Amy Jeffs on ancient stories and new understandings”

Something I found interesting was Amy Jeff’s distinction between myth and folklore. She describes myth as political and cosmological and folklore as personal.

Her book looks lovely (she did the woodcuts herself) and I’ll be keeping an eye out in bookshops while I’m in London.

Treacle Tins


One of my favorite reads on Substack this week was Nanette Regan’s post about the new Lyle’s Golden Syrup logo.

Apparently this lion was the world’s oldest logo. And the original logo is a dead lion that Samson killed in the Bible and bees made honey in his carcass.

(Note they are only changing plastic packaging. They will be keeping the old design on the tins.)

The new lion has Aslan vibes and I like the shape of the bottle.

I have a few of these treacle tins from my time living in London to hold art supplies. It seems they aren’t changing the Black Treacle design (perhaps it only comes in a tin?) but when I was looking for it I found this.

I’d love to have one of these if anyone has a spare knocking around in their cupboards!

Winnie the Pooh

MOVIE NIGHT

Movie night: february 24, 2024

We’ve started watching new films as a family on a weekly-ish basis. It’s only over the past 6 months Davy has really developed the attention span for this (other than Totoro which he has been watching through since a babe.)

This week we watched Winnie the Pooh. I meant to watch the old version, but Disney + has updated all the thumbnails in a confusing way and we ended up watching 2011.

It drew a lot of inspiration directly fom the 1977 film. It felt like an adaptation of that film versus the books themselves. I appreciated how they continued to explore the use of text as a visual framing and storytelling device.

Something else I loved was the set and prop design in the room that opened and closed the film. This was one improvement in my opinion. The room in the 70’s version was very bright and white and clean. This one felt warm and British and lived in. I could stare for ages at the details.

Here are a few stills from the credits.

I loved how these vignettes depict the toys in scenes from the film.

Piglet outfitted for battle with a teacup on his head, a plate as a shield, and a fork. Quilted pillows behind.
Pooh pulls an antique red wagon with Piglet riding

That said the voice actors felt off and the story and music didn’t feel as strong. Some bits felt familiar and other bits felt “off” so we watched the 1977 version the next day to compare.

Where the 2011 film was an adaptation of the 1977 film the 1977 film was a very faithful adaptation of the original book. Over the past week we’ve been reading the original stories and it seems the 70’s film took chapters directly from the book (making minor changes for a visual format like depicting a fly as a butterfly) but remaining very true to the details of the original story.

This leads to the biggest difference between the films in that the 70s version was a vignette of small stories (quite literally chapters) where the new film tried to create an overarching narrative and shoehorn these other stories into it.

The visual framework of a book made so much more sense with this in mind. Between scenes the pages would literally ruffle and flip to a new part of the story. And the detailed animation of the text itself was more enchanting.

Pooh Gifs via Adventurelandia on Tumblr

I also love the analogue matte paintings behind the 77 version. I can see clearly that they used watercolor in a way that could never be recreated digitally.

I can’t find a good image of the backgrounds but here is one of the original cels as photographed for an auction. Maybe I should look for a book about the art of the 77 film.

Transparent sheet with Rabbit and Pooh illustrated laughing and Pooh falling holding a honey pot

While reading the book Davy wanted to know why “tiger” wasn’t on the book’s map.

Digital Gardening

STARTED: MARCH 4, 2024

LAST UPDATED: APRIL 7, 2024

What originally started as a “chronofile” morphed to an “artist log” and then a digital garden or “compost heap.”

Here’s how that process evolved.

First, I wrote about my note taking practice and idea to start a microblog called a chronofile here.

MARCH 4, 2024

This experiment is a effort in developing my own note taking process. I wrote a bit about it here. Since I’ve started using Obsidian I’ve been creating daily notes. What I’m experimenting with is starting each week with re-reading those notes and curating the bits I want to keep and share in a forward facing commonplace book.

I’ve been documenting and sharing in some form or another for almost 10 years. What I want is to find a sustainable way to do this that lives on my own website and doesn’t rely on a third party (like Substack, Patreon, Tumblr, or IG.)

Some weeks may be lengthy and others may be short.

March 9, 2024

I’m attempting to recenter my creative practice.

If this feels cyclical that’s because it is.

My creative orbit spiralling closer and closer to something that’s right for me.

When throwing pottery on the wheel you have to center it first.

The pot builds around the center of mass and if that isn’t the center of the wheel you get a wonky pot. I’m actually not very good at centering clay, but we won’t dwell on this. I haven’t been able to throw pottery since Davy was born due to chronic pain.

That’s the last time I tried to throw a pot. My hands should be controlling the clay not the other way around. I also have a connective tissue disorder that makes this extremely difficult. (I really need one of these.)

The same thing can happen when artists share our work online.

WHEN THE PLATFORM COMES FIRST EVERYTHING IS OFF BALANCE.

Something still feels “off” about creating for Substack. Over the last 10-15 years I’ve seen platforms come and go. The places that we gather and connect online change and immigrate. The more I think about this the more I want an archive of my writing on my own website.

At the same time, I value the community and comments I find on platforms like Substack. With that in mind I am experimenting with writing for my own blog and cross posting to Substack. (For technical reasons it works MUCH better this way than the other way around. But it’s also a nice reframe about who I’m writing for and why.)

Right now I’m experimenting with a second Substack publication where I can cross post entries in my “Artist’s Log.”

Like a Captain’s Log, but for art.

This is an outgrowth of moving my hybrid note taking practice into Obsidian. I’ve been using it for a month now and it works brilliantly with my particular magpie brain.

So here we are.

I’m essentially turning my blogging process inside out. I’m recentering on my own creative practice. Then cross posting that to Substack. It’s a subtle difference, but it feels like a powerful one.

I’m also rooting more deeply into what I find interesting rather than guessing what you want to read.

Eclectic weirdos are invited to hang out and chat in comments here or subscribe for weekly emails.