American Can (Not) Do

A page from my art journal — I made this last week, after Buffalo, or was it just last night, after Texas, or in between when a man was randomly shot in the chest on the subway here in NYC, or, or, or.

Obviously it doesn’t matter, the subject is, as the news people call it, “evergreen,” or in this case, everbloody.

I was in my twenties when Columbine happened, and it was a 9/11 magnitude event, before 9/11. As was Sandy Hook. Last night, Vox Sentences, in its excellent nightly news round up, filed the Texas elementary school shooting under “Miscellaneous.”

Which is what prioritizing what ought to be a quaint relic in our founding document over human life gets ya. Fetishizing an idea about America, which worships our theoretical “can do” independent spirit, and which apparently must involve being armed and unregulated, or else we aren’t free at all, results in the . murder of twenty school-age children in their classroom becoming commonplace. It’s just the price of freedom.

But let’s remember that abortion is the real murder. How do we even survive in such a contradictory state? (Answer: a lot of us don’t.)

Anne Helen Petersen analyzes the moment best, as usual.

You Aren't Supposed to Write About Your Cat

You’re not supposed to write about your cat or post pictures of your cat, on your various professional digital places.

This is advice that I have heard/read/seen multiple times. When you stop posting about your cats — or I guess your dog, or your kids — it shows the world that you are Taking Yourself Seriously (TM).

I have also seen plenty of the opposite advice: post about your “real” life, a little bit, to show you’re human. Versus being what, exactly? Although I guess we did just learn that potentially aliens are a thing.

And then there are the people who are ONLY on social media for the pet photos and basically get mad at you if you post anything else. There are also a few people in this world who love my pets so much that they want them to have their very own social media accounts so they don’t have to wade through all the rest of my garbage. (I’m not doing this.)

So, my distillation of all of the above is: I do whatever the fuck I want. This was a spirit that my cat Jack embodied in every fiber of his being. It made him an asshole and difficult to live with at times, but I also admired his utter self-possession— as I believe all people who love cats do.

Photo: Andrew Collins

Jack died suddenly last weekend, just before I was supposed to take the second part of a very cool online weaving class. I literally had skeins of yarn on my lap, which went flying everywhere as I ran to Jack while he issued two extremely loud caterwauls. This was both the first time he ever made that sound — he was filled with disabilities and troubles, one of which was that his vocal chords didn’t allow him to meow properly, he squeaked — and his last, thanks to his bum aorta, which I’d known about for ten years, but for whatever reason chose that morning to quit.

I’ve written a couple of times about Jack — his life spanned my first marriage, my single years, and, in its largest segment, with me and the new dad I found for him — as he pretty much assumed was my main goal while dating. In his later years, he (surprisingly) became a fan of Maggie the dog. The week before he died allowed her to lick his head. Just once.

This is the first time in my adult life that I don’t have a cat at home. It’s not a situation that will last forever — left to my own devices without a feline silently judging me, lord knows what kind of a degenerate I’ll become. But for now I am writing about my cat in professional places, and I am sharing a couple of other pieces I’ve written about my cats over the years:

• Regarding My Lie About My Three Cats Reflecting on my time when I was one cat away from becoming a crazy cat lady, in the most generous interpretation.

• In Praise of Imperfect Pets This is Jack’s origin story — he had three legs, which you’d have to know for context on the title. I was also married to my first husband when I wrote this, which is a little strange to read now.

Art Journal Flip Through

This is the art journal I started in April 2020. Obviously a BIT of a hectic time here on this planet, and especially in New York City. There was lot of processing going on in these pages.

I tend to note the date that I start my art journals, and not the date I finish them. (Often, I will write “established on xyz date” inside the front cover — this one was on established on April 20th, 2020.) But I never really consider them “all done” because I always feel free to go back in and do more. (in this type of a journal, I don’t go from page to page sequentially, I build layers on multiple pages over time.) In filming, I did see a few pretty unfinished pages, and one entirely blank spread! This hardly ever happens. I’m tempted to leave it just as an indicator of what an unusually disorganizing time it was.

I worked on this book most actively through the Fall of last year, when other art journals began to capture more of my attention. But because I tend to work on each art journal most intensely during a specific period of time, they really do end up being something of a time capsule. It’s funny how many pages I’ve already totally forgotten about, just a year later. And some of these pages have already gone on to have additional lives as inspirations for other art works, or as art works on their own.

On Art Supplies

Like most creative people, I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about, and trying out, the tools of my trade. The actual substances that I use to create something, whether analog or digital, are a forever partner in my creative process. As the artist Anni Albers said, "we must come down to earth from the clouds where we live in vagueness, and experience the most real thing there is: material."

Let's not pretend this a chore — when I have free time, I can’t imagine anything better than going supply shopping. When I emerged from lockdown, the very first store I went to was McNally Jackson Goods for the Study, and I literally cried. It's possible I became a writer because I love stationery, and an artist simply because I needed a reason to buy art supplies.

With that said, my resources are limited and I so I have some basic principles that govern what I buy for my studio. Additionally, I've noticed that there's a lot of...let's say "mishegos and magical thinking" around supplies for both art and writing that are well worth discussing. (And note, when I say art supply, I mean supplies for both visual art and writing.)

So let's dive in:

1- The best art supplies are the ones you already have.

There have been many times that I've waited to start a project until I got a certain supply — a certain type of adhesive, a color of fiber, a particular kind of folder to store my reference materials, whatever — and when I finally got going on the project, I didn't use it.

Or, I got fed up with waiting and created a solution that worked just as well with what I already had.

So, I try to remind myself that new art supplies are really entertainment. Excellent and necessary creative entertainment that feeds my soul, but not a reason for delay or procrastination.

In practical terms, this means when I go on an art supply mission, I browse extravagantly — but my purchases are mostly limited to replenishing what I’ve used up.

Exceptions are:

A) I am going to collapse with desire if I don’t get that thing — and that thing costs less than $20. ($20.01 and I have a 24 hour waiting period.)

B) I’m going to buy mixed media materials, such as materials for collage — a whole different category, which I'll discuss a different time.

Another exception was during the pandemic, when there was no real browsing. Then, I signed up for a surprise art supply box service — I did Art Snacks and then Sketch Box — that fulfilled my desire for novelty very nicely.

This is also important for me to remember when I see an artist I respect (or a teacher whose class I'm taking) use a particular tool and think, my life will be perfect if I have that too. This is magical thinking. It's never the tool, it's always the person who's using it.

2-The best art supplies are the ones you have and use.

At an earlier time in my life, I bought a lot of art supplies and didn't use them. Partially this was a lack of time for art projects, and partially I was waiting for...I don't know what, to get better at art, for a worthy project, something like that.

In writing this would play out with doing research and then not wanting to "use it up" on this a particular project. Maybe I'd wait for a book, or an essay for the New Yorker that was definitely going to be assigned to me at any moment.

This is folly. Life doesn't last forever. It's amazing, but what seems magical and precious now will not seem that way in a few years, all different things will! I try to remind myself to use the best of what I've got and use it now.

I like how the actor Mads Mikkelsen frames this: "Everything I do is the most important thing I do. Whether it’s a play or the next film. It is the most important thing. I know it’s not going to be the most important thing, and it might not be close to being the best, but I have to make it the most important thing. That means I will be ambitious with my job and not with my career. That’s a very big difference, because if I’m ambitious with my career, everything I do now is just stepping-stones leading to something — a goal I might never reach, and so everything will be disappointing. But if I make everything important, then eventually it will become a career. Big or small, we don’t know. But at least everything was important."

3 - The best art supplies are whatever is in your budget.

Most art teachers will tell you to avoid "student grade" paints, low end paper, cheap brushes, and so on.

This advice is well-intentioned.

Professional-grade art materials are often just easier to work with — they're more consistent, you can often use less of them to achieve a good result, the paper doesn't buckle as much, the brushes don't leave bristles all over your page.

You're not fighting with your materials, in other words, which is nice when you're a beginner because you have enough to deal with.

However! There's also a lot of snobbery that goes along with this, along with some idea that the difference between "real artists" and rank amateurs are the art supplies they use.

This may be true in some very traditional corners of the art world, but in the larger sense this is total bullshit. Pay attention the next time you watch an art documentary about a Big Whoop Artist — you will not see fancy wooden paint palettes and porcelain brush holders, you will see paper plates and recycled coffee tins. Jackson Pollock and Pablo Picasso both used house paint in their art practice, Jean Michel Basquiat made precious, multi-million dollar art work son demolition debris, like doors. (When they become fancy artwork, these substrates are called "vernacular objects.”)

Of course I'm not saying there's no difference between fine oil paint and house paint, but since good art supplies cost a pretty penny, it can be hard to get over that and actually use the materials without stressing out about "waste." A good teacher I once had would tell us to imagine that paint is free, which was a helpful idea as long as I could hold the fantasy— but of course, paint is not free.

I should say that I was already inherently suspicious of the exhortations to spend more money on art supplies because of my experience as a writer. I already knew, from myself and from my students, that the most beautiful blank journal in the world could remain that way forever, while a bunch of crumpled napkins from a diner would be scribbled over with ideas. (And yes, with writing the materials are literally meaningless to the final product, which is not the case with visual art, But that doesn't mean that writers don't obsess over pens, paper and various software just as much as artist stress over their supplies.)

So here's the truth: I was able to make the most progress in my art when I bought a set of craft paints from Michael's and used them on old magazine pages, rather than attempting to use my lovely but pricey Acryla gouache paints on a $27 sheet of Arches paper.

Also —SHOCKING NEWS— not everything is worth what it costs! Sure, some fancy brands have a discernible difference in quality, but honestly, I have both extremely expensive Kolinsky Sable paint brushes, and one-third less expensive synthetic brushes, and I prefer the less expensive brand. (This isn't a financial anxiety about "using it up," which really isn't a factor with well-cared for brushes, it's really just that I like the cheaper ones better.)

Now, for some artists, this is not an issue — for whatever reasons, they aren't wired to worry about money in this way.

But because the way you make progress in art is by making a lot of art, this can be a formidable obstacle.

In which case, the best art supplies are the ones that cost what you feel comfortable spending.

I have a fairly exhaustive guide to the art supplies I most use right here.

TV Journals - Spring 2020 and Spring 2021

Almost every night, we watch the news. And almost every night, I sit with my sketchbook and draw some of what I’m hearing. I draw the words that I hear, sometimes the people I see on the screen, sometimes just things that pop up into my mind. (Usually because someone on television will use a noun or a verb that I decide to draw.).

Last Spring, when the morgue trucks and moving trucks became a fixture on the streets of New York City, this practice was a way for me to hold on to sanity. When the US death toll went over 10,000 in early April, I decided to start noting the ever increasing number every night. (At that point, the US death toll was virtually indistinguishable from the New York City death toll.) And when the death toll hit 100,000 on May 28th, I stopped.

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Then, I was using simple materials — brush pen, black ink. (I have a neat hack on this that I’ll share below.) It was all I could manage in that moment.

I took a little break from this practice, roughly between the election and the insurrection. I was mainlining news at that point nearly constantly and didn’t want to make any art about it. (There are a lot of flowers and cats in my journals in that period.) Also, I’d started weaving. Any repetitive fiber art is an enormously soothing activity to do while watching upsetting things on television!

Anyway, the news hasn’t gotten any less upsetting, really, but I picked up the practice again.. Now, however, I’m in the mood for color, which maybe is a hopeful sign? Some then and now images from the sketchbook for your viewing pleasure.

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Materials: The 2020 journals were made with black ink in a brush pen. I love Kuretake brush pens, but I try to stay away from anything non-refillable.(Because the environment, and also because I’m cheap. ) These waterbrush pens, or anything similar, can be filled with any kind of ink. (They’re not really meant for this purpose so if you’re moving around with them, I’d keep them in a plastic bag in case of leaking. But this wasn’t an issue in 2020.) After extensive trial and error, my favorite black-black ink is Noodler’s X Feather.

The journals themselves are 9x12 Artist’s Loft sketchbooks from Michaels. They are also totally affordable, good quality, and get the job done. The 2021 journals are on magazine pages, which I cover up totally with Posca pens and then Copics and Tombows.

Your Brain on Pandemic Standard Time

You can add me to the list of people noting that time itself has gotten so weird during the pandemic. It's true: My sense of time has become totally suspect!

I've long had routine of reviewing a month's worth of journal entries, at the beginning of a new month. I make some summary notes of what went well, what didn't, ideas I want to pursue and so on.

It was through this process that I started to realize over this plague year that my sense of time was getting a little...hinky. As I read through my daily journals at the end of the month, I've been startled when I realized that events that happened only a couple of weeks ago, felt like that they happened much longer ago.

It's so disorienting! As best as I can figure it, events have become pretty unattached to their correct chronological time in my mind, after roughly 48 hours.

For example, I'm writing this at 9:45 a.m., and I can easily remember what happened yesterday and when in time it happened: exercise class in the afternoon, what I photographed and edited in the morning, what I had for breakfast. I can pretty much do the same with the day before.

Reaching back beyond that though, my memories lose their "time stamp." Monday might as well have been a few months ago. I'm not going to say I remember events from earlier in the week in the exact the same way I remember things from college or high school twenty years ago — but more recent events have that darker, fuzzier, sepia-toned quality of a memory of a time much longer ago.

I've struggled to explain this, even to myself. This isn't an issue with my memory per se, I remember things just fine. (Or just has fine as I've always done — I remember conversations and events almost with complete recall, I've never had a good memory for proper names.) It's memory by chronology that's gotten warped. My mental filing system has gotten— and this is the technical term— fucked up. The memories are fine, but if feels like the "metadata" has gotten corrupted.

As I mentioned, a lot of smart people have been documenting the pandemic's effects on our mental health and on our very brains themselves. If I'm reading all of it correctly, we're experiencing collective brain damage. Our sense of time is all about how we encode memories, and that process is dependent on dopamine — and life in lockdown and/or stress and/or fear messes with our dopamine levels, among other delights!

If we’re all brain damaged in similar ways, I suppose that make it…the new normal? I don’t know. It’s a comforting thought, anyway. If you are also experienced corrupted memory metadata and want to feel a little better about it, I recommend:

• This episode of On Being with Krista Tippet, “What’s Happening with Our Nervous Systems?” I listened to this as I was feeling the side effects of my second Covid shot, and it was very soothing and informative.

• What is Happening to Our Sense of Time During Covid? One of the first things I read that clued me in that I wasn’t the only one experiencing the time warp, and that it was a real thing and not just more pandemic bitching.

• This study on “Novelty Input and Novelty Output” during quarantine, if you like reading studies. (I started taking some steps to increase my novelty inputs, which I’ll probably write about in a later post…if I remember, ha.)