November Gleanings

Micro-resilience practices, social connection, digital co-working, and comfort food

“In The Lap of August” 2020

For those who need it, this month’s links are anchored in resilience, comfort, and inspiration. Artists process the world through making art. In a world that seems to want me distracted and anxious, paying careful attention to the world around me and reflecting it back through my art is one way that I mine my personal vein of resistance. I’ll be back next week with a post about noticing color. In the meantime, enjoy these links and take good care.

Listening: Off the Grid Podcast: Guest Pascale Cote. A terrific discussion about how to strengthen our mental and emotional muscles. Love their suggestions for “micro-resilience practices”.

How to Build a Village: This essay had me thinking about all of the ways that my artist community is important to me and how intentional connection and showing up in each other’s lives is an antidote to social atrophy. Feels especially important this week.

Thinking about: Anna Brones writing about Creative Response 

Noticing is caring: This wonderful post really gets to the heart of how I think about my creative practice. So much of my process is about just noticing. It all starts with paying attention, and art-making flows from that. 

My current Favorite Thing: digital co-working! I’m participating in Nic Antoinette’s awesome Get Shit Done Club. Twice a week for one hour, I log into a zoom call where I work in the quiet supportive company of others. This is the second digital co-working space I’ve tried, and I really love them. I am completely focused and productive for that hour and it usually extends into the rest of my day. Pretty magical!  :)

Tech support for the business side: Artwork Archive. I’ve been using this subscription art database service for my art tracking and inventory for years now. And I have never been more grateful for it; while the rest of my life keeps shifting and organization becomes more and more challenging, Artwork Archive has helped me keep my professional shit together. Highly recommend.

New-to-me newsletter: Ness Labs. I’m just starting to explore the archives of this newsletter, but so far it is rich with actionable suggestions and insights for creatives.

Reading for fun: It’s been hard to read anything too serious lately, and so I’ve been reading lightly, enjoying murder mysteries, and if you need some escapist reading I heartily recommend the Thursday Night Murder Club series. Very entertaining, great characters, smartly written. I’m currently on the second one, and it’s better than the first, so I think that’s a sign to keep reading the series!

Comfort food: Is there anything more comforting than miso soup? Very excited to try Amy Chaplin’s version. I treasure her plant-based cookbooks for their beauty and utility.

Volume control: This is kind of a weird one, but when I am feeling overwhelmed, I become sound sensitive. I love my Loop sound-filtering earplugs. Yes, I wear them at music events, but I also pop them in my ears when I’m walking through noisy construction, or in a loud restaurant. I have a pair of the “engage” in gold, and not only do they take the edge off of noisy environments, keeping me calm and focused, but they are pretty too!

Thanks for reading!