Patches, Stickers, and an All or Nothing Aesthetic

Musing on a list of things I "should" or "could" work on, October drawing, and intertwined stories about patches and stickers. A sticker bomb journal is on tap.

Last week, feeling signs of empty, I came here to talk about it, about empty, about filling, about not knowing how to fill or where the well is anymore. Instead, I meandered my way into a discussion of small, a defense of including the non-sequitur or red herring in our pages, a justification of a kitchen-sink approach to keeping an illustrated journal. That hadn’t been my intent. It’s connected though. It was a way of spinning the emptiness around and trying to remind all of us that we have to constantly reframe, realign, look, and see. Some of us have to reach for meaning with intention, with both hands, dragging connections to our pages and embroidering those threads until they are enmeshed.

I can see how I got off track. In certain lights, a small life, a boring set of contours, contributes to empty. And empty, along with ho-hum and routine, leaves the risk of nothing to say, nothing to fill pages, nothing to write.

Keeping today simple. I thought I was keeping it short, but the wires got crossed.

Please note: if you read in email and find it is truncated, you can click through to view the entire piece. An extra image was the tipping point. You can also read in the Substack app (which is my preferred way to read).

Below:

• October

• A Bag of Patches

• Stickers

• Illustrate Your Week 41

Feel empowered to jump down to the real stuff and skip the October meandering.

October

October has had me thinking about tracking. I’ve been in an off-tracking phase, my Notion dashboard mostly unused in recent months. Something about October has made me want to brush things off, line things back up, get back on track. Using my Notion setup daily tends to be a really good and anchoring routine. (It’s similar to how you might use a planner or bullet journal.) I think it’s time to re-evaluate what I’m tracking and try some new things.

🧶 I picked up an arm warmer I started knitting last winter. I didn’t love how the first one turned out, but the second one was, thankfully, already on the needles. That made it easy to pick up and just start knitting. It’s a mindless knit. Even though I don’t love how this pattern or, sadly, yarn worked up, I want to finish because I want to start a pair (different pattern) for holiday knitting. I don’t knit much anymore. I don’t enjoy it the way I used to. I wish I did. Working on this fingerless mitt has been “okay.” I don’t knit for hours the way I once did, but I knit a few rows while watching TV this week. I have this on a super short (maybe 6-inch) circular, which I don't find all that comfortable. I could switch to two circulars, but that feels like too much energy. I think I’m happy to be knitting even if it still doesn’t feel calming.

While knitting, I think about all the other things I have started that I’ve never finished. A really big striped shruglike thing is something I do want to finish. I made it all the way to the second sleeve when my mom and I both worked on the same project two winters ago. Once she left, my project got sidelined and, ultimately, moved out of sight. It’s buried somewhere. I should go dig it out next, before I cast on anything new. Feels like a lot of effort.

🧵 I miss the stitch journal embroidery project. I miss it like a dull ache, always there. I miss it in ways people can't understand because if you miss something so much, why not just do it? So many times I’ve thought, I’ll just get it out, and start from here. I’ll just pick it up and add a few stitches a day for the rest of the year. It will still tell a story. It's my story. It doesn't matter if it's a pretty story. It doesn't matter if it has devolved into just stitches. Those stitches on the cloth would somehow be a tether, proof I was here. I get really close to the idea of getting it back out, and then I never do. It feels like too much energy.

📔 Back in February when I was doing morning writing and using my quilted composition book cover, I fully planned to set my machine up again and make a new one. After a year or so off of quilting, I wanted to sew. I miss the stitch journal project, but the lack of quilting left a huge hole. After years of collaborative quilting and multiple years of "year" projects to mark the passage of years, the machine sits in the floor, gathering dust. I stopped piecing mostly because I think the machine needs repair. I know something is out of line, something that made sewing almost impossible. I keep hoping that maybe it’s not as bad as I remember. But months have passed, and though the heart is willing, it feels like too much energy. It feels like an eternity ago that I used to piece and sew for hours everyday. How did I manage that?

I thought, a few months ago, that now is finally the time to start on a pair of quilts I’ve been saving kid clothes for years to make. I was “this” close to getting things out and diving in. I could at least cut, pin things to a design wall. I don't know that those quilts will ever happen. I don't know if I raised kids who will want them. But I would like to be sewing. I would like to make and sell quilted composition book covers. (I used to sell pillows and pen cases when I was trying to support the podcast. Oh, so long ago.)

Sensing a lack of energy theme? Me, too. It’s worrisome. It's stultifying. 

Even so, October has me looking around, thinking about these things that I would like to do. There is no shortage of ideas and projects. I could finish the Victorian jewelry Christmas tree. Work on the “jellyroll” knitted pillow I started or the granny square cardigan I was toying with. Make some more crochet bobble ornaments. Start a few holiday knits. A pair of shorty socks. (Every year, I start off in January optimistically listing that I want to knit x number of socks and x mitts.) I wish my son would wear a hand-knit hat the way he did when he was little.

There are too many options. Any one of them would be good. But there are two many of them. Most of them make me feel guilty. Most of them make me feel tired. All of them, together, make me feel overwhelmed. Rather than jumping to my feet to get things started, to organize the unfinished, to line all these projects up in little “to do” bags (sort of like prepping meals in Tupperware for the week), I do nothing. Or maybe I scroll.

I get stuck in a loop trying to figure out how I keep getting farther and farther away from things, but I still find there is something hopeful in the air.

✒ October drawing is going fine. My fourth Inktoportraits series is underway, simple black and white portraits on a page. I know I’m walking a line between creepy and something more poignant. I know others might only see the creepy.¹ I halfway worry I’ll cross that line and suddenly look at these pieces and see not the sad and quiet humanity but something ugly. 

First six days of Inktoportraits 2023. A. Cowen

I'm on track, but everything feels a bit hollow. I think I am finding it harder and harder though to be at Instagram. It worries me. I find it discouraging. I try to rationalize that it’s the algorithm, but things are really different. I feel like I'm wandering in some in-between world. The more I try to connect, the farther away I seem. It’s a catch-22 though. I can’t just leave. In some ways, it feels like it is the only lifeline. This, of course, is the cautionary tale. We’ve been warned. It isn’t real.

How do we even evaluate a lifeline when we are sinking?

🎯 One of the projects I thought about this week is a bright green tote bag and a pile of patches. My plan, years ago, was to sew the patches on and cover the bag. I’ve always wanted a jacket covered in patches. (I guess I always wanted to be a person who wore such a jacket.) I couldn’t figure out a jacket that made sense, so I decided a patch-covered tote would be a functional approach, something I could use often. Not surprisingly, it turned out much harder to sew through the thickness of the patch and the bag than I expected. I think that’s why I didn’t get far, but it may be that I just didn’t stick with it.

A drawing from Inktoportraits, 2021. A Cowen

🦋 When I make a list like this, I start to feel bad that I seem so flighty. It’s not a word I think would ever have been applied to me, not a label I would have used. I never used to have such trouble focusing. I used to “do” so many things and finish so many things. I worked on countless quilting projects and knitting projects in and around drawing and podcasting and raising kids and working full time. What is wrong with me now that I sometimes feel I can barely make it through the workday and then feel just too tired for much else? (No medical advice needed.) It especially bothers me that I can’t even make myself focus on reading. I wish I could get lost in a long series so that I could just read away some of this emptiness. But I can’t focus enough to sink into anything.

🪁 After I first wrote about kites in trees, I saw a kite at the small field where I often walk when I go to the pharmacy. At the time, it was bright and pink and shiny. Seeing it stuck high in the tree was such an odd moment of connection with the writing. It was a moment of synchronicity, but sad, the weaving of words, the feeling of being so stuck in time and place, the metaphor lodged right in front of me. Somehow, I thought the kite would blow free. But week after week, the kite remained, stuck in the tree. For a while, it was still pink and sparkly, its tails wound around the branches. Even at a distance, there was a lingering flash of pink. I noticed this week that the kite is a skeleton of a kite now, tattered and ratty. No one would know it had ever been pink or shiny or sparkly. 

🌎 When I talk about the world shrinking, it’s a very real sensation. The silence that goes along with this is deafening. I used to leave each day for a walk at least. For a while, I blamed not doing that on several factors that changed. Everything has changed, really, everything that gave shape to the days, I guess. But it’s been a long time now. I should be going out each day and walking, and yet I just can’t seem to get up and do it…. Mostly, I can’t seem to make myself leave the house.

Some weeks fill us and some leave us slithering along the floor.

I’m thinking. October has me thinking.

👗 I had really planned on starting an informal short stint in my “dress” (the 100-day one) again. I want back something I had and felt when I did my 100 days. A lot has changed since I did that challenge two years ago, including a lot of weight. I know November is the right month for me, but I was hoping October might work. The weather forecast for the first week though was full of heat (which came to pass). The dress idea just didn’t make sense. I’m glad I decided to wait. One morning this week, the light coming through the kitchen when I got up was so bright and pink I honestly thought the world might be on fire. It has been a sweltering week.

🎸 The guitar sits out. And every day, even if it’s close to midnight, I pick it up and practice. I’m not sure I’m really getting anywhere. But I am grateful for this. Just looking at it makes me smile.

I hope you have a project or two in process that you enjoy, even if you have a list of other things you always wish you were doing. We always pick and choose.

Amy

Quotes for the Week

“I make so many beginnings there never will be an end." — Louisa May Alcott

“I used to think the worst thing in life was to end up all alone. It’s not. The worst thing in life is to end up with people that make you feel all alone.” —Robin Williams

“When you arise in the morning, think of what precious privilege it is to be alive – to breathe, to think, to enjoy, to love.” – Marcus Aurelius

“Beware lest you lose the substance by grasping at the shadow.” – Aesop

A Guide to Reading

🗺 Things today took a forked path. I've tried over and over to iron it out and keep walking in circles and starting over and further muddling things. The heat is melting my brain, and I know there are things with glue and adhesive all over the house that are also breaking down. I find them here and there, tacky, sticky. There is irony in even talking about stickers and patches in this heat.

I thought about the “patch” bag and got it out. Then I started writing about stickers. Each then had its own thread, its own sticky tale. But they are also connected, interwoven. They are related partly in the all or nothing aesthetic, partly in the topic of authenticity. I can’t seem to unravel them now. This post wants to be all about the stickers, but I don’t want to toss the patches. I tried to make myself hold the stickers until next week, but it feels like removing a card from the house of cards. Nothing is "important" this week. I'm just pulling you along with me. So, stickers and patches. You can choose your own adventure, read the patches preamble or jump down to the unexpected sticker bomb.

There are, rightly, three separate newsletters here. I feel exhausted by this because it seems I always set out to send something delightfully short. I know I should break these out into pieces and pages. I know most will not read this far.

A Bag of Patches

When I asked for the cheap tote and inexpensive pack of patches a few years ago, I picked a grab bag assortment. I overthought my choices. I put a few different ones on my wish list and left it to chance. What I knew was that I didn’t want to sew just a patch or two. I wanted to “cover” a bag, all or nothing. These patches are not from my life. I can't claim any of the adventures the patches suggest. I didn’t gather them along the way, each holding stories I can stitch in place. Each one will take a bit of time (thirty minutes, an hour) to sew on. There is a deliberate slowing down and mindfulness in this process. The randomness of the patches doesn’t bother me in this case. I’m after an overall look, not an authentic one.

After this bag came to mind, I found it in the cabinet (amazingly) and took it with me when I headed to the library. I sat in the car and finished sewing on the “Wanderlust” patch that was already started. (Thread and scissors were in the baggie. I was grateful for the simplicity, the easy invitation to pick it up without having to find anything.) The patch I finished sewing in place was the second patch. (I obviously didn’t get far after wanting so badly to do this a few years ago. The sewing was just so much harder than I'd anticipated.) I finished sewing patch number two on and then started on the third, a jar with a purple mountain scene inside. 

Just as I remembered, it is painfully hard, almost impossible, to get the needle through the patch. (It’s the adhesive, and no, I don’t want to iron them. I want to sew them. Ironing them would ruin this project for me. It would have no meaning.) I sat listening to a book, bruising my fingertips as I made each stitch, and yet feeling good about it. Just a few patches though won’t do it. That would be ugly. I want to cover the bag. That has always been the plan.

I have a small pile of patches somewhere my mom brought me on a recent visit. (I’m not sure where I stashed them, but I know I ran across them recently.) Some are from Brownies (I wasn’t ever really Girl Scout material), and some were gathered through the years when we would visit a nearby state, go to an amusement park or, one time, the World's Fair. It’s a cool collection. We didn’t go very many places, but it’s nice to have that small pile, evidence of a history I don't remember. I wish now that I had patches mapping my whole life.

I thought of those patches while sitting in the car and thought I could maybe add them to this tote. But I worry that will be a waste of them, the death of them. The tote will end up tossed at some point, the significance unrealized. (Is anything really significant?) Maybe this tote is the right canvas for them, the right way to sew them into place. I figure if I get tired of the tote or find it too heavy once covered, I can always disassemble it and use the panels for a pillow, or just mount and frame them.

To Cover or Not to Cover

Stickers. It’s a sticky topic.

As an adult, do you sticker? (Yes, I made that a verb on purpose.)

For a few days, I’ve had stickers on the brain, and now I think I’m fully stuck on stickers.

1️⃣ I was watching a random video recently, and I noticed the person had his iPad covered in stickers.

2️⃣ Then I saw a reel on Instagram from a ukulele person. I was surprised to see that her ukulele has a smattering of stickers. There is even a really big YouTube one right under the strings down near the join.

3️⃣ When my son got serious about playing pool in college, he asked for a case for his cue for Christmas. I spent forever trying to choose the perfect case from all the similar options at Amazon, something affordable but nice enough. It was black. It was sleek and smooth and cool to the touch. The first time I saw it with a few haphazard stickers, I was shocked.

• Then the water bottle had stickers.

• Then the presentation tube.

• Then his computer.

• Then the laptop.

I don’t know what order any of these things happened in, what the sequence of covering was. Once our children go away, we lose the sense of chickens and eggs, the originating domino. Later, we see an assemblage, all at once or in bits and pieces that we fit together like a jigsaw. We notice things, gather clues, and try to find the story.

The computer has a lot of stickers.

Surprised by stickers from one I think of as fairly minimalist, I chalked it up to the influence of a friend. But still….the stickers left me scratching my head. What? This seemed so simple but so unexpected. It isn’t as if he suddenly shaved his head or traded in his flannel for leather. But stickers?²

Mostly, the things are not “covered” in stickers. If they were, maybe I wouldn’t have such a gut-level reaction. I think the “few stickers” rankles my aesthetics.

I’m more all or nothing.

Dinosaurs and Sticker Books

Neither of my kids were into stickers. There was a point where we did sticker books, just like we spent countless time with maze and puzzle books and I Spy books (of every flavor). Sticker books were a good “activity,” especially for the plane. I remember dinosaurs and trucks and medieval things.

But after that early phase, stickers were out. The kids didn’t like anything sticky, not even Band-Aids. A star or smiley face sticker wasn’t much of an incentive. It seems like the dentist used to offer a sticker at the end, kids given the chance to pick the next sticker from one of several rolls. I can’t remember that ever being overly important. (They liked the switch to a machine that dropped out bouncy balls after depositing a token better.)

As kids, many of us were sticker kids. I don’t remember details (not a surprise), but I know I had my Lisa Frank days. I know it in my core even though I can’t pull out any single thread other than a rainbow unicorn head. Sticker books were a big thing in the 80s, right? (Wikipedia tells me, yes, this timeline tracks; Lisa Frank was popular in the late 80s.)

As adults, I think of stickers mostly in the planning community³. I think of those as small stickers, a bit different than how you might add stickers to your lunchbox or a skateboard. I have run across journalers who surround their journaling with stickers, in much the way I might add illustrations or doodles. I’ve never quite understood, but then I’m not a sticker person.

When I get an “I voted” sticker, sometimes I stick it in my journal. I don’t know what I did with the initial “Vaccinated” sticker during the pandemic.

When I look at a solid surface, like a smooth laptop top or a new journal cover, I don’t immediately reach for the stickers. In my overly cluttered life and space, I appreciate those clean, solid, plain, pristine surfaces.

Just “a” sticker or two wouldn’t work for me.

I’m all or nothing.

Mid-week: I think I would like to put a sticker on a journal. But I have the sense it will bother me.

Late-week: One sticker slapped on a journal might bother me. But after writing my first draft, I watched a number of videos. 

I watched a few college campus videos where students talk about the significance of the few stickers they sport on their laptops. These stickers seem to be almost like a calling card. One student said that the stickers tell people who you are.

And then I discovered the phrase that made everything make sense: sticker bombing. Sticker bombing covers the whole space and makes great use of large value packs of random stickers because you cover everything, you layer and overlap.

I watched a sticker bomb video of someone covering a laptop and then a desk, and I’m in.⁴

A Shiny First Sticker

On the one hand, I can’t imagine having stickers on my laptop or my iPad or, no way, my guitar. I can’t imagine having a sticker or two on a sketchbook or journal. I really expect things will peel, will end up sticky, or will just be a mess. I think a surface covered in stickers is going to feel odd to the tough. On the other hand, in this minute, this October, right now…. I’m thinking that all I want to do is cover my current life book or sketchbook, either one, with stickers. I have a stash of small blank books. I could cover them all. I can definitely see covering a composition book.

I know that in the cup holder in the car, there is a sticker from a yarn shop that they gave us, as if it was a prize, when we bought yarn last December. It’s gold. It’s shiny. (I don’t know why I never even brought it in from the car other than that I’m not a sticker person.)

That could be my first sticker.

But, in this small world I inhabit, I can’t see where I would ever run across others that have “this is my life” souveniresque significance.

Stickers aren’t going to tell a story.

I have a sticker from the hospital visit two weeks ago. It’s a fancy one. It has my photo on it from my license. I was standing in the doorway talking the other day and was asked, “What’s that on your knee?” Looking down, I found the visitor sticker attached to my pants. I have no idea where I picked it up. (I’m kidding, of course. I wouldn’t seriously put it anywhere other than in my journal or in the trash.)

I have a small stack of portrait stickers I ordered when I tried to sell postcards of my portraits. I guess I could mix some of those in.

No souvenirs… If I wanted to cover something, I would need to buy a pack of random stickers. Would this feel like pretending, like crafting a life rather than living one?

A Sticker Bomb Shift

When I started this, I didn’t think I would ever consider stickers because of the “all or nothing” feeling. I wasn't into the idea of stickers anyway, but I was thinking that stickers needed to be authentic, visible signs of life lived. Switching to the idea of sticker bombing, I’m seeing stickers more as a medium.

If I add a sticker to something, it will be a sticker bomb. I'm not after twenty-something “college” authenticity. I am thinking maybe something else is at hand here, a divergence, a creative spin, an unexpected way of filling space and creating an “overall” piece. (This is how I quilt, too.)

Inner voice: this is just another rabbit hole, another invitation for clutter, an artform made of clutter, the jumble and tumble of stickers on a surface. The last thing I need to do is order a thousand stickers. Days later.... throw me a life raft. I've spent hours debating stickers and which ones to buy. Hours. I had no idea I was giving myself new terrain to drown in overthinking and decision fatigue and over something so silly.... something so sticky.... something so potentially tacky.

I can't help it. I am seeing sticker-covered journals dancing in my head.

When I started writing this week, I knew there was a sticker divide, sticker and non-sticker people. I was firmly planted on one side. I appreciate smooth, black journals and sketchbooks. I wear solid shirts.

I don't know what happened.

Maybe the heat is getting to me. But I watched that guy cover a laptop and watched the x-acto knife glide smoothly along the edges.

I persisted in thinking "no way" and didn't let myself go look at stickers.... until I did. I’m sorry to all the small businesses out there making a living selling stickers. For the “coverall” approach (where the point is overall look and quantity, not individual significance), random sticker packs really do make sense.

I didn't count on the fact that there would be millions of sticker packs. You can buy sticker packs on virtually any theme, from retro and anime to music, camping, bubble tea, the moon, space, tarot, and on and on and on. I got particularly hooked, to my own surprise, on “witchy” themed packs, but even then, there were lots of options.

I’m going to do this. My actual journal that I’m using right now? Or a composition book? I’m not sure. I think composition book is my initial thought. I’m not really “using” one right now, but I think it’s a good canvas to try. (I think that’s me still thinking I don’t really want to mess up my nice smooth journal cover.) I might actually do a small pocket notebook.

I'm thinking you're probably going to want to make or buy a sticker-covered journal of your own, right? Stickers and stickers and stickers, oh my.

But not just one.

---

Made It?

Thank you for reading along!

I loved this vivid memory Erin shared last week: 

"I don’t have a Little Debbie memory...when I was little I wasn’t allowed to have anything with sugar in it, especially a store bought treat like a Little Debbie snack! But I remember my grandmother’s next door neighbor, Fran, secretly giving me Oreo cookies over the white fence between their houses. It was a delight!! I can remember that flavor like yesterday...standing there in the summertime air, that neighborhood filled with cozy little houses, the scent of fresh cut grass as lawnmowers whirred in the background along with the sounds of kids on big wheels zooming around the pavement and the tinkling of those little plastic beads kids put on their bike spokes... Culpable Cookie." 

(By the way, both a Christmas-themed children's book and the Yuletide tarot deck that Erin illustrated are now out.)

Want to comment but don’t know exactly what you just read or why? Try one of these:

• Unicorns if you have stickers on things (other than in a planner). Gargoyles if you prefer things unadorned.

• Patches or stickers.

• If you were a “stickers” teen, what one word comes to mind?

• After drawing, what’s your current next favorite go-to hobby? (It might not be a craft, and that’s okay!)

• Describe your light right now.

• Three S words. (That looks, funnily, like swords. Whatever works.)

Ever feel like you need a buddy?

As always, feel free to rearrange, embellish, and add your own flair and whimsy.

Jump in in whatever way feels comfortable. If you enjoy the weekly post or know someone who might enjoy it, please share.

---

Illustrate Your Week — Week 41

The new prompts for Week 41 have been posted.

---

Thank you for reading the Illustrated Life substack. Please consider subscribing (for free) to receive the weekly email. Writers need readers, and I am grateful for every reader! Please comment and share with someone else who might enjoy it.

Paid options are available for those who can and want to support the substack, the podcast, and #illustrateyourweek. I am trying to keep things free because I don’t want to shut people out who genuinely can’t afford a subscription model. But there are realities to this project, the work involved, my life, and how much hope I am pinning on this space. Subscriptions not your thing? One-time donations are also appreciated.

(Links to books or tools referenced in posts are Amazon affiliate links. Always check your library.)

1. I imagine that’s the case given the lack of response. I should have just drawn birds.

2. Apparently a popular coffee shop chain gives out stickers once a month, which makes them collectible. He doesn’t drink coffee, but there are a lot of stickers.

3. I think I’ve probably given away a few thousand small stickers this year as I’ve cleaned out boxes of scrapbooking supplies. So many stickers were in those boxes. Those aren’t really the kinds of motif stickers you would use to cover something. But it has felt ironic this week to spend (too much) contemplating stickers.

4. This, too, may pass. It isn’t lost on me that this year, I’ve been obsessed with watercolor paint, then the idea of markers, then colored pencils and the idea of a pastel-colored set. Let’s go back to the section on feeling flighty.