Simply Sunday - Comfort zones, a rainbow colored biography, and an orchid drops its petals

Experimenting with your creative practice, a graphic novel about Anais Nin, a children's book about Stein and Toklas, "Chicken Boy," and more

It was a hot week. It's relative, I know. It wasn't hot compared to most places, but without air, when it reaches almost 90 in the house, it's stifling. The air thickens. It takes effort to move through the room. Your fingers and hands ooze water as you hold a computer mouse or type on a keyboard. When you sit down with your sketchbook, you know that resting your hand on the page to draw is a risk.

Even for a day or so, it's pretty unbearable. I know I'm a whiner, but I basically shut down in the heat.

After the second day, I was looking out the kitchen window while making coffee, pondering the sun that was lurking behind the gray. I suddenly focused on the cactus on the window sill and realized I should give it some water. Because it's right above the coffee maker, it's done a fairly good job of getting my attention this year. In that moment though, I thought about the orchid, a very unexpected gift in May.

The orchid is not on the window sill. It doesn't need much water, but...

I went in to grab the pot. It still has the gauzy blue bow that was on it when it was brought home. This week the bow looks a bit sad, a bow on a stick. The white petals were all over the top of the TV cabinet. Two blooms remain. The others had given in to the heat and simply dropped. They didn't shrivel and die in place. They simply fell. When I picked them up from the cabinet, they were cool to the touch and moist.

I'm disappointed that I didn't think about the orchid on day one. My track record isn't good, and I was hopeful this time.

Today, a bit of a mix.... comfort zones, a rainbow colored graphic novel, a children's book about Stein and Toklas, a brief mention of "Chicken Boy" on Route 66, and other random tie-ins.

A few quotes from Anaïs Nin that might be of interest this week:

"We don't see things as they are, we see them as we are."―Anaïs Nin

"We write to taste life twice, in the moment and in retrospect."―Anaïs Nin

"Life shrinks or expands in proportion to one's courage."―Anaïs Nin

"The earth is heavy and opaque without dreams."―Anaïs Nin

Thank you for reading.

Amy

(PS - There’s a new episode of the Creativity Matters Podcast out this week. It’s based on a recent post here on the substack, but if you’re a listener, Episode 488: Glimmers is available.)

Illustrated journal page, 2023. A Cowen

Comfort Zone

Out of your comfort zone versus sticking with what you know…

Are you the tried-and-true type? Or are you an adventurer? When you go to the ice cream store, do you get the flavor you know you will enjoy? Or do you risk it and try something crazy, knowing there is a chance that pistachio snickerdoodle peanut butter cookie dough with honey and cornflakes, or whatever the flavor of the day is, might be your new favorite?

Do you appreciate the twenty-page menu? Or do you like the food truck that has five things, one of which is your go-to?

As I write this, I see that I’m outlining a basic overthinker’s dilemma. Beyond just having trouble making decisions, the choice between the known and the unknown, the safe-but-sure thing and the “maybe” plays into a specific mindset. A lot boils down to how badly you will feel if you don’t like the experiment, the adventure, the random choice. If that funky snickerdoodle ice cream tastes terrible, will you be sad that you didn’t get your favorite flavor? Will you feel like it was wasted money or wasted calories or a lost opportunity? Or will you be happy you took a chance?

(Overthinking and decision fatigue are a bit different when faced with several choices that are equally weighted—you like them all.)

We can talk about these kinds of choices in all aspects of our daily lives. From what we wear to what we eat, what we order, what we do, and how we fill our hours. How we approach these things says a lot about who we are, our personality, our approach to life.

When you open your journal or sketchbook to a new page, do you move ahead knowing that things will unfold roughly the same as the week and weeks before? Or do you think, maybe I’ll shake things up? Even simple journal pages involve decisions. There are often multiple minor decisions you make, from choosing colors and tools to deciding what to draw or write first. Maybe you think about the overall color balance or the range of inks you want to use. Maybe you think you’ll use watercolor or markers or put everything in squares. Maybe you decide to do a series of contours in the background or use a different pen for the week.

Within the contours of your sense of self and voice in your journal art, you make small decisions week to week and day to day. But how experimental are you? What’s your comfort level with change in your art?

Out of your comfort zone versus sticking with what you know…

This is tricky. Many of us carefully build creative practices that play to our strengths. We develop skill with something, maybe portraits or pets or landscapes, and we continue doing exactly that. By continuing to do what we know and enjoy, we slowly refine and build skill, and we don’t wander too far out on a limb.

There can be something really comfortable and safe in this approach. We know what to expect. We know how things will go. We can see and appreciate growth, even when it's mostly seen over time. We know how others will respond.

There can also be something confining in this approach. Maybe you wonder about other things. Maybe you are feeling bored with what you are doing. Maybe you would like to make changes and simply don't know how. Maybe you worry about not doing your regular thing. I think sometimes, any of these may be true, and we don't fully realize this is happening beneath the surface. We might not realize, directly, that we have boxed ourselves in.

I go back and forth. Mostly I fall on the side of appreciating the comfortable. Having simplified my practices and streamlined everything into one catch-all project, I find comfort in knowing what I’m working on each day, in feeling like everything is contained and part of something larger. Simplification has helped me find and maintain balance.

I am the tried-and-true sort. I am a loyalist. I get more than bummed when the adventurous pick at a restaurant turns out to be a flop. I tend to order something I know. We don't eat out now, but historically, if there was a tuna melt and fries on the menu, that was probably my pick. I'm also fond of a club. I am okay with the same thing every single day. I've learned and embraced that this mindset is important to me.

I could be happy, I think, with a sketchbook, a single fountain pen, and a single bottle of ink for a long time. More than one ink, similar but just a little different, would make me happier, but I can get by with one. This is especially true if I don't window shop, if I just focus on what I’m doing and tune out all the noise. (Noise can be beautiful, but it can also be confusing and can make us feel scattered, as if there is always something else to chase.)

Even though I feel very set in my routine, so much so that I know it seems boring from the outside looking in, I continue to experiment. It almost surprises me to realize this is true. I don’t think of myself as experimental, but in small ways, there are always experiments happening. Like a scientist, I don’t change all the variables at once. I tend to have controls in place. I tend to change only one thing and see what happens.

An artist I admired years ago had a very distinctive and much-imitated style of art. It made the artist a success. For years, the artist produced a certain kind of art and then, suddenly, the art changed. From the outside, it seemed that suddenly the artist just stopped making the art they were known for and started over with a new line, a new style. I’ve always wondered about that switch. It was almost uncomfortable to watch. I wondered what had prompted the change. I felt like it had to be hard to make such a roundabout. (It wasn’t just a minor pivot.) But I wondered, too, if it was freeing.

Be Flexible

Even though there are benefits to crafting a creative habit and practicing art in styles and mediums you most enjoy, don’t be afraid to build in room to explore and experiment. If you feel you don’t have time or don’t want to risk being disappointed, maybe there is a middle ground. Maybe you mark one spot on your page each week for an “experiment.” Or maybe you do something on a separate page each week that is an experiment and tape it into your journal. It might be that you just want to scratch an itch you’ve had about trying certain kinds of mindful drawing, or maybe you’ve been wanting to try pet portraits, or people portraits, or teeth, or maybe you have a comic book artist inside of you, or maybe you want to experiment with watercolor. Maybe you have always felt out of water with perspective or with urban sketching or with drawing trees. Maybe all of those things feel out of bounds in your sketchbook because you stick with things that are comfortable and that you already know you do well.

There's nothing wrong with staying inside the borders you've drawn and doing what makes you feel most content and most satisfied. This, to me, is one of the best things about a “journal” project. It is whatever I want it to be. But its flexibility is also magical. Your journal offers room for growth, for curiosity, for “what if,” for whatever you want to try.

If you are finding yourself curious or wishing, then it might be worth building in a space to explore. Some people just switch on and off and back and forth, effortlessly. But some of us don't.

Remember that your sketchbook is your own. You can run experiments. You can try things. You can show or not show. If you share, I hope you have a supportive friend or two with an encouraging word. (It's really discouraging to share experiments and receive zero feedback.)

I’ve been public about my streamlined approach in keeping an illustrated journal. It’s my “ride or die” project, but it is such a kitchen sink and flexible concept that it doesn't feel nearly as constrictive as it might sound.

I can look back and see some of the clear experiments I’ve done. Some of them have stuck. This year, I feel like I’ve been experimenting in a more chaotic fashion. When I flip back through the pages of the last two sketchbooks, I see the bouncing. I really see it. I see in it something restless, something reaching and searching and wondering. I see the wander.

I hadn’t stopped to think about it before, but it’s there. That restlessness…. It is playing out within the overall rubric of my daily art, and so it all gets folded into the pages of my illustrated journal. There are always throughlines, things that connect the work day to day, especially portraits. But there is a restlessness.

Art is mirroring life, as it should be.

Library Finds

I pick up graphic novels randomly off the shelves and put books on hold all the time, leapfrogging through recommendations and reviews and reserving anything I see mentioned. I often stumble onto something wonderful without knowing anything about the artist or the book.

This week, I got to the library one night and found a graphic novel about Anaïs Nin in my holds stack — Anaïs Nin: A Sea of Lies by Léonie Bischoff (translated by Jenna Allen). I was immediately enchanted by the cover. This beautiful graphic novel by Bischoff appears to be done (at least in part) in rainbow colored pencil. The effect is absolutely stunning. (This could easily be digitally done, but the “effect” is as if it was drawn with a shifting-color pencil, a magic or rainbow pencil.) The book has a beautiful sense of lightness to it, predominantly soft rainbow on white. There is something fluid and evocative to the line and the use of color that is perfectly matched for the story. It’s gorgeous!

(I thought a lot about the line of this book and about a number of ways this could be done digitally. I’m beyond enamored for the moment with what could be the equivalent of a scratch art approach to line drawing.)

(Related: Initial rainbow colored pencil discussion from an earlier substack)

Cover and pages from Anaïs Nin: A Sea of Lies graphic novel.

This graphic novel won't be for everyone (and is not for kids). If you know anything about Nin, then you know that this biographical graphic novel will have mature and possibly disturbing (or trigger) content. The graphic novel is long. It chronicles Nin’s relationships with Hugo, Henry Miller, a series of therapists, her father, and Miller’s wife, June. All of these relationships play out against the constant of her writing and of her diaries, both the real one and the “imagined” one (as she portrays it to her husband).

This graphic novel really struck me. I found it riveting, and the beautiful illustration is inseparable from the story.

(In thinking about Anaïs Nin: A Sea of Lies, I was reminded of reading a graphic novel last year about Yayoi Kusama, Kusama: The Graphic Novel by Elisa Macellari. I think back, too, on other wonderful graphic novels I’ve read about artists like O'Keeffe and Monet. Whether scaled for young audiences or written for adults, this is a format and sub-genre I so appreciate.)

Podcast connections: I mentioned Kusama: The Graphic Novel in Episode 464 in 2022, a show called “Waiting.”  I talked about Monet: Itinerant of Light by Salva Rubio (author) and EFA (illustrator), in Episode 453 in 2021.

My hold came in, and I have started reading The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas (after last week’s substack). I started running into quotable lines on page one. Coupled with Kalman's illustrations, this book is enticing.

In pulling books as I traveled my Stein rabbit hole, I pulled Happy Birthday, Alice Babette by Monica Kulling and Qin Leng. Such an unexpected children’s book!

This is the story of Alice B. Toklas on a birthday and Gertrude Stein (her “friend”) attempting to both make her a special meal and write her a poem. The reader is told early on that Gertrude doesn’t cook. She doesn’t even know how to turn on the stove.

“Gertrude and kitchens didn’t mix. She didn’t even know how to work the stove! But she had great confidence. She was going to make Alice a special dinner and write her a birthday poem, and that was that.”

 Watching the haphazard meal preparations is funny, and no one is surprised when Gertrude gets sidetracked wordsmithing her poem and dinner burns.

“Gertrude was putting the cake in the oven when the perfect line popped into her head. She raced to her study to write it down before it disappeared forever.”

Despite the problems in the kitchen, lots of friends come, a la the salon, and the birthday surprise ends okay. Alice makes brownies. (Unfortunately, she also cleans up the mess.)

The illustrations are light and charming. As an adult reader, a few things particularly jumped out at me. A line or two rankled, but it was a wonderful find.

“Gertrude was a writer. She wrote mostly at night. During the day, she talked about writing or sat around thinking about it.”

Looking at Happy Birthday, Alice Babette at the library.

About those brownies..... I had a funny moment in checking on those. Toklas was famous for her brownies, although some sources refer to them as more of a fudge. It was pretty funny. I walked away from the children's book with an anecdotal reference to the brownies and the Alice B. Toklas Cookbook, which I already knew about. Turns out, I'd stumbled on something tongue-in-cheek that made for a laugh when I realized. So, anyway, these aren't your everyday brownies! If reading with kids, just have a box mix on hand for a fun tie-in.

I also read Rewild this week, by Devin Grayson (and Yana Adamovic), and finished Middlewest, by Skottie Young and Jorge Corona.

Rewild is a magical, but somewhat dark, story about the fairy (fae) world rising to reclaim the natural world that humans have so carelessly tended. Rooted in climate change and rising from the fire seasons that have ravaged California in recent years, Rewild is powerful, and Grayson’s narrative is beautiful.

The human-raised-by-fairies character of Poe, who comes to warn the humans, is intriguing with her Shakespearian talk and ability to regrow a tree from a stump. The story has an environmental bent, strong family dynamics, and an interesting blend of real and fabled characters.

“Where I live in Northern California, the link between humanity and the environment—perhaps better described as an interdependency—is increasingly inescapable. At its deepest level, that’s really what the story of Rewild is about: the complete lack of separation between our lives and the places in which we live them.” — An interview with Devin Grayson (this is an excellent interview)

Middlewest offers a gritty look at anger, family dynamics, the search for love and acceptance, and the importance of families you choose. This one is more typically “comic book” style, but I was engaged and interested in seeing it through. (I read Middlewest in three collected volumes from the library. I like checking out individual volumes like this (1, 2, 3), but there is apparently a complete edition.)

Roadside Attraction

I was going to mention “Chicken Boy” because it falls within this week’s illustrated journal prompts (Week 35), but I’m out of room. I will say that I didn’t know anything about Chicken Boy before I flipped through The American Dream?: A Journey on Route 66 Discovering Dinosaur Statues, Muffler Men, and the Perfect Breakfast Burrito by Shing Yin Khor a few weeks ago. It’s the story of the author’s solo journey (with her dog) along Route 66, an Americana trek that passes through Illinois, Missouri, Kansas, Oklahoma, Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, and California. She does the journey in reverse, and Chicken Boy is pictured in the beginning and later explained as being a version of the Muffler Man. I had no idea about this whole historic stretch of roadside attractions.

I’m taking a little drive at the end of next week…. I’m wondering what I’ll see. Mostly, I’m just hoping I am right and there is a Sonic that is within a stone’s throw of the drive, so that I can make getting a Rt 44 part of the day.

"I am lonely, yet not everybody will do. I don't know why, some people fill the gaps and others emphasize my loneliness. In reality those who satisfy me are those who simply allow me to live with my 'idea of them.'"― Anais Nin

Made It?

If you made it all the way, thank you! It means a lot that some of you stick with it all the way to the end. If you just immediately jump to the bottom, that’s okay. I applaud your style. Just don’t tell me. At work, I am constantly told that everything is too long. I’m convinced no one reads anything. It isn’t lost on me that I just wrote hundreds of words about reading graphic novels, which I love so much because of whatever “space” and “lightness” the combination of illustration and text offers….. a comfortable and fast read.

I do know that many people don’t read. So, thank you.

What’s your ice cream go-to? (Ice cream is a rare thing for me, but I still have a go-to.) On the comfort zone to adventurer spectrum, where do you fall? (1-10, with 1 being at the extreme end of stick with what you know and 10 being at the opposite end, always looking for the next new thing. Despite the way the numbers sound, 1 is not being used negatively here, simply as a way to denote one end of a continuum.)

If ice cream is a no-go for you, I definitely don’t want you to feel left out. I’m more salt than sugar anyway. Favorite salty snack?

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Illustrate Your Week — Week 35

The new prompts for Week 35 have been posted.

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