advice: go take a piss
reasons for staying #5
hi welcome back to reasons for staying, which is my semi-regular autoethnography for gratitude. 💛 I wrote about unexpectedly drawing every day for the last two months, the benefits of creative co-working, what you should really do on international women’s day, and lots of drawings and images from the last month or so. Enjoy! 💞
I’ve drawn a little comic in my sketchbook nearly every day for the last two months after failing to, for 5 years in a row, despite desperately wanting to be consistent with drawing. My secret? My boyfriend begs me to see my daily comic every day so I have an actual reason to draw them: to try to make him laugh. This whole experiment has me thinking that if I want to be prolific with any medium, and prolific easily, I should just find one specific audience desperate for me to share with them: to listen to me play music, to read all my writing, shitty as it is…the Artist’s Way abundance lesson is getting to me. And for good!!!
daily comics from march I did a talk on the process and learnings from drawing daily comics at New Stadium’s New Works in Progress, a speaker series all about what you’re learning from what you’re currently working on — it was so much fun to talk about this and draw comics live with everyone.1 During the Q&A I talked about pissing in the toilet as an accessible solution when you’re in a creative rut. I’ll probably share the talk as a separate post. Thanks so much to Tommy for inviting me to speak 🍀
chatting about drawing comics while drawing comics When we’re on the phone together and my boyfriend is driving home from work he calls me and sings Tonight Tonight by Hot Chelle Rae at 2x the speed and in a high pitched Elmo voice.
J was feeling sick; I revived the chicken soup recipe I made in the summer and it was blissful to cut carrots and celery with my knife that I sharpened, amateurishly (scuffs all over, doesn’t cut paper in one go like it does on YouTube, and I skinned the first layer off two of my fingers).
the beautiful colours of chicken soup I’ve been thinking that I should email people more; long winded emails, short emails, anything but the instant message.
I was finally able to take up
’s offer to come to a CREATIVE COWORKING Sunday and it was VERY enriching, productive, and surprisingly NOT DIFFICULT. I associate creative work in adulthood with gritting my teeth and forcing myself through it. Reading the Artist’s Way and going to community events like this are slowly changing my belief that art is difficult - rather, some of my favourite things I’ve made or written came easily and intuitively. I just turned on the tap and held a cup underneath: instead of spurting, poisonous liquid, a clear stream.
the comic i drew from my last creative coworking session! i feel like i am able to make more decisions about colour now than before. which is a good feeling! The War on Drugs is one of my favourite bands. Everything they make sounds good, like pushing through a clear tide and being able to see every grain of sand, the occasional star. It’s not music to get hyped up to (unless you are maybe a father), but I feel very connected to the network of energy around us when I listen to them. As woo-woo as that sounds.
I benefit greatly from structure when it comes to learning. I’ve been thinking about how to read poetry more immersively — spending more time with the same writer and their entire body of work so that I can see how their thinking and style have developed over time, like listening to someone’s full discography. It would be cool to spend a month reading all of
’s poems, but that’s because I love Ross Gay.
steamed rice dish that i had to make twice because of rice safety rules / lunch box bowl i made for our friend / coworking at new stadium! / my boyfriend's grade school colouring assignment. he did not gaf / breakfast of champions / dog i see every time im at the gym / frog incense? i want to learn how to make things like this / new friends drawing comics after i did my talk about comics (sob) / creative coworking AGAIN !!!!!!! my friend
transferred me $50 on international women’s day. Direct action doesn’t get any better than this.I bought Country Harvest Everything bagels from the grocery store (first time buying bagels in my life deliberately to be honest) and they were unbelievably delicious toasted with some cream cheese and coppa from the market. I ate a whole sheet of coppa for lunch with the bagel.
every time I’m doing something odd or strange at home my boyfriend asks if this is another part of my Artist’s Way homework.
I had to replace my work laptop recently and this resulted in me losing a bunch of apps that helped me make slides since they are no longer on the list of approved applications at work, so now I have to do everything manually as if in the Stone Ages. Unfortunately this sent me on a rage bender at work so when a manager I was helping out on the side messaged me “Hi Jessica” without providing context of his ask I crashed out.
i’ll admit this was not the politest way to respond I learned about this phenomenon called misdirected aggression, which can manifest in housecats in unbelievable ways; my friend’s cat Smudge, upon seeing or hearing any scrap of sound from a stray cat outside, will track down any living thing in their house (i.e., her or her mom) and sink his teeth into their leg while screeching. She showed me a puncture scar on her leg the size of a quarter. I was screaming listening to this story.
Magdalena Bay Imaginal Disk album. Maybe one of my favourite albums of the year so far!
Went to see A Minecraft Movie. Was not good at all. We left my boyfriend’s brother alone for 2 minutes and when we found him he was inexplicably winning huge bouncy balls from a claw machine at the theatre and saying he was going to do exercise on them (they were not exercise balls)
I’ve been inundated with messaging (from the world, probably because of starting the Artist’s Way) to just share my work as it is. To work with the window open, basically, because it invites community, collaboration, and possibility into your creative life. In other words I am thinking of getting back onto social media to share some work. And that includes being more consistent with this blog!
thanks for reading as always :) see u next time
Someone also said, verbally, “type shit type shit” next to me in the middle of someone else’s presentation so I learned that people actually say that in real life. Stop it. Get help.
WOOOHOOOO MORE FART COMICS
type shit type shit