What do Artists do All Day?

I imagine there are many who have this question, because I used to wonder about it myself (for those curious about such things, I recommend Mason Currey’s Daily Rituals books). On occasion, I’ve been asked this question directly and I never know quite how to answer it because I just do what I do… I don’t really think about it, I just do it. So I thought I’d take some time and put these doings down into words. Maybe next time I’ll be better prepared when someone asks me what I’m up to!

On a typical weekday, I wake at 7:15 am, tend to the pups and my morning routine, then head to my studio at the end of the hall. I start by putting a few thoughts down into my journal about how I want the day to go and what I want to focus on that day, then I jump in with my first prioritized task.

The day’s work can vary depending on what types of projects I’m working on - currently, I’m prepping for an upcoming Zine fest. While I have most of the zine drafts completed, they need a few final edits before I print and assemble them. I’m also in the early development stages of an additional zine in hopes of getting one more done before the fest. Nothing about zine making is linear, so I’ve been spending my time on both sketching and writing - it’s still early in the drafting process.

That’s how art works: a seed of an idea, chased round with pen to paper, and round and round again. The process is like a spiral - starting on the outside, working your way round and round again with each subsequent draft until arriving in the center with a finished piece. It’s an imperfect spiral with an off-kilter center because there is no perfect process.

I find it helpful to split my days into blocks of time to be able to focus on creative projects, professional growth, business things, and client work. Managing the client and business side of art-making involves things like marketing, networking, website updates, and answering calls and emails. Professional development could mean attending a class or workshop to expand my skills, or setting time aside to brainstorm ways to grow my art practice or my business.

By the end of the workday, the pups are amped up and ready for dinner, Benjamin is in the kitchen prepping our evening meal, and we all take some time to relax together. If it’s been a particularly full day without much opportunity to dive into creativity, I may spend the evening with my sketchbook or journal in hand while we all listen to music and let night fall around us before bedtime.

The answers to this question are as diverse as there are makers in the world, but this is what daily life as an artist looks like for me. Saturdays are spent catching up on household chores and running errands, Sundays are a day for rest and relaxation, and weekdays are for working on this dream of being a working artist. I’m grateful for every day I get to spend at home with my animals working on creative projects.

Reflections on a Beach Day

As I descend down the steep slope towards the little pocket beach, my heart lightens in anticipation. The public beach is tucked into a high-end lakeshore neighborhood and hidden from the road above by vegetation and trees. A friend introduced me to it, that seems to be how one finds it, through a small social network of regulars.

On weekends, the grassy knoll fills up with towels and blankets packed in side by side. But on weekday afternoons, the sunny lawn is dotted with small groups of couples or friends - those fortunate to work alternate schedules or work from home who could take advantage of the sparse weekday crowds.

I arrived at just such a time. As I descended the steep slope, my eyes immediately started scanning for a favored spot: close to the shoreline, but off to the side near the shade of some trees so as to have sun and shade options on my blanket throughout the afternoon. This was my lucky day. Few of the regulars had arrived yet and I was able to tuck myself in right next to the rocky beach, at the edge of the grass, on the left-hand side of the park.

Situating myself along the side had other advantages as well. It helped me feel less conspicuous, giving me a vantage point to tuck myself away and people watch without engaging. Though people there were respectful and friendly, I still preferred to keep to myself or with my friend group this afternoon.

At the moment it was just me. I massaged sunscreen into my warm skin in liberal quantities - I planned on making a whole afternoon of it. I came prepared with reading materials and my journal, though I knew I'd give little, if any, attention to it. Beach days were transcendent days - beyond the usual pleasures I'd find at home. I stretched my body out on the blanket, situated my sunhat over my eyes and savored the warm sun on my skin. A delicate breeze, only slightly cooling, relieved the sun's constant beams and created a perfectly comfortable equilibrium.

With my eyes closed, I savored sun and breeze and listened to the waves lap against the shore. The sound of mingling voices wafted quietly over the sloped square lawn. I always savored the gentle hum of varied indistinguishable conversations with the odd exclamation or bubble of laughter. This day was no different. I was lulled into total relaxation by the soundscape under the warm August sun.

Fully warmed, the water called to me to wade in. I brought my beach ball, stripes of hot pink, electric orange, and cyan blue and rested it under my chest, hunched over it, legs dangling in the water savoring the gentle rocking of the waves. "Do not use as a flotation device" it admonished in stark, black print, but I never strayed farther from shore than I could easily swim, so it remained my faithful relaxation companion.

A few ducks swam by, careful to stay out of the reach of any human. A bald eagle soared overhead against the deep blue, cloudless sky. I turned my gaze back to the water line, looking towards the mountain rising out of the lake far off in the distance. A few clouds gathered around it, but above and around me it was all crystalline, clear blue sky.

The water had a bit of a silvery gray tinge to it, in contrast to the bright blue sky. The water's color was no doubt tempered by the earthy tones of the rocks and sediment beneath. I made my way back to the shore, stepping carefully over the rocks, my feet seeking the stepping stones set by a previous beachgoer as a hidden, barefoot-friendly pathway under the water.

The stone path wasn’t the only feature introduced by socially-minded beach visitors: an herb and flower garden ran the length of the shore where grass and rocky beach converged. Planted and tended by a handful of regulars, large plastic bottles were permanently stashed amongst the bushes along the side of the park to gather lake water to water them.

I passed through the garden and headed back to my blanket to lay in the sun again, hat shading eyes, to lose myself again in the rhythmic waves and the hum of commingling voices drifting over sun-dried grass. This was a ritual I'd repeat many times that day, and in many remaining summer days to come - a most embodied experience, completely at one with nature.

The Sparkling Gaze of a Dog

An author’s note about an ‘untranslatable words’ writing prompt:

Because writers are word-appreciators, I would like to share two words with y'all: saudade (Portuguese) and hiraeth (Welsh) because they are absolutely beautiful and worth knowing.

Saudade speaks to something of the union of nostalgia, longing, melancholy, and grief while also brushing up against the happiness and appreciation for the thing past that is now lost.

Hiraeth is also a word of longing, but specifically tied to place and time. Nostalgia or a deep longing for a place or time that may never have existed, or that may have existed only in one's memories or imagination - a distinct feeling of missing something irretrievably lost - a unique blend of place, time, and people that can never be recreated.

I tried to write about them first because they are the two untranslatable words that have consumed so much of my heart's journey the last four years, but I couldn't do it. The words, though very much felt, still remain untranslatable into English because my feelings and experiences still remain untranslatable from the inner landscape to the written word. So. Having attempted it, and once again finding myself writing in circles, confusing even myself, I redirected my efforts to a less charged writing prompt - a healing one in fact, and chose the word Ubuntu:

“I find my worth in you, and you find your worth in me.”


The Sparkling Gaze of a Dog

There are few gifts greater in this life than the intense and cheerful gaze of a dog at his human's face. Two dark, lively, sparkling orbs staring with focused attention, the mouth agape, pearly fang-toothed smile and flopping pink tongue - to be on the receiving end of such intensity fills one with immense love, gratitude and satisfaction.

A gaze like that is not freely given and is absolutely a mark of distinction. A dog gives such a gaze to those he is bonded with, to those he finds relevant because care and attention and love and respect have been offered from this human to the dog again and again and again. It is a bond rooted in trust.To say that I find my worth in my dogs is no understatement. They are the cadence of my day. Their internal clocks are so precise that they will wake me before, yet still in proximity to, my alarm clock. Their requests are few, but they prefer them to be timely. They know when it's time to eat, or go outside, or any of the other daily routines they've come to rely on in our household.

I find my comfort in them too. Their preference to be in the same room with me as I move about the house, or to curl up next to me as I lie across the bed reading or writing, or to curl up so tightly next to me when I sleep at night that I'm pressed in tight like a mummy under the covers as they seal me in on each side lying atop the blanket.

Thinking of ways to stimulate their young, inquisitive, intelligent minds and their youthful, lithe and lively bodies is another way my worth is found in them. I know they need me to help them navigate the human world they live in. So we practice manners and I encourage moderate reactions to the bicycles and cats they view from the bedroom window. We play chase and tug and fetch and go on outings when we can.

Is it too much of a stretch to imagine that they find their worth in me? Perhaps - for one can't truly know what goes on in their mind. But when I see their focused, happy gaze looking up at me waiting for their breakfast each morning, I wonder. When I see how my shepherd follows me, even if only in gaze, from room to room as he supervises my bedtime routine each night before escorting me to bed, I feel a sense of purpose behind it - like he does find worth in shepherding me, in staying abreast of all household activities and knowing where he perceives he's needed (and when he can relax in his favorite chair - but perhaps only for a while before coming to survey his home again to ensure all is as it should be). When my terrier jumps up into my lap and dramatically throws his little body against my chest, tummy bared, for rubs and pets, I am delighted by him. When he is wildly upset about the aforementioned bicycle or cat, he relies on me to help him re-regulate - on the intervention of physical touch, my hand on his back, or sometimes scooping him up, to reconnect him to the present moment and help him start to soothe.

We are interwoven, our family of humans, dogs and other smaller critters. But an even tighter weave exists amongst us three: me, the shepherd, and the terrier. We rely on each other in ways that exist outside of the rest of the human and animal family unit. Without them, my days would lose rhythm and have less meaning and purpose. Without me, their days would lose rhythm and they would miss their felt sense of purpose (to supervise, protect, alert, and flop over for pets!) - for they don't supervise or protect the other household human like they do me.

It's that distinction that I celebrate: the lived experience of ubuntu between us. It's not always easy between us - they're still growing up, and I don't always get things right, but our shared life feels absolutely right. I'm so grateful to we get to experience life together.

Dissonance

There you stand, smiling faces all around. First hike with your baby boys, all so smiley and satisfied from the adventure. You asked for this portrait, to commemorate the happy occasion of traipsing through woods together, obligingly taken by the one you married on this day eighteen years ago. The first family outing in four and a half long years after your beloved Pepper aged beyond the enjoyment of travel and then passed on, leaving just the two of you again.

Finally, a second opportunity to build a family: two boisterous pups, still new to the world and needing so much guidance, instruction and encouragement. But those grins, those toothy, tongue-lolling grins, and your joyful grin to match. Puppies are so much more work than you remembered - it's been seventeen years since you last raised a pup. But their warmth, their joy, their sparkling eyes focused intently on you, their effervescent personalities... it's everything you missed and savor having again.

You wore your new shirt and shorts to celebrate the occasion of this outing: cheerful rainbow stripes matching the excitement you felt when preparing to head out that morning. You wore rainbow socks to match, your favorite shoes, and a hat to keep your hair at bay.

You asked for this picture to be taken, you joyfully posed, and your pups even unexpectedly cooperated (no small feat for their wiggly bodies and curious minds). Your smile is radiant, one of pure joy. You look relaxed and comfortably at ease.

How mystifying then, that upon returning home and seeing the photo for the first time, you are drawn to the inadequacies you perceive instead: the cottage-cheese texture on your thighs, knobby knees, the veins protruding from your shin from a fifteen year old injury, the haircut that never was quite right sticking out of your hat like the straw on a scarecrow.

A picture-perfect moment of joy, delight, and all the hope and promise of starting a new family with your beloved and celebrating the day of your marriage - clouded over with an internalized sense of inadequacy, of imperfection, and of not being enough.

Saying that the cultural war against women's bodies has no place in a moment of such pleasure and delight is all well and good, but it doesn't undo four decades of acculturation telling you to be better, look better, hide any imperfection with all your might. The instinct to feel shame about your earthly vessel still remains.

So you struck a compromise. A quick caress from your Apple Pencil across pixelated flesh, and the veins disappear. With them eradicated, you realize the thighs really aren't so bad and the knees are okay - they're honest. You don't need to be perfect so much as you don't want a wandering eye to fixate on that which you deem the most undesirable. It's but one compromise, you say, in service of maintaining the joy of the overall image and avoiding some imagined, fixated distraction on one unsavory detail by some imagined viewer. Perhaps -- but it's also a small erasure of yourself and an acquiescence to the narrative that blemishes are synonymous with shame instead of markers of a life fully lived.

A Letter to My Mother's Hands

Your hands are soft, hardworking and determined. When I look at my hands, I see yours - when you look at your own, you see your mother's. Three generations of hands holding generations of memories. When did my hands begin to look like yours? One day I looked down and there they were: long, slender fingers, ivory skin speckled with darkening age spots, prominent tendons and blue vein paths traversing palms, fingers and dorsal planes.

The softness of your hands is one of their most memorable features, and yet it is a mystery to me. By my estimation, at a rate of three meals a day for 43 years, your hands have prepared a total of 47,085 meals). This estimate is low of course, as it doesn't account for all of the baked goods prepared for events, dishes made for large family gatherings, or all of the snacks that sustained your two active little ones.

Homemaking hands are hardworking hands: they feed family and community alike. They tend to the cleaning and maintaining of home and community spaces. Your hands do nothing halfway: cooking from scratch; washing pots, pans, and dishes by hand; and scrubbing, dusting and cleaning. By all calculations they should be toughened with time, yet their softness defies not only their actions, but also believability.

Your hands also cultivate beauty. They dig in the hard dry ground and nurture tender green beauty. They plant pansies each autumn in sweet memory of your mother, they feed and water the birds on even the coldest winter days, sow seeds each spring, and faithfully water every thirsty plant all summer long.

Your hands are instruments of determined curiosity as they experiment with new crochet patterns and techniques. When you lie in bed at night waiting for sleep to come, your hands are still at work in your mind as you sort out challenges in your needlework.

My love for your hands isn't borne out of this birdseye view of all that your hands have done in service to your family and community. My love is borne out of the very personal ways that your hands have held and cared for me - these are the memories I hold dear.

Your hands held me and rocked me. They held the many books that you read to me. They kneaded bread dough, crimped the edges of piecrust, and shaped balls of cookie dough to fill our home with the most wonderful aromas of freshly baked treats.

Your hands prepared peanut butter and graham cracker finger sandwiches served on the tray of the little blue plastic tea-set with cold milk that we poured ourselves from the little plastic tea-pot. They delivered this most favorite snack for us to enjoy at our own little picnic table in the backyard. Your hands planted the flowers in our yard that allowed me to grow up with a knowledge of flowering plants.

Your hands often worked late into the night to sew outfits for me, smock dresses, or to resolutely meet a deadline so that I could have an outfit for my book report the next day.

When I sustained what could have been a very scarring injury to my face, your hands fastidiously tended my wounds and scars (despite my protests as an impatient six-year-old) and ensured that no evidence would remain that any trauma ever occurred.

When I was anxious and scared, they rubbed my back. Even still, I love when you come up behind me and rub my shoulders with your hands. Though they're aging and losing some strength, you still offer this loving touch.

Your hands have long been one of my favorite features, and it's because of how they've cared for me all of my life. When my hands began looking like yours I didn't see age - instead I felt wonder. It is a gift to me that in looking down at my own hands, I should be reminded of the hands that have cared for me best all of my life.

It is a wonder to me that you should look at your hands and see the hands of your own mother who raised and nurtured you. Generations of love and sacrifice, most often unmentioned and unnoticed, held in these hands with our long, slender fingers, rippling tendons, and increasing age spots. What mystery is this that hands can hold so much?