there may come a time where my week-by-week observations have nothing to do with my struggles with nailing down a “brand/tone/purpose/unifying aesthetic” for this whole thing, but I found a non-trivial amount of satisfaction in the past week from sketching this over the course of a particularly mind-numbing work day.
before I fully commit, I may refine it and clean it up so I can use it for things other than hyper-tiny profile pics, but it’s served as a reminder of how nice it is to make things that I just like looking at, and maybe that’s the thing.
of course it wouldn’t be a me thing if it didn’t have some kind of obtuse layering going on. it’s inspired by this Charlie Brown strip from who knows when about how much he enjoys the sound of static, all distinctly depicted. in particular, I’ve always loved the top right as a sort of weird psuedo peace sign spikey logo thing and as the example that most feels like what static feels like in my head.
the plant wrapping the thing in my sketch is a very loose interpretation of the climbing star jasmine vine, which now completely covers the retaining wall directly across the street from our house, lovingly planted and maintained by the very, uh, forceful head of our neighborhood association, which now after a few years of growing, is absolutely beautiful when it blooms and as pointed out to us recently, a potential factor in the ongoing pest issues we have in and around our house.
in all the ways those things intersect and inspire and agitate, it seems like maybe this thing can have a symbol after all.
every week there are things I’ve noticed and want to hold on to at least for another week, and this week it’s…◆ Bon Iver’s first full-length album in 5+ years, SABLE,fABLE, which is great on its own but also symbolically significant as a bat (deer? possum?) signal calling us geriatric millennial softbois to charge our beards in the sun and embrace our feelings but stand firm in who we are and what we stand for, or at least that’s what it’s doing to me for some reason.
◆ Jenny Slate’s newest book, Lifeform, which is in a singular category of “speaks deeply to me in a very specific way which is my ever-increasing appreciation for the way creatives with confirmed ADHD express themselves that allows me to cultivate pride in being able to keep up, both an endorsement of the work and a warning that it very, very likely is not for everyone” type books.
◆ My evolving relationship with the shame spiral which this week feels like “I can make mistakes without believing I’m a piece of shit whos made of warm garbage, at least after few seconds and breaths”
◆ Bubbles in the backyard, an increasingly rare unifying activity for ages 2-7 but also if we’re being honest 38, and the knowledge that one day we’ll take them to central park and they’ll see the people making bubbles with ropes and absolutely lose their fucking minds 🤯