small things carry the tide

on experimentation, smaller projects deserving breath, sketches from april, and studio reflections

an unfortunate reality: it is one thing to admit a terrible, sobering truth about what holds you back. it is another thing to pull your weight and work toward the better thing.

a theme that’s come up in a lot of what i make is reclaiming your voice. sharpen your scalpel, plunge the metal into the tissue. drag. split that thing open. what do you really want to say?

what you actually think. unsanded.

still, my brain wrestles to allow it. in university & work, (ah yes, institutional settings) i have been rewarded for general appeal. but especially now, when anyone can generate anything… our opinions, perspectives, and how you say them matter most.

one does not Have to be grand in order for a good life, but i want to make something that lasts. and in that sense, i don’t think purpose is something you just unearth. it’s something you craft, piece by piece, until you’ve lumped together enough pieces for it to seem… slightly more coherent. i make things to discover who i am. i hope for it to help me see the world more clearly. and that’s why it matters. every bad piece builds up to that, too.

anyway. when you’re focused on building something that compounds: there’s a certain massive pressure that lingers about quality. i’ve never been the type who liked to show things unpolished. the past few months, i’ve put a lot of attention & energy into long-form essays, illustrations, things i’d like to make into products in the future.

polished goods.

and those aren’t going anywhere. but another dilemma:

when you’re too ambitious, too soon, you’re prone to biting more than you can chew. core ideas deserve their stewing time. it’s how you get the good stuff. a week is good. maybe 2. but when it reaches, 3, 4?

a few weeks ago, i’d read an article about the carrier bag theory. (please read mariam’s work. - her craft notes series is like an essential for creatives to me.)

from a theory coined by ursula de guin, our influences often give shape to art that we make, like putting goods in a plastic bag. the entire thing offers great insight on putting things together. but this line stuck with me —

things that stay in carrier bags can only spoil.

just like food, ideas can rot.

there are a lot of things that have passed me by, because i felt like doing them small was making them small. or avoiding the bigger work.

i love writing essays, because they challenge if i have something to say. but i don’t have a background in writing. they take a while. so do their companion drawings. (a sample.) while more ambitious projects are a worthy investment, i also don’t think they should be the only thing you do.

in my client-work-only and early-substack-art era, i’ve neglected allowing space for the smaller things. novelty reignites the spark. “smaller” ideas aren’t any less worthy of breath.

so april is where i revisited sketching.

from notes, here are a few.

the theme of one of my illustrations would be the extreme of abandonment, specifically if you bury a space for something you love. i include plants there as symbols, and wanted to expound on that. this mushroom is the artist’s conk. this was more a sketch about the resentment someone can feel from being abandoned.

there’s something about how abstract shapes touch into feeling in a way that coherent symbols can’t. it’s something i want to fit organically into my artworks, and the only way to really stretch that muscle is by drawing them more. i’m inspired by the works of linnea sterte (particularly her graphic novel, stages of rot), common side effects, & the video game hylics.

[cover] stages of rot by linnea sterte | [poster] common side effects by joe bennett | [video game] hylics 2 by mason lindroth.

if it strikes you, strike it back.

drew this while i was feeling overwhelmed. i missed gritty characters that fight back against things that seem uncertain, or powers that would relish in their downfall.

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these last sketches are more pre-illustration studies, but they let me have more fun with the plants and their themes before committing to a full work.

explorations of the bindweed, a plant that chokes out crops. aside from studying how the plant looked (the shape of it, the leaves), i wanted to draw things that feel constrained.

lastly, the parijatha flower, for surrender. they bloom in the night and fall by dawn, as if offering themselves to the earth. also added a character i thought would walk up to me and suggest that i calm the hell down.

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while the core of what i want to build lives with the larger projects, experimenting with both keeps things novel and tests an idea before further refinement: how did sketching it make you feel? what tension was released, and most importantly, in its rawest form… what made it fun?

and so i will keep making them, and putting them in pockets like this one each month. i find being messy hard. but mess is where you push past comfort, and low stakes make exploration possible.

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❤️‍🔥 thank you for reading. i’m an artist looking to build a full-time creative life. generally, my work explores what perturbs and what that reveals. i also love plants and the surreal.

my current focus is reflections on becoming when the process hurts. they come with personal essays and companion illustrations tied thematically to them. this is the brute & bromie series, two characters i illustrate to explore what change actually feels like.

• 🩸 BRUTE acknowledges how brutal it can feel, or potential extremes of destructive patterns that hold you back. (so you can choose differently).

• 🌱 BROMIE is a tender reminder. permission for self-compassion, to be gentle with yourself through a period of drastic change. (it’s hard enough as it is.)

i work on this after my core essays and make a separate post about them once complete.

here are a few:

or a poem?

if you need them, they’re there. 🩸🌱

. . .

to testing the limits,