I’ve written here and on Ko-fi about how I like my routines and how they feed into my ability to make art and get a lot done. Usually, those routines are a good buffer between myself and chaos. But sometimes things happen and they completely derail my routines and it always takes a bit to get back to them.

A few weeks ago now, my debit card info was skimmed, likely at the gas pump, and the skimmer/thief siphoned almost everything out of my account. I woke up to a fraud alert as the skimmer attempted to completely drain my account. They almost got it all. The bank was good about labeling everything but one charge fraud and reversing all charges. I take it back they flagged that charge fraud as well, but the app used to pull the money out of the account didn’t reverse the charges. I’m getting into the weeds on this story, the end result was that my mortgage payment was gone, and I had to spend the next week and a half on the phone every morning with the bank. I attempted to work with the app, they shut me down.

If you want to start your day off wrong, call the bank about fraudulent charges on your card.

A few other things happened, the details don’t matter but it landed on my lap to fix them. The end result of them all was more time spent on the phone before and after work, and sending numerous emails to the wide variety of people who needed to fix this stuff.

It was and remains a lot. And it all completely threw off my routines.

My routines aren’t set in stone, though I do try to keep to them. My weekdays all start and end roughly the same. My morning routine is the most important and it was the most impacted by the calls and emails. When I get out of work the offices for all of the places I had to contact were closed.

Why are my routines so important? they set up my day and help me clear my mind of useless stuff. It allows me to be creative.

I find that when my routines are in disorder my mind is too, and creative blocks are more likely to settle in and take hold.

These last 3 weeks have not been fun, but also I have to realize that I only have so many hours in a day. I can’t shove in just one more thing, no matter how much I would like to do so. No that doesn’t work at all. The more I beat myself up for the disarray the long the disarray sticks around and fouls things up.

It’s a whole cycle of blame and disarray. By being gentle with myself- labeling the disarray and acknowledging the difficulty and letting myself be okay helps to break the cycle.

It’s hard to beat yourself up over something if you can say to yourself, “Hey, it’s okay. A lot of people go through this. It’s going to be okay in the end. How about today I just do one thing to get back on track, even if it’s just making a pour over and writing part of a blog post.”* That lets me get started on making changes, just small ones and feeling good about it.

Continue reading →

I announced a reboot of my podcast RSVP Stationery Podcast awhile ago. The first of the new season’s episodes is out, and I have to say it’s a banger.

The idea behind the reboot is that I take a topic, in this case, Using the Good Stuff and I interview and discuss the topic with 4 to 8 (maybe more) people. I use a framework of the same questions, but in true RSVP fashion we go on tangents.

I’m pretty excited by how this first season of RSVP went. I hope you enjoy it as much as I have in conducting the interviews. 

After all my posts about material snobbery, I had myself a little pep talk about just getting to it. When it comes to visual art I’m pretty easily able to just get to it, but when it comes to writing, well, not so much.

I cleaned out my reading nook, an area in the house, not an electronic device. The reading nook functions as a space where I drink tea, read, and write. IN the nook I have a couple of book shelves. The shelves are filled with my professional books about art therapy, when I had a traditional office those lived there. Now they are at home. I also have all my art books.

On a single small shelf are my writing books. There are only a handful but they live closest to the chair, where I can grab them and muse on their pages. Also on these small shelves live my composition notebooks. Not the empties, but those I’ve filled with my writing. I had to stop myself from writing BAD there. The writing isn’t bad, it mostly just a series of shitty first drafts. The other half of the comp books are filled with what I call my story bibles- character snippets and outlines. I write about the settings and people in the books, name ideas and the such. IF I made post it notes or index cards, I stick these into the story bible.

Anyway, after cleaning out my nook, I sat with my story bibles and novels that I wrote over the pandemic.

Surprisingly they aren’t half bad. Honestly, I’m not sure why I was so hard on myself. I mean, the pandemic, work stress, and all that contributes but these stories are at least half as good as some of the stuff I’ve read recently.

Maybe because things are going well- work is good, my family is good, and I’m not feeling the pressure of the world, I’m feeling better about my life and thus better about  my work.

I took my long weekend to take a story that has been stuck in my head on and off since I started a rough outline and character sketch and I reworked the sketches so they fit my ideas now, and then I hacked out a rough outline. After that I started to write.

All this makes me wonder about what it takes to do our creative work and how it changes as we age. When I was in my early 20s, I made art all the time. I produced zines. Because I was in my early 20s my life was a mess, but it never stopped me from creating. I used anything I got my hands on to make art. I stole photocopies at work and made my own screens for screen-printing. I experimented. I moved around.

Art was a constant. Writing was relegated to blogging.

And that worked for me for a long time. I hadn’t had an urge to write fiction in forever. I made time for the things I had urges for- art and blogging.

I’m not sure my point, but a good question is what art do you have urges to create? Make time for them, allow yourself to create and make.

I’ve always held the belief that for those of us with creative urges, it’s imperative to our mental health that we follow them in some manner. Ignoring the creative urge will only leave us bitter and unhappy.

Remember creativity in one area will feed creativity in another. Continue reading →

Material snobbery is an occasional problem for me. I grew up with access to a lot of materials, but not in quantity. I was occasionally gifted art materials, but in gift set size, which ran out quickly. I remember as a kid running out of one color and asking my Mom if we could get another tube. We couldn’t, for a number of reasons- we lived a hour away from the closest department store (Ames or Zayre’s back then) and a little further from the closest art supply store. The art supply store was very expensive and didn’t carry the kid grade materials I had.

Plus they were expensive.

In high school we had access to more materials, and I did at home too, but still the hour or 2 hour drive to the art and craft stores meant that if I ran out, I had to wait to get a replacement.

In high school I learned the difference between kids supplies and “real” artist grade art supplies. I was told, “Real artists use real art supplies, kid supplies are for kids.” We still had some student grade supplies- mainly colored pencils and paper, but we had professional inks, pens, pencils, and paint. My art teachers weren’t awful about us using other supplies and they even encouraged us to make art outside of school.

In college the professors were… Less forgiving of non-professional supplies. I bought Cotman watercolors for a watercolor class I took. The sneer on the professor’s face when I started to use them was visible, and a little shaming. He had lectured us about buying professional colors for the class, as they’d be easier to use and just look better. I remember shrugging and saying, “Well, this is the only way I could afford to buy all the colors for class.” He frowned and moved on.

He was right, professional watercolors ARE BETTER. They are easier to work with and you use less of the color than you do with student grade colors. But they were (back then) 3 times the price.

He should have suggested that students should get together and buy tubes of paint as a group and buy large palettes to squeeze out the tubes into. (This is what I do with my classes, a small blob of watercolor will last most students several paintings and I can make 10 high quality palettes out of tubed paints, rather than buy 10 cheap palettes of watercolors.) If 4 or 5 of us had banded together we’d have been able to afford the better paints.

Or even better started us off with 3 color palettes to challenge our mixing abilities. Now that I’m an adult and I’ve had the ability to buy an embarrassing number of tubed professional watercolors, I often stick to a 3 color palette. Three of even five color palettes are fantastic. They limit choices and speed the transfer of paint to paper. They are also much less expensive and allow even a beginner to afford professional colors.

We had many lectures about using archival materials, “Don’t use Sharpies.” “Don’t use Bic pens.” “Don’t use (fill in the blank).”

This led to a real sense of material snobbery. I’d gone from drawing with anything I could get my hands on, to worrying about the longevity of what I was putting into my sketchbooks. Which is not at all helpful when I’m trying to noodle out an idea. I really don’t want hang ups when I’m working on an idea.

A year after I graduated I was able to have Richard Lee come to my classroom for 2 days. He led a papermaking workshop on day 1 and a bookbinding workshop on day 2. With him, he brought an amazing journal- the cover was made of cast paper pulp in a face shape create from a mold pulled directly from ruins in Mexico. The journal was thick- 2 or 3 inches and roughly 8 inches square. On it’s own it was a work of art. In it he scribbled notes with an Ultra Extra Fine Sharpie and added dollops of Cotman watercolors from a little plastic palette.

I watched him as he sullied this priceless sketchbook with Sharpie. I asked him, “You’re using a Sharpie? They aren’t archival.”

He shrugged, “Well, I can get them anywhere. I was able to get them in Japan, China, and even in Mexico when I was traveling. They just work and I use a lot of them.” he shrugged again, “It’ll give the archivists something to do when I die.”

I’m not sure where I heard the phrase, “Buy the best you can afford, and use the shit out of it.” I like the concept. Buy the materials you like and use them.

Occasionally I find myself feeling bad about some of the materials I like- like cardstock. I really like printing onto thick cardstock. I mentioned that I was “only going to print on this cardstock” to a printmaking friend, and I think my tone of voice told him I was embarrassed by that, he replied, “What’s wrong with cardstock? Cardstock is some of my favorite stuff to print on.” It’s a funny thing when people unintentionally highlight a hidden thought pattern. It knocked me for a loop, and now when I think about stuff, I try to think about the GOOD aspect first, and why I like it. Rather than feel like I have to defend why I like something, I now point out, “I like this thing, it’s nice.” Continue reading →

It’s not often you find me talking myself out of things, but here I am telling you I’ve talked myself out of a free photocopier. If you’re scratching your head right now, let me explain.

I’ve wanted a photocopier for years. They are incredibly useful tools and when I was in college we had to run to the library to photocopy designs to paper for transferring with chemical or to rub the paper off. Copies cost 10 cents.

I made an off handed comment about how we should consider getting a photocopier for the printshop and the professor chuckled and agree but added that they’d have to have a place to lock it up because every print student and everyone who knew about it would use it. And frankly, she wasn’t wrong. I’ve noticed that every place where I’ve worked where a photocopier is left unattended it gets used for other purposes, from zines to personal copies to whatever.

But I’ve also wanted one of my own.

For art making but also zines. Photocopiers are just better for making hundreds of copies at a time. Further they can handle large quantities of cardstock in a way a laser printer can’t.

I find photocopiers for free on craigslist pretty often. I’ve stopped myself from inquiring about them for quite a few reasons- too big, too damaged, too whatever. Before we moved into our house part of that was, “Too big to move.”  And I can’t imagine how some of my landlords* would have responded to finding a 300 pound copier left behind.

A smaller sized machine showed up in the free section, smaller at still close to 300 pounds, with a tag of “needs work.” I asked about what kind of work it would need, if it would power on, if they knew what parts it would need, etc… The current owner was utterly unhelpful. So I asked some more questions, they answered, still not helpfully.

Then I considered, do I want this for work or myself. And how the hell would I get it onto the van and then into MY studio?

The answer, finally cleaning the basement and the help of some bulky friends.

In the end I’ve decided that I won’t get THIS machine but I’m going to keep an eye out for another smaller machine that will fit my needs better. Canon makes a few small sized machines that will handle cardstock and lots of copies pretty well. The toner doesn’t last as long but they are out there.

NOTE: After finishing this post, I took to Craigslist and FB Marketplace, and within 10 minutes found a free smaller sized copier for free, and with the sort of repair that I can do with ease. It’s in my shop, even better it didn’t require the help of Burly Friends to move it into the shop, I can carry it myself. Though not easily!

It turns out it didn’t even need a repair, it needed a setting changed and the toner cart needs to be slammed back into place on the regular. I suspect a weak clip somewhere. I’ll find it and fix it.

Continue reading →

Working on a Zine, like Useful Journaling V2 can start in many ways, but for me it starts with my pocket notebook and a pen or pencil. Here I record ideas and thoughts I have about making the zine.

Ideas for content are quickly jotted down and then if deemed useful are expanded upon in a larger notebook, usually an A5 or composition notebook. Whichever I’m using for my current longer notes and ideas. I don’t draft everything in these notebooks, when I do that I feel like I’ve finished my goal and don’t finish. Instead I expand the idea and gather information- research and what not. I write longer ideas out and organize the notes into something that makes more sense.

After I organize my ideas into something that makes sense for me, I expand upon them in either a google doc or NovelPad. Here it really depends upon the final length of the idea. I use docs for all my blog posts and Ko-Fi posts, while longer things like some zines and fiction work all ends up in NovelPad. Though, that is with a caveat- some zines get typed up in Docs.

While I’m working on a zine idea I like to keep my notebooks with me at all times- I never know when a good idea is going to hit or when I’ll have a few minutes to develop an idea. I go through them at varying rates depending on the project and what I’m working on. A zine seems to move through notebooks slowly, while novels chew up notebooks and spit them out.

Not for sale

Anyway. I though it interesting that I’m nearly finished wit a pocket notebook and just starting a composition notebook for this zine. I lost my last pocket notebook, and the one before that. Covid and WFH has really done a number on my ability to hang onto a notebook…

Let me be honest here, it’s not COVID it’s the new pants I’ve purchased that have crummy pockets for keeping notebooks in pockets.

The end of the year as we roll into the new is often used as a moment of reflection. A place where we look back on the bad and good and use that to set goals and intentions for the new year.

WOW! What a year we had. A second of a global pandemic, which is back on the rise in my area with folx still refusing to get vaccinated or to even mask up. MY city attempted to hold a meeting about mask mandates, and because they were too… stupid to lock it down, anti-maskers spoke over them and drove them out for over an hour while city officials figured out how to work Google Meet. Sweet Jeebus.

Anyway, this is what we’re living with here in the States, instead of attempting to wipe out a measly virus we’re fighting over wearing a simple piece of cloth over our faces. I have more to say, but this post isn’t about that, not it’s about reflection.

I spent the last year working on a series of prompts and ideas for the newest volume of Useful Journaling. We’ll see how it comes out. But 2021 saw me using my journal more often than in a few previous years, and making it more of a practice again. But it also saw me wanting to continue with my zine efforts, while floundering on the original premise of Useful Journaling. But now that I’ve taken a year to think and mull on it, I see a new option.

Most frustrating for me, I lost** the original files for Useful Journaling, including my layout file. Annoyingly I thought I’d redundantly backed them up, only now I can’t find all of them. Awesome. For some reason when I updated the OS on my cheap little laptop it corrupted all the attached drives- including the expansion micro SD card. While I thought I’d uploaded the files to Drive AND DropBox, I had not. Bummer. It’s not a hard one to recreate but here I am.

Fortunately, I have original flats of all my old zines, which means I can scan them easily. (JK I just found these in yet another search of Drive. deep sigh of relief.) But A word to the wise, if you think you have backed things up, check and double check to be sure that you have. While I’m not exactly a digital hoarder, it is useful to keep; some of these digital files on hand just in case.

So a few goals for me in the upcoming year-

• Redundant back ups, for everything I’m currently working on. And double checking to be sure I’m doing this.
• Consistent photos for the blog and instagram.
• New issues of Useful Journaling, but different than before.

Continue reading →

As an artist and art therapist I’m keenly aware of my own use of art as a tool for processing and working through my emotions. The death of bell hooks has left me deeply saddened. I first read her work in my undergrad, likely introduced to me by my ex. I continued to read her work on and off through out my life. Outlaw Culture was mind blowing.

Honestly if you’ve never read her work, you should pick up anything, but Outlaw Culture is a personal favorite. The final chapter on Love as the Practice of Freedom is fantastic. It is also where I pulled the quote for my print.

I started this with a simple gelli print- stencils in ranges of red on a thick beefy white sheet of cardstock. Initially I attempted a toner resist with other colors but sadly that did not work as I’d hoped. SO I switched up and used a toner transfer technique. The printed paint and paper are note smooth so the toner is rough and uneven. I rather like this look. It quite matches my feelings about her death- sad and a little rough. I had intended to use a golden paint for the base color, but the toner resist, resisted working.

These prints feel a tad too cheerful, or the shades of red with the rays feels cheerful. Perhaps it can be interpreted as hopeful or loving, and fits the tone of the quote: “Without love, our efforts to liberate ourselves and our community from oppression and exploitation are doomed.”

I dig printing with found objects.

I decided to explore the concept of processing emotion through art with some of my students. I decided to create a larger print using a slightly different hooks quote. With this print I created a matrix of found cedar blocks printed in bright yellow. The ink used is a rubber based printing ink, rolled on thin. I then printed this with an etching press, though I could have fiddled with the Vandercook and printed it with the machines.

IS there anything as pretty as type set and ready for printing?

After the background was printed, I set up the quote in Ultra Bodoni 60pt. I considered going with a found letter but it didn’t fit the poster, nor did it fit the tone of the poster. Ultra Bodoni is a big impressive typeface and it leans a bit cheerful, but then the quote is full of hope.

make ready- note that the base print is off kilter This will go into my stack of stuff for testing other prints

The color here is *chef’s kiss* perfect. Better in person.

I decided to use a 70s color palette and use brown over the yellow. I also chose to let the printing be a little soft and uneven, it matches the tone of the print and the reasoning for the print- I’m feeling a little soft and uneven.

Over all I really like the combination of the yellow woodgrain printing and the brown letters. It is perfect. I’ll have a few of them available on my ko-fi, after the holidays. It’ll take that long for everything to dry. I made 10 or 11 copies of the print. Which is a very short run, and barely worth turning the Vandercook on.

As a method of running through the last of the ink on the press, I’ve been running a stack of old prints through the machine. It clears out a bit of the ink, which means I’ve got less of it to clear out. Some of these overlay prints and images make lovely prints on their own, case in point- this brown over pale pinks and blues with a blind embossing of the word REFLECT.

Continue reading →

I wrote about the idea of paring down my necessary tools for holiday travel on my Ko-fi page. I took with me a sketchbook (always), a selection of recycled trash printmaking plates, a pencil, a sharpie, an etching needle and a craft knife. With this selection of tools I created a few plates to work on when I got back to my studio, and I started to carve them while I was away.

I have written before about how I find limiting the choices of my tools liberating and invigorating.* What I took with me was the barest of supplies, and frankly I could have limited myself further- just the recycled plates and a sharpie, and left the carving and etching for home. The limited choice felt liberating. I wasn’t focusing on capturing the fine details of each image, instead I marked the areas of the plate- add glue here, scratch with sandpaper here, try glue resist here. I focused only on capturing the idea of the image, not the details, knowing I could add details later.

It was invigorating and sparked my creativity in a whole new way.

When I arrived home I continued to etch and carve the plates, adding in glue, and glue resist, and also some tissue. I scratched and sanded other areas. In the end i ended up working on 4 plates on and off in the evening and gathering more mental info for more plates.

I have to wonder about limiting choices for increased creativity, whether one is traveling or not. I am often inclined toward gathering new materials and tools rather than limiting. 99% of the time I’d rather add a tool than eliminate a tool. But, limiting my choices for tools led me to thinking about the tools I would use. When I throw my entire toolbox at a project or a plate sometimes it looks muddy and less the image I imagined. I like to think of these images as motivated by the tools and not my creativity.

Trash printmaking is already a limited technique- one must remove the plate from the trash for it to be a trash printmaking plate. The plate itself is limited when compared to say a sheet of copper or even collagraph plates like museum board. Sure you can glue it to another sheet of card, or add more layers to it with glue or acrylic paint, but there is always an unknown quantity to the trash plate.

I think if you reach a block or hiccup in your creativity that limiting your supplies to the bare basics for a few days might unlock something. Alternatively, add a new supply or technique to your tool box to see if it unlocks your brain. Continue reading →