I'm like if a classical hero was a beautiful self-involved woman
A list of good things from March
I‘ve been thinking a lot about my digital footprint and the degree to which I share my life online (minimal I think, reasonable I hope). I want to do it more.
I want to engage with you about the things I’m interested in, in the easiest and most fun way possible. I’m sharing with you now a selection of my recent ‘favourites’ that I hope can live as a sort of snail-mail delivery to your inbox every few weeks. It’s important to me that this is less product-based and that it feels quite special. Less ‘linking the mohair sweater I bought’ more ‘linking a list of free knitting patterns from the Victoria & Albert museum archive that will give you a desirable boyish 1940s charm’.
I have a kink for structure. So these monthly musings will adhere, with some degree of quirkiness, to a well-known writing structure: The Hero’s Journey. For those unaware, The Hero’s Journey is a narrative framework that describes the most typical adventure of a protagonist. They go on a grandiose quest, face challenges, undergo transformation, and return home changed.
There is a painting I love by Nicole Eisenman, titled Hero’s Journey, that details a typical day in the life of an artist. Eisenman attaches each point in the artist’s day to that of our hero—from morning coffee (call to adventure) to leaving the studio at the end of the day (the return).
A charming comparison! I want to use the Hero’s Journey as a base for sharing a set of 8 things I’m interested in/loving/inspired by/curious about, once or twice a month.
Of course I won’t repeat this spiel every month, but maybe it’s helpful to map it out in the beginning. It will go a little something like this:
Call to adventure (A skill I’m learning, a project I’m plotting, a risk I’m taking)
Threshold (A rabbit hole I fell into, a source of inspiration)
Guide (A few words from a mentor, an essay that taught me something, a rule I’m implementing)
Temptations (One special item—I won’t Add To Cart, but admire from afar)
Revelation (Self explanatory!)
Transformation (A new habit, a small piece of my personal routine, a structural change)
Atonement (Something I’m reconciling or reviewing in a different light)
Return (Something from the past, resurfaced: a childhood hobby, a mealtime memory, an early 2000s movie)
Alright already!!! Let’s begin. My favourite things from a damp, grey March.
Call to adventure
I’m learning to sew; a complete beginner with the machine but decent by hand. I saw this Lirika Matoshi fleece and am testing a tricky mix of pattern creation, machine, and hand sewing to achieve a similar cozy/eccentric look. The fabric I’m using is a vintage wool blanket I thrifted to keep warm in November—cutting up Winter blankets at the dawn of the Spring feels very correct.
Threshold
The “Writers’ Fridges” series by The Paris Review. I particularly loved this one by Ottessa Moshfegh, especially the bit where she describes her partner’s fridge:
“I travel a lot, and when I’m in California, I go to Luke’s house, two hours away. Luke’s fridge is a lot like Luke: exploding with deliciousness. Who could be luckier than me? Luke opens his mouth and whole chocolate cakes fall out. He snaps his fingers and voilà—chicken cacciatore. One time he rolled over in bed and left in his wake an entire patch of strawberries. I don’t know how to explain it. He’s the most wonderful man in the world. I’m always well-fed when Luke is around.”
Guide
This Dick Bruna interview from 2008. Early on in this interview he refuses the title of artist, after many years of global success in the commercial art and design space (he created Miffy BTW). I somewhat ironically adore this take on “the more complex parts of life”:
It's hard to draw [Bruna] on politics, because he insists he knows nothing about it. Indeed, he says he feels 'really like a child. I sometimes think there are quite a lot of things that I don't understand, anyway.' The more complex parts of life don't really make their way into the books, either, although he has written about the death of Miffy's grandmother, and the importance of including those who are different (like Flopear, the bunny with one floppy ear). His books aren't supposed to be didactic: 'I'm not doing teaching at all. I couldn't do that.'
We talk about religion: is that something that makes more sense to him than politics? I still have the feeling that there is something, that life is not nothing at all. Sometimes, when I did a drawing that I think, "Yes, that became a nice drawing", sometimes when I go home I say, "Thanks very much".
Temptations
This Victorian Pewter Ration Cup from Salter House in NYC. For a cold, damp morning at home. Staying under your quilt until 10 o’clock or later. Black coffee, bread, butter, jam.
Revelation
This article from MOLD magazine, titled “Line Cooks Are Designers”. It details all the ways in which cooks are in design roles in the kitchen; through use of space, creative problem solving, task management, attention to detail, etc.. As someone who has recently started working in a kitchen, I found this a really interesting and poetic way to view the marriage of food and design.
Transformation
It Happened To Me And It Can Happen To You: I got really into Japanese stationary. I’ve been in a serious, long-term thing with Moleskine for years, but I recently opened up our relationship with this Hobonichi. Plastic protector cover, Yoshitomo Nara sticker pack, the whole nine yards. I don’t go anywhere without it now.
Atonement
This month I read Plato’s Symposium, Virginia Woolf’s Orlando, and Jacqueline Harpman’s I Who Have Never Known Men. For the last year or so, I’ve been chewing on thoughts of intergender dynamics, my own understanding of the contemporary gender spectrum, and the presentation of one’s own gender; both by way of behaviour and appearance. Observing what happens when I dial up masculinity vs. femininity, and what happens when I do that within platonic vs. romantic vs. professional dynamics. This is a larger can of worms than I can fit down here at the bottom of this Substack, and I would hate to clog up the ending with worms. TLDR: I give the books 5 stars, 5 stars, and 5 stars respectively.
Return
Rubbing is a technique that’s really piquing my interest as of late (but of course, also, as of early Kindergarten, when we made red crayon rubbings of maple leaves as a Canada Day craft).
Last year I experimented with shadow tracing, using sunlight and plants in my neighbourhood to draw abstract “maps” or catalog my environment. With Spring nearing, I can’t wait to get outside with a few sticks of charcoal and see what interesting textures I can hunt down. Techniques like this—ones that are so purely somatic—are critical from time to time. It’s playtime.
Thank you for peeking in at my March. March is notably a very dreary and long month—wrapping it up, I do feel like a hero that’s been on a journey.
You could subscribe below for the April installment of this weird list. I have a feeling it will be bright and silly and punchy, and maybe more concise.
How lucky we are to enter into Nat’s magical mind
I always admire how you just DO your damn thing Nat. Full throttle into your passions always, YES!