art – To All My Strangers

Hello Stranger.

If you were here right now, there would be clothes and trash on the floor, and dishes piling up in the kitchen. You would detect a faint light in the window, but the curtains would be drawn, and the door locked because I did not trust the night. For the first time, you would see bills and notices with my personal information littering side tables and flung haphazardly on the kitchen table and under it. But what would I care? The dangers are outside. You are inside. You would feel vaguely ill at ease, and I would be grateful that you felt it too.

There would still be food and something to drink.

And it would be a good night to discuss the subject of art.

My art changed forever when I stopped trying to make masterpieces, and started making things that were accessible.

There are two aspects to this. The first part was mental.

About three New Year’s’ ago, I bought myself a nice sketchbook. I had very specific plans for it, it was going to be used as a field guide for a world I was building, hoping to make a book. A list of ‘flora and fauna’ and the corresponding illustrations. I painstakingly researched medicinal plants, sketched and painted them, and wrote descriptions of them describing how they would apply in the other world. I got two pages done. I didn’t touch the sketchbook for the next year.

I was proud of the art! In fact, I still really like what I created. But it was stressful. It was high effort, and joyless. I was working full time and in college, and when I got home, I was exhausted.

It all changed when, a year later, I sat down to draw with my little sister and sketched a frog, a little cottage, and some mushrooms. And then it looked empty, so I splattered it with blue and green paint. I liked those.

Just like that, the sketchbook was ruined. It was no longer going to be used for flora and fauna of one specific world.

Now, this doesn’t bother everyone, but for someone like me, it made my skin itch. I felt a vague but intense sense of shame and guilt for straying from my original intent. I was a flake. And my story would never exist.

Let me just say, I have made more art, and more bright, happy, interesting artwork, and sewn together more stories in that sketchbook than I ever did before. When I had to quit my job, move states, and stayed in a room, sick with long-covid for three months, I made art. Not beautiful, detailed portraits. Not things that took my energy. I drew simple lines and painted in bright colors. I used whatever I needed to ‘cheat.’ Whatever tools could help tell the story that I hadn’t allowed myself to use before. And I didn’t freak out when sharpies bled onto the pages behind them. (That was a big deal for me.)

Instead of stressing about what my human characters looked like, I just drew a scraggly little guy in pen, and painted him in bright colors, and wrote him a little blurb in a pretty font. Instead of meticulously planning a page, I drew a general idea of what I wanted and splattered paint all over it. It didn’t have to be ‘the exact mushroom from my head,’ it had to be a mushroom. It didn’t have to be a perfect van, it had to be a van on a misty mountain with the words, ‘I would like to live in a van and drive through the mountains one day.’

I know I’m rambling, but honestly, how often do we hold ourselves back because we’re afraid that either our art will look imperfect, or that the imperfections will look like us? Art is one of the few areas in life that I don’t just carry shame and it eats me alive that other people do.

For the next week, what if you drew little comics with stick figures. What if you painted abstract figures or splattered colors. What if you looked at it without criticizing yourself so harshly. What then.

The second part was physical.

After long-covid, I am chronically exhausted. I am often sad or numb, and you know what, I was before too. But I can’t just ignore it anymore. When I get sick now, I stay sick for a long time. I feel like I have so little within me.

Babe, if you have a funny joke in your mind but it can only happen in a certain scenario, write it down. If you want to sketch Pete Davidson on a receipt from the Chinese restaurant, do it. If all you’ve got in you is a weird little guy in a striped sweater, but he’s there a lot, get him out on paper. Draw stick figures. Honey, it’s okay. The art that I make when I have almost nothing, is the art at the bottom of me.

It changed my life.

Just create what’s accessible to you. It’s okay.

Anyway, much love to you. As you know, my name is not actually

–Mabel

Hello Strangers.

I was gone last week. Usually, dreams are a way of looking to the future. But last Saturday, I began the process of making one dream come true.

I have wanted a thrift store painting for years. One to paint over and alter, working with the original, not on my own. A collaboration spanning years. The problem is that I haven’t been willing to spend forty dollars on an ancient painting that might have bugs in it when all I want to do is paint on top of it. So I’ve looked for years. Some were too pretty for me to consider painting over. Some seemed ugly to me , and I had no vision for them and didn’t want to take the chance.

I went to an estate sale on Saturday. My grandmother’s actually, and although it’s been a sad process, it’s been wonderful in that her cherished things have been passed down to the next generations. And there was this painting from the hallway. My aunts begged me to take one. I remember walking past it and specifically thinking, ‘I wouldn’t even buy that to paint over.’ It was harsh. I really didn’t like it.

So I took it home.

I didn’t like the original color scheme. It was very orange and very brown, yet pale, and the color in the mountains and sky was a sickly green color. But I liked the framing of the trees and thought the water was well blended. After some thinking, I decided that I wanted to keep the painting very similar, but instead of a sunset, I would paint a dusk scene. I was heavily inspired by Robin Sealark’s landscapes and skyscapes, with impressionistic brushstrokes and whimsical colors. They look to me like dreams.

Using gouache, I went about doing a wash of dark blue across the sky, leaving the brightness of the orange center intact. I let it dry and continued to build it in increasingly more opaque layers.

I muted the red of the foreground and continued blocking in colors.

Here I started blending the colors, making sure to leave the streaks of brushstrokes. I added in a bolder yellow where the sun was setting, and of course, the sun. I then began muting the color of the mountain.

I continued blending, darkening edges, adding a red haze over the mountain, and rebuilding the form of the trees I covered up when I painted the sky. I added my first layer of stars.

In the final stages, I added more stars, fireflies, and outlined the tops of the trees. I reddened the sun, turned the yellow light a more peachy tone, added sunbeams, and tinted the highlights in the leaves and tree trunks red. I punched up the colors in the water’s reflections, and added new highlights to the rocks and marsh weeds so it would all feel cohesive. I wanted it to seem almost like there was a rainbow there, even though the sun was leaving.

This is the final piece!

The original frame had gold and copper colors like the sunset, but I felt that a blue layer of wood would tie things together. The final step was to add varnish, and here we are.

Working with the piece gave me a new respect for the artist. It was like I was sitting where she sat, looking in a way at what she saw. The original artist’s signature is still there, not completely covered. Her name was Rosina. I’m so thankful she made this piece of art, and that because of her I was allowed to paint something that reminds me of my childhood and mysteries and summer.

This piece is titled, ‘Rosina’s Fireflies.’

It was an encouraging reminder that the whole point of having small dreams is that they are achievable while still being beautiful in a way that doesn’t quite seem real. We are the ones who have to pursue goodness and beauty. Or at least be receptive when the opportunities we’ve been waiting for arrive.

Happy Saturday, Strangers.

–Mabel

Category: art

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