I just finished reading Beth Pickens’s new book Make Your Art No Matter What. In it, she suggests using warm-up drawings as a way to ease into daily creative practice. This month I began a residency for a writing project, but I’ve made a promise to myself to do a sketch every day. It’s been wonderful to regularly engage in a looking and creating outside of text.
On The Marginalian, Maria Popova collected 200 years of reflections on time. The reflections consider the instant and the eternal, the fleeting present, and the folding or doubling of time in experience. Etel Adnan, at 95 years old, wrote: “Today I see eternity everywhere. I had yesterday an empty glass of champagne on the table, and it looked both infinite and eternal.”
Happy belated birthday to bisexual icon Jonathan the tortoise, who turned 190 years old (an estimate) on December 4th.
I recently watched poet Nicole Sealey give a craft talk on what makes Brigit Pegeen Kelly’s “Song” a poem that most poets agree is nearly perfect. (The answer: a lot.) Sealey said, “‘Song’ not only speaks to the unanswerable, but also to the unaskable.”
Physicists created “the crummiest, smallest wormhole you can image.” A quantum computing expert at UT Austin said of the simulated baby wormhole, “If this experiment has brought a wormhole into actual physical existence, then a strong case could be made that you, too, bring a wormhole into actual physical existence every time you sketch one with pen and paper.” Good prompt.
The US Department of Energy announced fusion ignition has been achieved. Ignition means that the reaction created more energy than was required to ignite the reaction. Fusion is a potentially limitless clean energy source, but as an article in nature explains, we’re still a long ways from harnessing fusion for electricity production.
I recently read Sabrina Imbler’s gorgeous and moving essay “My Metamorphosis,” about caterpillars and the process of molting, and I can’t recommend it enough.
“It’s idyllic to think that all transitions could be this easy: one form sliding cleanly into another, implying a kind of progression. What could be more aspirational than wings? But molting is no easy feat. A transforming insect cannot eat. Sometimes it cannot move.”
Thanks for reading, and thank you so much to everyone who signed up last week.
Kate
I am so glad to know you are drawing again. I always enjoyed your visual artwork as well as your writing. Along those lines, I really should learn how to do warm up writing exercises. If you have any suggestions, I'd gladly take them.
Take care with this upcoming storm.