a broken heart is so much heavier
When there’s a lot of joy, or a lot of pain, I come back again and again to the paper, the water, the ink. There’s been a lot of both lately. Below there’s new art and some info about Easy Does It, as well as some reflection on a deep grief. Please take care of yourself in honoring what you have the capacity to read.
Algorithm Free Art
Art I’ve shared on social media, free from the feed and straight to you
Learning to *begin* seems to be about 90% of what you need for a life-anchoring creative practice. It’s trickier than it sounds, for me at least: to set aside that to do this, to relax and flow on the edge of what I’ve never done before.
I’ve just launched Easy Does It, a creative learning community for ‘life long beginners’ like me. I made this diagram for January’s Guide called “How to Begin” (you know I have to draw a diagram if I’m going to explain something!).You’re invited. The early bird offer is open through 1/28.
You.
We are so lucky
to have loved you.
Saying goodbye is
incomprehensible.
Rest wild and free.
“A broken heart is so much heavier” 2022in memory of, and with deep love for, our Elliot (1995-2021)
So here I am bouncing around. A different kind of self portrait from yesterday’s I suppose. I know the only way to slow the pinball is
to let it drop,
to rest on the floor,
but who can spend that long in the lava?
This piece is called “The Floor is Grief”The Floor is Grief, 2020
In a time with deep sadness, it’s somehow been the happiest thing to begin Easy Does It, our new art-making community. Everything about it - the writing, production, meeting you all and getting to know each other - has felt natural and energizing.
Aside from the monthly live painting session/chat and the discord where we’re talking as we go, all the content is self-paced. I just added a new piece today with a list of the most practical things I do to make it easy to sit down and begin making marks
The early bird offer is available for the next few days, here’s the invitation if you’d like to come by.
The really tough time began when the “hard time” ended. The happy ending was the beginning. The fairy tale of fairy tales is that the fight, the escape, the changing the world and saving the day leave us intact. The fairy tale is that we can walk out of battle into the sunset and immediately begin to enjoy the view. But who can be present to a sunset (or the ones they love, or anything else really) coming out of big, complicated trauma? In reality, it’s dissociation, panic attacks and depression. It’s disconnect from desire, intimacy, ease.
I have a wonderful life and a hard time feeling it. But even this is slowly changing.
Here is one more portrait of healing.
“The Happy Ending” 2022This new piece the January Patreon print. If you’d like one, join us here before the end of the month.
It’s strange to have made art about how I was feeling and then to live more life and have a new feeling and look back at something past-brit made and feel like, wow, yes, that’s exactly how it feels. It’s like a time traveling gift, and hand squeeze from one of my selves to another.
“Difficult Freedoms,” 2017
Lastly, hi from Elsa. In happy news, we just got her biospy results back and her tumor was benign. She wasn’t anxious about it, but we were. She’s feeling much better after surgery now and is happy to be back to asking why I am painting when I could be feeding her instead.