Hey my demon 👋
Welcome to the edition #30 of the Art Missive! We are 4,135 😈 in this newsletter. (Yay! We’ve reached 4000 tribe members! It’s crazy). Whether you have been here from the beginning or you have just arrived, thank you so much for reading ❤.
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In this Art Missive
⌛ Reading time : 10 minutes
💪 Goals:
Connect with other artists
Get inspired
Stay motivated
Ready to cry?
This is episode 2 of "An Evening by the Fire." In this Missive, you'll discover the unique and inspiring stories of some members of our artist tribe.
Participants answered this question “how art has changed your life?”.
And I can tell you this, each of these stories will move you in their own way.
Ready?
…
So, switch off the lights, find a comfy chair, or settle into your cozy bed.
Take a deep breath…
And exhale...
As you breathe softly, you'll be transported to a charming forest on a summer day.
It's dark, but the big fire illuminates the surroundings.
You are surrounded by other people, artists like you. They all may look different, but they all have smiles on their faces as they welcome you.
You can feel a warm atmosphere, see joyful and kind glances, and hear the sound of crickets singing throughout this summer evening.
Welcome to an Evening by the Fire.
Tonight, you will spend some time discovering other people's stories. These stories will make you laugh or cry, but all of them will teach you useful lessons about art, but most importantly about life.
And maybe, next time, you'll share your own story.
Story 1 - An extraordinary women.
😈Benjamin, @tiny94fr
Today, I wanted to tell you about an extraordinary woman!
She has been a hairdresser for over 30 years. She has always loved her job, never counting her hours. She is a true hard worker.
She was married to a military man and followed him with each relocation, even to regions she didn't like. They loved each other, and being together was all that mattered.
They had 2 sons together, and even though they didn't have a lot of money, they provided them with a happy childhood and a good education.
They bought a small house together and got a dog, a German Shepherd. They were happy and had plenty of projects.
A little over a year later, she learned that her husband was sick. The shock of this news was so severe that she developed an allergy to hair products. She could no longer continue working in that profession.
For over a year, she took care of her husband and raised their youngest child, and her husband passed away.
She decided to start a new career, sold the house, and bought a shop near her eldest son.
She would wake up at 6 a.m. to prepare everything before opening and sometimes stay until 8 p.m.
One day, she injured herself by falling just before going to bed because she was so tired. Her femur was broken. She almost lost everything and underwent rehabilitation for several months. She never gave up.
She was robbed at gunpoint over twenty times. She always stood her ground.
She worked in that shop for 15 years.
She retired, and she had always wanted to draw. She wished she could share that with her husband. He also loved it.
The beginnings were tough, but she persevered. Every day, she worked on her technique, did exercises, and had numerous projects in mind.
She drew, she painted, and she even had the opportunity to exhibit several times in the premises where she took classes. It made her proud!
She learned a little over a year ago that she had cancer and couldn't undergo surgery. She underwent heavy treatments that exhausted her immensely. But you know what? She never stopped drawing.
Despite the pain, the cramps, she never gave up.
Despite all the hardships that happened to her, you never see her complain. Every time, she picked herself up and kept moving forward; kept drawing.
I'm writing these lines while she's resting in her hospital bed. When she wakes up, she'll ask me for her many pencils and erasers. And we'll draw together.
This woman is my mom.
Story 2 - When you can't find your place in this world...
Cosmo, @cosmolucent
I've always longed to know why I was born. Struggling my whole existence with this feeling, that you just can't find your place on earth, and therefore life has no taste.
When you grow up, everybody asks you what you want to become, what you want to do with your life. I've been scolded a couple of times for nonchalantly answering, "I don't know, I just want to be happy." But that was the very truth! I just felt hopeless, as it felt so unattainable to me while other people my age already had their future path traced before them (or just didn't care about it).
I've spent years wandering quite literally like a ghost, with no goal nor motivation to even exist. The only thing that made sense was art. But with no money to get into school and knowing how "artist is not a real job," I didn't want to consider it a real thing. Although every time I tried to have other passions, I would get bored after a couple of months. I spent my years of high school daydreaming or drawing in class because I was slowly losing interest in everything else. Then I did the same when I started working, piling up tasteless jobs to avoid stacking bills.
But a few years ago during yet another art block, things changed. I was feeling very down that day, quite upset with art because I couldn't get anywhere with it. I hadn't finished a single drawing in months, and I was kind of forcing myself to draw without any glimpse of hope to succeed. My discovery playlist was playing random unknown and niche songs in the background, and I was carelessly scrolling through that good old Pinterest to find inspiration. And suddenly, some music notes caught my attention. A song I didn't know had just started playing, and it instantly tickled something in my brain. I started drawing, and after a few hours of that song in repeat, I came up with a scene displaying a new character freshly born in my mind. I looked at it, and something screamed inside me that I had to do more with that character. So I started writing to give her a story.
It's been five years now, and my story will soon be all set to be read by a public.
But while I was writing all those years, growing love for my newborn characters, laughing and crying with them, I realized: this is what I want to do with my life. This is what I want my role on Earth to be. I want to make people feel just as much as I feel and love just as much as I love, I want to make them happy and sad, I want to make them feel like humans. And I want to do this with my art.
I exist to make people travel in their own hearts because there's nothing in my life that made me travel more than art, and I love that feeling.
Story 3 - Art has given me a wonderful gift.
😈Meara, @coolbugdoodles
The summer before my first semester of college, I found myself sitting at my grandmother’s dining room table late in the evening. I would have to go to bed in about fifteen minutes if I wanted to wake up early enough to beat the July heat. About one month ago, I completed a gap year serving with AmeriCorps where I worked 50 hours per week in a public school. Before that, I spent nearly all of my time during high school trying to maintain perfect grades and get into the “best” colleges. Breaks had been a time of overwhelm and exhaustion where I was always working on some new project or studying ahead to prepare for another semester of challenging classes.
On this break, things were different. After my college advisor told me this could be my last free summer ever, I decided to prioritize being present with my family. Even though I had a few tasks to attend to, I had already gone on several mini trips to local places I loved, cooked plenty of delicious meals, and spent many hours outside gardening. Although I had visited my grandparents’ house many times growing up, this was the first time I made a conscious effort to appreciate it.
This evening I faced a common conundrum. I wanted to make an observational sketch, but I felt uninspired by everything around me. Sketching objects from life has always been one of the most accessible and effective ways for me to practice my drawing, but I couldn’t seem to find a single object to draw despite being in a room full of objects. This is why I’ve heard many peers complain about this style of drawing. Who would want to spend all their time staring at something as mundane as a mug or a piece of stationary when they could be starting all kinds of exciting projects?
Wanting a distraction from the task at hand, I started to look back at some of the previous drawings in my sketchbook. I quickly recognized the bedroom in my old apartment, the back porch of my childhood home, a little duck-shaped keychain from one of my favorite stores, plants from a gorgeous hiking trail, and a photo of a building hanging on the wall of a hotel room in Memphis, Tennessee. I didn’t think much of them at the time, but these sketches were now like little pieces of my memory. When I recognized each drawing, I also remembered what I was thinking and doing when I created it. I rediscovered the excitement and uncertainty of moving to a new place, my love for odd shops and trinkets, and the joy of exploring a fascinating city.
I’m often plagued by the feeling of time scarcity. It seems like everything in my life is passing by too quickly, and I worry that I don’t form meaningful memories of significant events. As birthdays come and I move on from schools and jobs, nothing ever feels fully complete. However, when I take time to record the mundane aspects of my day, over time they transform into portals to completely different stages of my life. I can remember important experiences and insights I’ve had and truly reflect on where I’ve come since then.
Bringing my awareness back to the dining room, I realized that this was a time from my life that I wanted to remember too. Even though it seemed like this was a normal evening in a familiar place, my days here were limited. As I prepared to start a new chapter of my life, I didn’t know when or if I would get another chance to spend an extended period of time in this place with these people. One day this would also become a far-off piece of my past. Although I didn’t want my life to stay like this forever, I wanted to fondly remember the sense of peace I found here.
Once I focused on the feelings and elements of my life that I wanted to capture with this drawing rather than the end result, my mind became unstuck. I put my pencil to the paper and began to draw something that was from my most detailed work. It ended up being an unfinished sketch of the back of a dining room chair. To anyone else, this may be indistinguishable from all of my other incomplete work. However, when I see this drawing, I will always remember the sentiment that inspired me to create it.
Although I often struggle to find time to create art during the busier periods of my life, I will always return to my sketchbook no matter how many breaks I have to take or how daunting it feels.
Art has given me a wonderful gift.
By being able to connect with my everyday world on such a deep level, I have an incredible way to document my life. I could try to hold onto my experiences from behind a screen, painstakingly capturing photos and videos of every passing moment I think might be meaningful. However, this will never capture the true emotion and passion of these moments. Drawing is what gives me the unique ability to simultaneously record and connect with my world. This is how art has been shaping my life for years, one moment at a time.
Next week
I hope you enjoyed this event! Let me know if you want me to host a new “Evening by the Fire” in a few weeks.
Next week, it's the monthly FAQ! Like every last Monday of the month, I'll be answering your questions.
If you have any questions about art, social media for artists, and running an art business, click here 👉 Ask me your questions
And that's it for now, see you next Monday!