My first postcard of the series was for Karen, a dear friend I met while studying abroad in Mongolia many years ago. I painted her a watercolor scene of the living room at our Airbnb in Cleveland, Ohio
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This week: a collection of things from my cross country road trip! Rock and roll posters, vintage posters from the National Park Service, the biggest log hotel in the world, an illustrated book on horticulture, and photographs of the Pacific Northwest.
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I wrote a personal piece about feeling like a fool while learning to dance, perfectionist tendencies, and being overly apologetic as a creative person. And some wise words that helped me with my creative confidence.
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This week, I was inspired by tons of picture books! Surrealist illustrations from Shaun Tan, pencil sketches from Winnie-the-Pooh, ink drawings from Russian fairytales. Then there's Green Fingers and a delightful cover of Destiny Child's Say My Name. Inspiration Log is my weekly collection of 5 things that have inspired me creatively.
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When you’re working for yourself, the hardest part isn’t doing the work; the hardest part is juggling all the little things surrounding it. In this post, I’ll share how I compartmentalize, juggle, and manage all the different types of tasks I do as a one-person operation.
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This week: some mountain photographs I love, Hope Gangloff's gritty portraits, a quote from Rainer Maria Rilke, a very sensual logotype, and one more electronica song. Inspiration log is my weekly collection of 5 things that have touched me creatively.
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How dissecting the anatomy of a creative project can help you bring it to life. Questions to ask yourself: What is essential to its existence as a self-sustaining thing? What does it need in order to go out into the world and connect with other people?
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This week: Marc Johns's playful, funny drawings, The 100 Day Project, photography of a mail order sex doll by June Korea, The Time Well Spent movement, and a poem from Don Paterson. Inspiration log is my weekly collection of 5 things that have touched me creatively.
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Why and how I strived to break the wake up-check phone impulse, and created more mindful, focused mornings. This rule has made the biggest difference in my productivity and wellbeing.
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This week: analog data postcards, minimalist hand-lettering, Big Magic by Elizabeth Gilbert, Degas at MoMa, and a beautiful clock. Inspiration log is my weekly collection of 5 things that have touched me creatively.
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When I first started doing creative projects, I would often get sucked into this corrosive cycle— grandiosity, inertia, guilt— and eventually become paralyzed. In this post, I write about how the paralysis happens, why it happens, and some strategies I've used to overcome it.
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This week: a romantic image from a 1950 film, intricate hand lettering from Tanamachi Studios, Sunday morning figure studies, an all-female production of the Taming of the Shrew, and some indie music I loved in high school. Inspiration Log is a weekly collection of 5 things that have touched me creatively.
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This week in Inspiration Logs: a Parisian illustration and design studio, drawings of grief from Anders Nilson, Alvin Ailey, a weekend exploring color theory, and a song from The Beach. Inspiration Log is my weekly collection of 5 things that's touched me creatively.
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When you’re driven and ambitious, the natural thing to do is to set really high standards, and be hard on yourself until you reach them. Growing up, I dreaded — then learned to love — unsmiling, disciplinarian Chinese or Russian-style teachers. The standard was perfection. Good work wasn’t to be rewarded, it was to be expected!
But since graduation, getting a 9-5 job, quitting my 9-5 job, starting a business, and growing into myself as a full-time creative, I’ve changed my mind about the way I frame hard work and expectations.
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As a creative, it’s at first hard to think about (let alone talk about) the idea of building your “personal brand” without feeling like you’re full of bogus. It has something to do with a fear of conveying an inflated sense of self-importance, only to have someone tell you hey, you’re not as good / interesting / talented / cool as you think you are.
Doing the work is already hard enough, without the pressure of needing to constantly prove and promote yourself. While creative work originates from a deep place, the idea of conveying a “personal brand” comes off as superficial, salesy, and pushy. But it doesn’t have to.
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This week's inspiration logs include The Ones We Love, a photography collection exploring human connection, passages from The Prophet by Kahlil Gibran, art-deco street typography, and Max Richter's Vivaldi Recomposed. Inspiration Log is my weekly collection of 5 things that's thrilled me creatively.
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This past spring, I took a Typography class at SVA with Jason Heuer, who was previously an art director at Simon and Schuster. I must have finally recovered from the depleting experience that was college, cause I took notes like a madmen, and felt hungry enough to absorb all the knowledge and actually put it into practice.
In this post, I’ve gone through my scribbles to synthesize everything I learned from the class. The vast majority of these words of wisdom are from Jason Heuer. Thank you, Jason.
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Inspiration Log is my weekly collection of 5 things that's thrilled me creatively.
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On days when I’m feeling overwhelmed or derailed by unexpected events, I feel this incredible urge to vegetate. As in: chuck my to do lists out the window and just binge-watch Netflix and eat fruit snacks. Instead, I’ve learned to quiet the all-or-nothing voices in my head, and settle for a little less.
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Ettie is one of my close creative friends from college, and an amazing songwriter, musician, and artist. We met during the first few weeks of freshmen year, when our dorm was on the subway going to an event in downtown Manhattan. Everyone else was chirping, small-talking away, but she was standing there by herself, reading a book of e.e. cummings poetry. And that's when I fell in love.
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