Drawing Conclusions

Good morning team. Hope everyones having a good Friday so far. Below we're discussing dinner options and the importance of doodling for funsies. Enjoy!

What's For Dinner

Chilly weather and flu season means I have been on a soup kick. Highly, highly recommend this gochujang tomato soup - 'twas a huge hit in our sick household last week.

Ramen also stays in rotash. I just kinda go for it every time I make this, it is by no means traditional nor does it even really qualify as ramen by technical standards I'm sure. Lmk if y'all have actual real recipes that you follow and like.

Art!

In the past two weeks, I've spent kind of a non trivial amount of time making art. Last weekend, I went to a class at MassArt called "Creativity as a Habit". I was gifted this class for my birthday and it was pitched as a class to introduce you to different techniques and exercises so that you can incorporate more art and creativity into your daily life. I thought we were going to have access to a MassArt studio and a ton of supplies and were just gonna kinda go ham.

Oh how wrong I was.

The teacher, a woman in her 50s from Belarus named Katya, started class at 10am on Saturday telling us about her divorce.

Katya's point in talking about her divorce was that she felt in that moment that her life was over, but in fact it was she needed to jumpstart her art career. She only started creating comic strips and painting as a way to cope with her life then but it was those comics and paintings that were published in the Boston Globe and picked up by galleries, et cetera, et cetera.

The other 10 people in this class were mostly women, mostly in their 40s and 50s with a few retirees, and mostly mothers. When Miss Katya asked everyone to go around the circle and share the things that were blocking your ability to be creative everyday, be it physical or emotional or mental barriers, these people were thrilled to jump straight into group therapy.

Two equally terrifying stories emerged from the group share, both common amongst our ranks:

1. Some folks were working artists or at least considered themselves highly creative, and then they had children. Since having their kids, they've had to put their passions to the wayside and felt like their entire identity has boiled down to just "mom" and doing anything for themselves brought intense feelings of shame and guilt.
2. Some other folks loved art class as kids and loved going to museums and so on, but then committed full tilt to their very demanding career. They spent their entire working adulthood grinding away and telling themselves that once they got to retirement, they'd get to do the creative pursuit they'd always wanted to. And now that they're retired and have all the time in the world to spend on their art or music or quilting project, they don't feel they know how to tap back into their creativity and so just avoid it altogether.

Now, this was a more sobering Saturday morning than I was really anticipating. Was not really thinking I'd be considering the darker facets of motherhood on my weekend. But, our Soviet pal Katya was unfazed by these lamentations.

To get a full understanding of what came next, I need you to imagine a thick Eastern European accent. Think Connor Storrie as Ilya Rozanov, Constantine from Muppet's Most Wanted, Lady Gaga in House of Gucci. Honestly, if you're familiar with the work of drag queen Katya Zamolodchikova, you can just input her full character into the scene.

As people were getting very real and honest with a whole room of strangers, Katya would interrupt to drop truth nukes like...

Class attendee: "I feel that spending time doing an activity that's only enjoyable for me hurts my kids."

Katya: "Does your husband feel that way?"

and...

Class attendee: "I feel like the stuff I would make isn't worth wasting paper on so materials just sit in a box and collect dust."

Katya: "You Americans are so self centered. No one cares what you make. If the paper does not get used, it will get thrown out when your kids clean out your house anyway."

I think the brutal honesty really worked for this crowd. I think everyone was just a tad too in their feelings about things and having a Belarussian woman tell it like it is really snapped some folks out of their funk.

Ultimately I did get some takeaways from this workshop, though not ones I was at all expecting from a class about creativity.

1. I learned that maintaining hobbies and a sense of self is imperative to being a good parent.
2. Group therapy can be a useful tool.
3. Get out of your own head about wanting to do something and do it. If you can't, a Slavic comrade will yell at you about it at 10am on a Sunday.

In the same vein, I went to several figure drawing events with Life Drawing Boston in Somerville this week. Lmk if anyone ever wants to come with. It's very chill. Also, NSFW warning.

TTYL

recs recs recs

a song i'm loving:

• Sledgehammer by Peter Gabriel

a movie i watched:

• Humanist Vampire Seeking Consenting Suicidal Person (2023) - this movie rocked. Highlights were:
  • Tight 90 minutes
  • Charming characters
  • Poutine

a book i'm reading:

• Hide by Kiersten White

Until Next Time!

P.S.

The Oracle has left us a message for the New Year. I think it has something to do with the Patriots but I'm taking it as an omen of productivity and employment.