Small Matters
I am typing this from my new studio apartment which is still woefully in disarray despite living here for over three months already. Over that time, though, I’ve done a fair amount of traveling–to both coasts for different comic conventions and several other places in between–and managed to complete a number of commissions. Nonetheless, the smallness of the progress I’ve made in settling into my new space combined with the current uncertainty of the world have led me to feel as though I’m dwelling in an infertile state of creativity.
But small is not weak nor unimportant. Oftentimes small progress is the precise creative seed one needs in order to endure. It’s far easier to smuggle a seed across the wastelands than a mature plant already producing fruit. I wish I could remember this more readily when the wastelands seem to be winning.
Recently, I was reminded of the importance of smallness by my friend and artist, John Airo. He reached out to me over the summer asking if I would be willing to do an exhibition for his gallery and I readily agreed. The only catch was that John’s gallery is small. I mean really small. It sits in the grassy parkway of an Andersonville street and at first glance appears to be a free little library.
Gallery 1619, however, is far more complex than a free little library. It consists of three separate rooms connected by little doorways and complete with small benches and LED lights that allow visitors to view the displayed artwork at any time of day or night through multiple plexiglass windows and skylights. In spite of its diminutive size, John receives requests from around the world from artists wanting to exhibit in his gallery. The exhibitions change every three weeks and are booked several months in advance. All this being said, I was delighted and honoured by John’s request.
Deciding what to create for the show was not such an easy task. I considered various ideas, but from lack of conviction on any of them I was on the verge of defaulting to my standby: drawing pencil sharpeners. However, before starting to work on the sharpeners, I took a walk over to Gallery 1619 early one morning to look at the space again and to properly evaluate the size and layout of the tiny rooms. After critically circling the gallery and taking several photos, I continued my morning walk. Somewhere along my route a different idea occurred to me and I immediately knew it was the right one for the exhibition–my sincere apologies to my sharpeners; may their grudge be brief and mild.
For several years I have periodically drawn some intensely crosshatched and whimsical little monsters which in my head I have casually thought of as “anxiety creatures.” I’ve noticed that these specific drawings serve as a circumnavigational tool for creative block and burnout. Most often, these drawings are loosely inspired by photos I take of interesting splats and stains I see on sidewalks when I’m out walking. I take the rough shape of the splats and sketch them out, add some eyes and then crosshatch my heart out. I don’t have to spend any time overthinking or planning these drawings so they allow me to simply fall into my well-worn routine of hatching while simultaneously creating little creatures that both frighten and amuse me.
After viewing the gallery early that morning, I realized it would be the perfect setting to arrange a number of these tiny creatures. They would be able to interact with one another across the little rooms while also giving the viewer a safe contained space in which to observe them, almost like specimens in a terrarium.
The next week saw me stealing snippets of time from my other tasks in order to create more than twenty new little creatures ranging in size between that of a small postcard and that of a postage stamp. It truly was a release from all the daily deadlines and creative apathy that I have been enmeshed in the past months as I saw this small menagerie of anxiety begin to accumulate around my desk. I found myself a bit disappointed when I realized I had more than enough drawings to fill the gallery and didn’t need to create any more.
When I eventually delivered the creatures to John, he unlocked the padlock on the side of the little gallery and the whole roof opened up on a hinge, allowing me to look down from above on the three separate rooms. It was rather amusing to spend the next hour moving the little drawings around to find the best arrangement before hanging each one in its place. In my former life when I worked for a number of galleries, I did this same process hundreds of times hanging various art shows. However, I can definitely state: it is much easier to arrange and hang an art show, godlike from above.
John closed the roof of the gallery and locked the padlock. Crouching down and looking through the windows for the first time gave me far more excitement than I would have anticipated in seeing this miniature space overrun with my anxieties. I’m deeply grateful to John and for this whole process which has shifted my perspective and brought me some hope, enthusiasm, and creative momentum that I was lacking these past months.
When I announced my tiny art show on social media the other day, and the small reception I will be holding (see below for more details), my friend Anna Hatke (Hearthgods) shared a quote with me by the French philosopher Bachelard that has been stuck in my brain since:
“To have experienced miniature sincerely detaches me from the surrounding world and helps me resist dissolution of the surrounding atmosphere.”
— Gaston Bachelard
There is far too much dissolution in the world right now.
Lean into smallness. Especially when you want to do bigger things.
My tiny art show will be up through October 17th but I am hosting a very small reception on Tuesday, October 7th from 6-7pm if anyone would care to say hello in person.
Cemetery Saturday
My weekly cemetery drawings have been a welcome anchor for me over the past months with my move and all my travels. After moving back into Chicago this summer, I was surprised when I realized I had visited only a quarter of the roughly 20 cemeteries within the city limits. As such, I’ve been making an effort to visit and draw more of the cemeteries within Chicago proper which I haven’t yet visited or drawn. Since that initial realization, I’ve now visited and drawn more than half of those cemeteries and have plans to check off the remaining ones in the coming months. Here are four recent drawings of newly visited Chicago cemeteries.
If you missed it, over the summer I released the fourth Pocket Cemetery which is now available in my shop.
Small Press Expo
This past month once again brought me to Washington D.C. for the Small Press Expo (SPX). I love doing this show and coming to D.C. to explore. While I didn’t stumble upon another art exhibition like the Ralph Steadman show I unexpectedly found last year, I did manage to walk around in the days before SPX started and was able to visit a number of cemeteries I hadn’t been able to see before (stay tuned for future drawings). SPX itself was wonderful and I was delighted to table next to and spend time in the days after the show with my dear friend Ben Hatke and his family. Additionally, I was grateful to be able to connect with new and old friends, all of whom create work I find deeply inspiring (here’s looking at you Danielle Corsetto, Tom Gauld, Ben Wickey, Emi Gennis, Boum, and Gil Roth).
The State of the Whetting Engines
Given how horrified I am at the current state of my desk, I am instead providing an update on my sharpeners, which I am sure you have all been very worried about. Regrettably, the collection is still not fully settled into my new apartment, but I am making small and steady progress and displaying/arranging them in batches of half a dozen or so every day.
This is so wonderful! I turned a little free library kit into a Little Free Print Gallery on our front fence for my tiny etchings and prints by anyone in the Seattle area printmaking community. But it's nowhere near as wonderfully creative as this endeavor. It is still super fun to engage both the printmaking community and my neighborhood in an art gifting economy though. Love your anxiety monsters!
"It’s far easier to smuggle a seed across the wastelands than a mature plant already producing fruit" is such a lovely takeaway. :) This tiny gallery idea is so inspiring and cozy, I wish I had one of my own! It's tempting me to ask around town for an old unwanted dollhouse, so I can give it a makeover (and further procrastinate on my money-making art by making strictly-for-fun art).
Glad I discovered this post (if weeks later) - thanks for tagging me in it and making it easy to find! I feel lucky to have you in my circle of faraway artist friends. :)