No. 74 - A Deepening and a Blossoming
Announcing new Feed the Monster content!
Welcome to the latest issue of Feed the Monster, a monthly art journal for the creative and imperfect. Come as you are.
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I received a lovely message from my old friend Kirsten Wright when she became a paid subscriber recently:
The insight you give into your work and life makes me feel so much less alone in the world, even when I'm alone in my house being a gremlin and wishing I was making art more. Thank you for being a real person out loud. Love you BA xo .
Should this be my first tattoo? It means pretty much everything. If sharing my struggles and observations can make someone feel less alone in the world, then HERE I AM!
I don’t know how this will sound, but here goes: I used to feel like I wasn’t “doing anything for the world”, but I had no easy answer for how to fix that. I’m not an activist. I loathe talking about politics. I don’t volunteer my time at the local shelter. I’m not a joiner. I’m a bit of an introvert (depending on the day) and I’m quite content to spend long hours working or creating or reading alone. I’m definitely not out there changing the world.
When I started writing Feed the Monster, the comment I heard most often from readers was that they felt comforted, or “seen”, or less alone. Being open about not always getting it right seemed to give people solace. Though it’s not much, I started to feel like maybe this was the thing I could give to the world.
It sounds strange to say, like what I write and post is such a gift, LOL. It’s not that. It’s more that everyone, in a perfect world, would be unafraid to show their vulnerability. I don’t need to tell you that we’re pretty far from that world. If I can be a tiny cog helping to turn the needle of the compass (yes—I’m mixing my metaphors really hard), then hallelujah.
I’ve been inching ever closer to expanding Feed the Monster, though it’s taken me a while to figure out what I wanted that to look like/feel like. I realized the other day that it’s not so much a change in direction I’m making as it is a deepening and a blossoming. I don’t want to change it; I want to make it moreso. That’s my hope, at least.
I want to make Feed the Monster my art project. Or maybe it’s more that I want to make my life my art project. Or make Feed the Monster my life. It’s unclear.
One thing I do know is that I want it to feel good… to me! When I worked on my Life’s Work: A Visual Memoir project for two years, I broke through to a state of flow that I’d never reached before. At a certain point I let go of all concerns of
is the art good enough?
what will other people think?
how will it come across?
Is it the right thing?
and simply allowed the art itself to dictate what should happen next. In letting go of those concerns, I think I made the best art to that point in my life. Even if the drawing wasn’t always “technically perfect”, or whatever the hell I thought it should be.
I want to find that sweet spot with Feed the Monster. I want it to flow, and be fun, and feed me as much as I feed it. To that end I’m going to start doing more of it in ink, as I did in January:
Drawing the letters in ink is…. drawing. According to Lynda Barry, any writing is drawing. But particularly when done with brush and ink, it really slows me down. It’s like my mind has time to process what’s being written in real time, if that makes any sense. When you’re typing on the keyboard it’s all flying out too fast. I realize that’s the point of keyboards.
ALSO.
During the course of my brainstorming about how to proceed, I had a eureka moment. It occurred to me that I should do a mind map for Feed the Monster to help me try and get some clarity. I made it BIG—wall size in fact, approximately seven feet tall. Drawn with brush and ink of course. It was the perfect thing to do to help me start conceptualizing what my own brand of divine marriage between art and writing might look like.
Full disclosure: Mind maps are one of the exercises/methods we’ll do in the journaling workshop I’ve been developing since God was a baby (COMING SOOOOOOOOOOON!). Austin Kleon has written about mind maps more than once, but I can honestly say I’ve been doing them for many years and have no idea if I started doing them spontaneously, or what. Here’s a small one in my journal from 1994, when I had a six-month old child and was frustrated on all kinds of fronts:
Simply put, a mind map is a download of what’s on your mind. And because it’s spread out organically across the page, you’ll often see connections you might not have otherwise. I tend to do them when I’m feeling overwhelmed, but they’re great to do anytime. Like any journaling method, on the most basic level it’s simply good to get the things on your mind out of your mind on to the page.
ALSO.
Continuing my exploration of what I want FTM to be, I had a consult with writer extraordinaire Jill Margo of The Creative Good (I know—I’m mentioning her again). Jill is brilliant at listening to someone (me) ping back and forth between ideas, barely making sense… and then somehow both distill what I’ve said and also expand upon it. She always seems to have a thousand resources and ideas at her fingertips for struggling creative types like myself.
The consult helped confirm and crystalize the direction I was moving in, and gave me a clearer vision of how Feed the Monster could become everything I want it to be. Feeding me as I feed it. A creative act. An extension of journal work. An extension of artwork. A voice sent out to the world, to help foster other voices. A place where readers can find inspiration and kinship.
As I wrote on the giant mind map, I feel like I’ve been treading water but I want to start swimming.
AND SO I’D LIKE TO ANNOUNCE THAT…
I’m going to start sending out a weekly missive along with the regular monthly Feed the Monster posts. This weekly post will be called Taking Note, because it’ll be about taking note of your life. Each week I’ll give you something you can write about, or something you can think about, or something you can enact or try or notice in your life. There will be ideas or exercises for journaling. There will be encouragement for following your nose and feeding the monster. It’ll come out on Tuesdays, and the first installment will be on March 5th.
It’ll eventually be for paid subscribers only, but for the time being it’ll be free until I feel confident that I know what I’m doing. Once I have that going, my aim is to finish the journaling workshop and eventually keep expanding, deepening, and blossoming with Feed the Monster. What that’ll entail I don’t exactly know, but I’d love for it to incorporate returning to work on my Life’s Work graphic memoir.
Please PIPE UP and GIVE ME FEEDBACK AS THIS DEVELOPS, I BESEECH YOU.
Thanks!
SOME STUFF:
From Austin Kleon: Joan Baez on Drawing
If you want to smile, rock out, and cry at the same time: Prince and the Revolution playing at First Avenue in 1983 😭😭😭
“All artists well know . . . that the more entirely they yield themselves to intuition, subduing the self-hood, the more perfect becomes their work” - unnamed artist from the above article, 1871
Previous posts you might like:
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Listen to my interview with Sheryl MacKay on CBC’s NxNW here (starts ten minutes in). It’s all about Life’s Work: A Visual Memoir, an art exhibit about my mother’s Lewy Body dementia and my relationship with her
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You are changing the world BA.
Kindness, depth, reflection, pain, humour, fierceness, determination, grief, creativity; all of these aspects of you ripple out...you may not always know where they settle, but you being you means the world is a truer, funnier, richer place, and that is important.
Yes!! In your mind map you said you want people to feel buoyed by your writing, consider that done! As your friend said beautifully, thank you for being a real person out loud!