Hello and welcome to my new newsletter! We all have too many emails, so if you’re reading this I really appreciate it. The new year has come and gone and I’m late in sending this (late for what? Who even cares?).
1.
Here are two real-life portraits of me:
Here’s a real-life portrait of my five year-old:
2.
One of my favorite and oldest projects is this print-at-home multiple choice diary, which has been revised a few times. My latest iteration is a “postpartum edition” (which, if I were to really make it work would include several notes about drinking water) (It’s also a calling card for my side-gig doula work). You can print one here and I think it’s useful in other contexts besides the postpartum haze.
3.
I’m in the first term of a year-long anatomy and physiology class at community college and holy smokes it’s a lot of interesting material. I never thought of myself as a science person, and I still don’t, but I do have a new appreciation for how interrelated art and science are. They are both about spacial arrangements, basically. The material world. History, ethics, bodies, changing attitudes about truth and matter. The way I’ve been learning the material is do draw it, simplify it, and make tiny flash cards. My Gen Z classmates make fun of me and my old millennial luddite ways. But the slowness of drawing is the point; it cements memory. I would like to be a scientific illustrator one day, or maybe a postpartum nurse.
4.
And, because I learned last time that repetition and marketing is important, here I will shamelessly link to where you can preorder my book that’s coming out in April. (Do I know any “influencers” who might want to “mention” it? Please advise).
5.
Lastly, I recommend this book to everyone: Talk to My Back by Yamada Murasaki. It’s about domestic life and mothering in Japan in the early 80s and every page feels important, and the drawings are simple and beautiful. Again going back to real-world pen and paper. There is an unnamable quality that’s just so nice, do you agree?
This was way longer than I thought it would be. The next one won’t have so many words in it. Thank you for reading! Keep in touch!
Mia