Dear Sarah - 005

From the sublime to the ridiculous...

(Just joining us? These letters chronicle our full year of daily drawings and accompanying correspondence/conversation. Learn more about Sarah Harvey here. More info about me can be found here.)

Dear Sarah - January 5, 2025

Ah, Sarah - you are so right about seeing things differently when we take the time to really look - as when we attempt to draw something. Wise words, too, about getting to where we are going one step (drawing, page written) at a time. We are only a few days into this new project, but I am feeling quite inspired/invigorated/encouraged! So, thank you for being my companion on this journey. I suspect I will hit some doldrums at some point, but having a companion to whom I can grumble seems like a good potential antidote to getting completely stuck and giving up.

I also love your four words - Communicate, Collaborate, Connect and Commit. I might steal them.

A note on today’s drawing:
This is the gate leading into the Meiji Jingu shrine in Tokyo. The forest surrounding the central shrine is massive - planted about a hundred years ago by thousands of volunteers, you’d think the mature trees had been there forever. As you pass through the gate you have the feeling you are entering into a tunnel of trees that leads directly into the past.

The shrine is a busy (but well-ordered) place at the moment. An estimated 3 million people visit during the first three days of the new year. The shrine expedition was a strange contrast to the visit A. and I paid to a MiPig Café later in the evening where we sat on cushions on the floor and sipped our drinks while young piglets piled into our laps for back scratches.

Dear Nikki - January 5, 2025

And now for something completely different! We go from the serenity of a shrine to the, shall we say, chaos of doing art with kids. I told Kai (turning 5 in two weeks) and Kianna (7 in February) that I would draw whatever they chose for me to draw, and that they could draw along with me. They chose the crafts they did the day before, as you can see in the first photo. Kai chose to play himself at checkers instead of draw (it was like having a two-person play going on beside me--he was simultaneously annoyed with himself for losing and thrilled that he won. Very meta.). Kianna had no interest in drawing her brother's Jack Skellington. I drew both, but forgot Snowy the snow angel's nose altogether and failed to colour in her face. These errors were pointed out to me kindly, as if I was a child. Kianna's Snowy, compared to mine, is lively (and also has thicker hair than the original). Kianna also deviated from the cone-shaped body, while I failed to give any sense of three-dimensionality at all. Jack was much easier to draw, and I received the artist's approval.

Apart from being a lot of fun, I realized that my drawings were much more constrained than the originals, because I was essentially copying, rather than really creating. I got far more satisfaction from drawing four little rocks than I did trying to replicate something that, while theoretically simpler, was created by a child's imagination, joie de vivre (and a shit-ton of pens and pencils). I want to bring those qualities to my work, even when I'm drawing rocks.

I think we should add Challenge and Create to our list of inspiring words. It's pretty funny that they are all C-words! Coincidental?? Hahahaha!

For years I have resisted writing daily pages, even though I know many writers who are absolutely dedicated to that practice. And now daily pages have snuck up on me, through a drawing practice, and I'm loving it. It helps to know that I have a friendly, non-judgmental reader at the other end!