If January was a long, slow, meandering month—a stretch of slick-iced winter where thoughts can slide but not stick—February is more a wintery mix with bits of wakeful thaw, punctuated by freezing reminders that there is potency in dormancy.
It’s not the time for sweeping gestures or bold declarations, but it is the time for steeping our ideas, letting them infuse our bundled steps forward as we inch towards spring.
There’s a playfulness to February; here I meander—I mosey. I find that I can still explore within the confines of a single sketchbook page (the verso left blank, evidence of seeping ink from the day before visible), the work of a few moments rather than hours of studio time.
I love to be in conversation as I create—it’s the through line in everything I do. And maybe sometimes that’s surrounding myself by venerated works of art lining museum walls, or reveling in the writings of some scholar or philosopher—but it’s often more mundane or simple.
In college, my roommates and I loved to put on a movie we knew well enough we could follow it as we listened and our eyes were trained on the art we were creating— the room full of our laughter, snack crumbs, scattered art supplies. There were stages in the process when we retreated to our studios on the fourth floor or our bedrooms when we needed to get still or quiet. But those times in community are precious, and I can call them up when I thumb through old work made during those times.
When it comes to my creative practice, conversation is most often just internal response. I’ll put on an art class or hang out with other artists on Zoom not so much to directly follow a tutorial, but to be in good company and to stir up my own thoughts. Conversation is the marks on the page, the evidence of a thought’s echo, of good words or ideas to savor.
While completing some admin tasks last week, I put on Tom Froese’s Thoughts on Illustration. In his episode “How to Love Your Work Again” he talks about the painful questioning we often go through when our work is so intertwined with our identity, and he found that recognizing what no longer resonated in his work also settled something in him. He reminds listeners to “reconnect with uncertainty in your creative process,” and I’m finding that uncertainty is actually part of the playfulness I’m enjoying right now.
In this season meandering means I don’t set a focus when I sit down to draw. I find it through doing.
I am not even setting big blocks of time for my creative practice; I’m finding it in the margins of a quick break from work, in the dim light as I put my computer to sleep for the day and tidy my desk, in the cozy corner of the couch as my daughter and I watch an episode of Anne with an E.
This moseying often feels lazy—lots of possibilities arise as you sketch on a page, there is always more you can do or try. But a small, single page or a time constraint also reveals what is most natural, and areas to lean into more intentionally when we are closer to spring.
May you mosey in small moments today.
Cheers,
Nikkita
P.S. My winter in conversation is often given light and color as I join in on Bonnie Christine’s free workshop: The Art of Business. If you’re curious about surface pattern design, art licensing, and building an art business I invite you to join me! The workshop started yesterday, but I’m joining in a little belatedly and so can you.
As an alumni of Bonnie’s course Surface Design Immersion, and someone who works alongside Bonnie as her program manager, I’m also a proud affiliate partner. :)
