Start where you are

Sometimes it's not about inspiration or a lack of discipline. It's about patience and your own timeline.

Mar 04, 2026

Something is happening to me this year. Something I’ve been chasing, ruminating on, and writing about, endlessly. Not quite a breakthrough, but a tonal shift—and any sort of movement in a sludge of stagnation instantly turns into a beam of light.

I think I’ve finally begun to emerge from a long stretch of inertia that’s kept my creativity in a chokehold for years. And it’s not just because I’m making art with any sort of regularity now—that has always ebbed and flowed—but the change lies in a mindset shift.

It’s also this quote right here:

The object of art is not to make salable pictures. It is to save yourself....
The thing of course, is to make yourself alive. Most people remain all of their lives in a stupor. The point of being an artist is that you may live...
— Sherwood Anderson

It is to save yourself.
I really needed to save myself.

I had a terrible December. Anxiety through the roof that manifested into illness by Christmas. It was as if my body was revolting against the intrusion of negativity and trying to expel the demons by reminding me just how treacherous that line can be when you live with a chronic condition. I hate how temperamental this illness is.1 I wanted to scream, I GAVE UP COFFEE AND CITRUS FOR YOU, WHAT MORE DO YOU WANT??

I turned to drawing as a way to calm my nerves. It helped immensely. I didn’t stop drawing when the cycle of terrible news hit earlier this year (and let’s be clear, every week is a dumpster fire of breaking news that tests our capacity to hold all of it in). I approached art like an intervention to cut through the exhaustive workings of my overactive mind. I tried to be fully present in that moment when charcoal hits paper, when a brush dipped in water emulsifies pigment.

The French philosopher Simone Weil described attention as “the rarest and purest form of generosity.” It might be the single most radical gesture in a modern life engineered for hyperconsumption, frictionless desire, and immediate gratification. In a culture that rewards acceleration, sustained attention disrupts the system.

It is the artist’s job to pause and capture a singular moment that might go unnoticed by others, whether with words, a gesture, a camera, a melody, or a brush stroke.

It is also an artist’s job to metabolize experience. It does not solve all the suffering in the world, but it renders it legible so we can recognize it, process it, and reclaim our agency from it.

In January, I posted that I opened up a new sketch book and challenged myself with something new: urban sketching. A style that I’d never tried before, in a medium I rarely use and finally, with color. It helped engage my brain in a way I wasn’t used to.

For years I avoided color. The excuse was this: that I wanted to focus on line and form without any other distractions. While this is true, it’s also true that I was avoiding it out of intimidation and also laziness. I’ve always thought that my artistic growth stalled since art school. I think of it like arrested development. Talent is not a substitute for practice; you’ll never evolve if you don’t exercise that muscle, and I didn’t for a long time. And so I realized last year, that the reason I was stagnant is because I kept returning to the same familiar way of drawing over and over.

It is so painfully obvious that the way to shake yourself out of stagnation is to confront what’s holding you there, but inertia has a way of obscuring clarity, especially when art can be both a refuge and a confrontation of all your self doubts.

Urban sketches of cafes — Sketches of cafes: left, Brooklyn; right, Seoul.

a snowy brownstone scene — All the snow this winter made its way into a painting.

Have you ever cooked a feast or even just an ordinary meal and then was not hungry enough to eat because you’d been around food all day? Like you inhaled it through osmosis by proximity? It’s similar to when you’re hosting a party and realize by the end that you were too busy running around to eat. I filled my time with illusions of progress. Reading about making art, going to see art, watching videos of other people make art. Hoarding supplies and taking periodic inventory. Accomplices to procrastination. These are all ploys to trick yourself into an illusion of productivity because it feeds your starving soul with just enough crumbs.

But here’s the thing: I’m not the same person I was 20, 30, or even 10 years ago. I’m not even the same person I was pre-Covid. My guess is that you aren’t either. My burned out, middle-aged menopausal self, with my sometimes foggy memory and a physical body that can’t keep up as quickly anymore has been sending signals that I need to start from where I am now, not where I want or think I should be.

So instead of waiting for inspiration or an epiphany that never came, the shift emerges from patience and attention.

This process of change has been slow, and that too was the root of my frustration. But the willingness to sit and work through a challenge is to prove to myself that I can push through. And now, all I think about is what I want to make and draw. An everyday desire to create. It comes from repetition, practice, and patience. So obvious, I know, but this change only came when I was ready to do the actual work.

My perfectionist tendencies do not go away overnight, of course. Why are my drawings still so controlled? Am I making art or is this illustration? What exactly is my style?

I look at other artists’ work and marvel at their ability to be expressive, just loose lines and so much pulsating energy. I want to paint like them. I am still self critical, but this time I use it as motivation. I go into my drawers and open boxes of supplies that I’ve hoarded for years. The nib pens that I’ve had since college. The tubes of paint that are as old as my kids. I try other mediums that force less precision. I don’t hesitant anymore to do a master study by reproducing another artist’s work to learn from the process. Just play, but do it consistently.

soft pastel sketch — Found this entire pastel chalk set on the sidewalk in my neighborhood a few years ago. Lol, I don’t know if this is my medium though. Very messy and kinda hard to control.

oil pastel sketch — Master studies is a valid way to learn, as long as it’s for personal use and you credit the artist. On the left is a quick sketch of a work by Manu De May in oil pastels, which I think I like working with better.

My art right now is still very much observational. It’s not that I even think that my final form as an artist lies in these sketches and studies. I have loftier ambitions of what I hope to make someday, but until I’m ready for the next leap, I’m having fun. Sharing some of my art feels ok now too. I have gotten so much joy and inspiration from discovering other artists, and seeing their work in my feed—an intentional fine-tune of my algorithm—made me want to join in on the fun.

But I am still trying to figure out what I want to say. I struggled with this too in art school—all technique, but little substance. What do I have to say as an artist? As a human? When I struggled back then to come up with a purpose, I quit. I’m picking up the same thread that I let fall all those years ago, but as my much changed, older self. What do I want this creative life to look like?

I posted this meme on notes the other day.

It feels really good to be on the other side of burnt out disappointment and be that old weirdo with a home studio (aka my couch and my desk).

Go be the weirdo making art. I’m cheering you on.

Weekly links of interest

To read:

Of Ice and Men. And Frogs. And Cats. And Minions. As the blizzard surged, a garden of snow sculptures arose in a Brooklyn park — a testament to New York creativity. (NYTimes gifted link)
Never mind the nasty, dirty snow piles (it really has been gross, but it’s finally all melting). These snow sculptures around the city made the snow a little more tolerable and alot more fun.
Pamela Anderson: “I Don’t Have to Please Anybody Else. That’s Real Freedom” (Another Mag)
I’m still smitten by Pamela Anderson’s arc, and her farm life in Vancouver Island, one of my favorite places on earth, is like a dream.
The women of “Pretty in Pink” deserved better (Salon)
Pretty in Pink is probably my favorite John Hughes movie, even more than The Breakfast Club (although Andi’s prom dress is still and forever will be hideous). It just felt so accurate to the time? And THE prom (Andi, I can’t say “prom” without “the”) reminded me of my own. I once watched the movie with the kids when they were like 10, and called it a documentary of the 80s, haha.
The Mayor’s Mother What Mira Nair taught Zohran Mamdani (Vulture)
When I learned last year that Mamdani’s mother was Mira Nair, I literally squealed. I was a big fan of her films and could only imagine how a mayor who was raised by an artist could (hopefully) impact the city’s art scene.
"Art can't just be a luxury for the few. That requires a city where artists can actually afford their rent, groceries, childcare and transit." -Zohran Mamdani
When Artists Lose Their Archives (Hyperallergic)
Something to consider. I remember reading news about a big fire that tore through an iconic artist studio building in Red Hook, Brooklyn. Some of the artists lost their entire life’s work. It’s hard to imagine.
We Tested ‘Snow Washing,’ the Internet’s Latest Clothes-Cleaning Obsession (Wirecutter)
Not that I want more snow (really, I don’t AT ALL), but I am so curious about this! Also probably hard to do in NYC unless I hauled a bag of sweaters out to Prospect Park right after a snowstorm, hmm…

An exhibition worth seeing if you’re in NYC:

Michael Heizer: Negative Sculpture (Gagosian 522 West 21st)
An amazing feat to raise the floor of an entire gallery like this. This was lyrical to walk through and technically impressive. Read more about it here.