Before we dive in to this month’s issue: Thank you for all your orders for my illustrated newspapers! It’s been such a treat to mail this physical thing to you and get a reminder of all the real people reading every month. I still have copies available right here, if you’d like one!
I’m in Pierre, South Dakota, pronounced peer, as in ‘the colleagues I’m supposed to connect with at the South Dakota Tourism conference’. The pronunciation doesn’t make sense, and neither does being in a Ramkota Hotel in the state’s capital city in January, 3 hours from home. It’s the tail end of a week marked by -45 wind chill warnings and blizzard conditions.
Keeping up the lively introduction chatter takes a lot out of me.
Every keynote speaker starts their session by regaling their travel woes.
“My flight got cancelled, so I had to fly in to Minneapolis and drive here.” (A solid 6 hours and 40 minutes).
“I got in at 4 in the morning, so if I’m a little fuzzy, that’s why.”
“I’ve never been to South Dakota. Back home I was putting a jacket on at 60 degrees!”
But they also add this: “I do a lot of these conferences in other places, and I’ve never met a group of people who love their state this much,” and “My travel day was awful, but as soon as the rep from SD Tourism picked me up from the airport, I felt relaxed and welcomed.”
We’re getting a lot of takes on AI at this conference about marketing a physical place.
“You used to need photographers and producers and writers to create ad campaigns. With AI, a 10 year old can do it in 45 seconds!”
(Weird take for an audience full of people who photograph, produce, write, and otherwise promote places as their full-time jobs)
He shows us a clip of David Letterman joshing Bill Gates about listening to audio on a computer (“Ever heard of the RADIO?”) and says our attitude to AI today is just like that. We don’t even know what it’ll do. “You can do ANYTHING with it!”
If even Bill Gates didn’t know what was coming, why should I?
How could I?
I have been frozen not just by wind chill but by the great wide maybe.
It’s impossible to make a choice from infinite options.
More impossible if you must invent every one of those options.
The power to do anything is dead in the water if you don’t have parameters. What are you trying to do? Maybe AI can be a helpful tool if you start with a problem instead of a glowy love affair with the tech itself.
There’s this illustration term, line quality, that I think of now.
Artists’ lines differ depending on some alchemy of tool + speed + hand steadiness. Each artist has their own lines. Mine are influenced by the needs of publishing online: black ink dries quickly and scans nicely, plus it cleans up with water, making it easy to pull out and work on at my kitchen table. I like to ink with a brush because it’s softer than a pen and relaxes some perfectionist tendencies. It feels more alive to me, the physicality of brush, wrist control, and variable line weight.
Now, after so much practice with these mark making tools, I can pretty much predict how it’ll go. The ink’s fluid, but I’m in control. Each stroke looks predictably mine.
I dip out of scheduled networking time and listen to voice notes in my hotel room like a jacked-up personal Spotify. The tunes? My voice, accompanied by the keyboard I found on Facebook Marketplace and picked up in a library parking lot.
It’s the result of a hunch: Writing songs sounds fun.
So I’m messing around with it. My chords are easy, transitions shaky.
My voice is my voice.
I’ve been listening to artists who are voicey, not butter-smooth and lilting. The Mountain Goats and Bug Hunter stand out. The storytelling, turns of phrase, and instrumental arrangement are all so specific to each artist. There’s no separating voice from craft. Their signature is who they are, just like the brushy lines that I make.
Songs no one will ever hear are the perfect, personal antidote to my week jammed too full of contact.
This music making is too new to feel predictable, but I’m surprised at how familiar my editing brain is as it kicks in. As my brother Jonathan encourages, “You know more than you think you do.” My years of piano lessons aren’t nothing. I do know how to pay attention to my stuff and notice when it feels good and when it catches on something that isn’t working.
But for now, I’m resisting the urge to polish. I don’t have a set of rules yet.
Let’s avoid definitions as long as possible, just let it be play.
I don’t have to get it right, I just have to sound like myself.
Another speaker, in a quieter breakout session, tells us that ChatGPT is like an eager intern: “It’s really smart and wants to impress you, so when it doesn’t know the answer, it just makes stuff up.” It feeds you hallucinations. Things that sound nice but don’t mean anything real.
It seems like the most human thing we can say is “I don’t know.”
Here’s to our own confusion—may we see it as an integral part of our lives.
Elsewhere
Some of my sewn banners are now for sale through Rose & Eugene Presents, the coolest little gallery/shop/workshop space!
I’m all in on cozy distractions this month:
Re-reading/listening to The Chronicles of Narnia on audiobook (Spotify includes them with your subscription!) I’ just wrapped up The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, which opens with the sickest burn in kid lit: “There was a boy called Eustace Clarence Scrubb, and he almost deserved it." I’d forgotten how perfectly snarky C.S Lewis is as a narrator.
The Great British Baking Show: British tv is just softer, y’know? The latest season has a new host and she’s great. Everyone’s just so nice. I needed to watch people being nice to each other.
For the Love of Kitchens: I love this show about British kitchen company DeVol. They cut between remodeling, inspo trips, and craftspeople making things like aged copper worktops, brass lamps, ceramic lampshades, and the tiniest pinion latch. They like to layer in old things, make a kitchen look like it’s always been there. Refreshing! It aligns with how I feel about renovating.
Thrifting with Rajiv: If you haven’t seen Rajiv Surendra’s original house tour, treat yourself here. He’s big on only allowing beautiful, useful things in his home. After you’ve fallen in love with him and his jewel box apartment, go thrifting with him.
Thanks for reading! What mediums give you satisfying limitations? What gentle British TV should I watch next? Reply directly to this email, or leave a comment to share with other readers. If you know someone who’d like this, feel free to forward it on.
🧡, Ten
I feel the same about British "tele". Have you seen Monty Don's Big Dreams Small Spaces (it's a gardening show and I think it's on Netflix or it used to be?)
A jumble of thoughts:
Obsessed with the detail on your lug sole loafers, and now I must know where they are from! Love that you're writing songs. I'm feeling an itch to write poetry again, so that's going to be my next foray into discovering my voice more. I've been working on embracing my own line work with my drawings specifically, but in life too. And I adore the new GBBO host — she makes the whole show. Somebody Feed Phil isn't British, but it's similarly cozy and we love it!
HOORAY FOR THE END OF THE MONTH WHEN WE GET TEN TIMES!