99. Evolve
How we repeat toward change. The progression of sentences, flowers, and routine. The improbable awesome that is tofu chocolate mousse.
I was talking to a friend recently about how “it’s all one thing” is finally becoming a less theoretical part of my studio practice. Working on a project of words alongside a project of pictures feels, for the first time, fluid and organic (ish); I’ve been able to focus more on creative versus operational problems.
Context-switching has been a particular struggle for the past year or so, evident from entries like:
Working on two projects in parallel has been challenging. “It’s all one thing” feels like a koan of some kind; the answer revealing itself in the shifting light if you look at it just so; lost again at the slightest change in attitude or circumstance.
and:
I want get better at understanding (and practicing) another aspect of “it’s all one thing,” which is “it’s all one life.” Disrupting routine can feel terrifying—but I want to be able to make art, anywhere, any time. I don’t want it to feel so rigid; inertial.
and still yet:
There’s a chance that this kind of creative context-switching may ultimately prove unsustainable. At least, not great for the work. There are times when momentum continues to build on, say, animation for a period of time that proves too long for the writing to sit fallow, and vice versa.
“It’s all one thing”—but it’s tricky, you know? Ideas are delicate. They need to be kept warm.
Of course, I could just be overthinking it.
A few weeks ago I caught myself sitting at table, making and shooting drawings, when something sparked in my brain for an essay. I scribbled a note, then went back to the film. A few days later I incorporated the note into an essay, which I revised and submitted last Wednesday. All this time I was drawing images for the film, index cards stacking and unstacking on the dining table next to salad and bread.
It sounds undramatic but this kind of flow has been largely elusive until recently.
So, what changed?
I think it’s me; I have new muscles.
The general shape of my movements have remained the same, but the articulations feel more, I guess, gestural. I draw a line as before, but today it might have a propulsive start and a tapering finish, because I’ve engaged from the shoulder and thrown, instead of dragged a mark uniformly and in terror, across the page.
Only regularity and repetition can do this. This is the formula for change; this is how we evolve.
In the studio
I finalized an essay and submitted it, as I said.
Members, read on for esssay and film bts, plus a microessay on how NYC has changed for me since I transplanted almost a decade ago. Everyone else, thanks so much for reading—hope you enjoyed the opening microessay.
Here is an evolution of a sentence: