Hi friends,
I've finally wrapped up all the pet portraits from my last round in February (thank you!) I had no idea what to expect when I opened these last time around, but you guys showed up so hard that it took me two months to work through everything. Thank you for your patience while I caught up with your generosity.
Here's a handful of the pet portraits I did recently:
I'm so proud of these and it's still fun, so I'm going to do another round:
I've also started doing these at live events, which is fun! Here's one that I'm doing this Sunday:
If you're in Chicago and want to come hang out, please do! I'll be there with my drawing setup scribbling away. Demo also has some of my favorite beers so that's another perk. :)
Now that the marketing is over, let's talk!
I've been doing well lately. I'm doing a lot of conventions and events, and work is slowly trickling in and stacking up. Income is still sporadic and unstable since leaving my job last year, but that's also slowly coming together and I'm grateful.
One thing that has been creeping up on me, however, is an old and familiar sense of homesickness. I've talked about it a lot in my art and in these e-mails, but I think a big theme for me is finding a sense of belonging and ease in the world. I don't feel at home very often.
Recently my boyfriend and I went on a weekend trip to reset after a hectic month. On the drive he mentioned that the stretch of road we were on held a lot of memories for him. While he shared a few, I realized that I miss that feeling. I miss driving around and knowing a place. Not just knowing where stuff is, but knowing that the reason the fountain downtown has no water is because kids wouldn't stop putting dish soap in it (Bubble-geddon). Or knowing which building used to be Blockbuster Video.
I often feel homesick for things that are gone, and this feeling is one of the things that propels me as an artist.
I actually remember the first time I felt this way, it's a very vivid memory for me.
I was 12 years old, sitting in the back of my family's minivan when we moved from California to Wisconsin. We'd been driving for probably 5-6 hours, when I looked up from my Game Boy SP and realized we'd left California. We were in Nevada.
I remember a sharp moment of realization: school would start tomorrow, and my desk would be empty. And that Friday night, all my friends would meet up like usual, but I wouldn't be there. "Life" as I knew it would carry on, but I'd be in a different timezone.
I had a sudden, overwhelming need to grab that moment. To have something to hold onto from the time before the bell rang and my desk was empty.
I took this picture:
Now, almost 25 years later, I still have it. The timestamp is wrong (I could never get the setting right on that SLR), and there's nothing inherently special about it.
I feel like that photo is the first piece of art I ever made. I've been drawing compulsively since I was (according to my mom) literally a baby, but taking this photo is the first time I remember consciously trying to do what I now recognize as my art.
My tools and process have evolved steadily since, but the knee-jerk feeling of, "I need to grab this..." is the same. An instant and powerful need to grab life as I see it right then, and make something out of it.
It's interesting to look back and see innocuous little moments that, on closer inspection, were actually important. Our personalities and interests are powerful things. I think that moment with my first camera began a way of thinking and processing that has slowly grown into... whatever it is that I do now.
I don't know, I'm not great at explaining it. I just know that same feeling wells up when I realize that none of the freeway exits in Illinois have my 3 AM stories, but if I were on my stretch of road and I took those exits now, I'd have nowhere to go.
But I know these feelings will build until I let them out, in the form of a criminally stupid painting. Which I'll print out and sell for $28 at conventions and online. A catastrophic business model that actually works pretty well. Life's a mystery.
Thank you for reading, I appreciate it.
Until next time,
<3 Janie
Oh P.S.!! I will be opening my print shop again later this month, but for now it's just the pet portraits. I'm working on some restocks and rearranging things in my online store. It'll be sick as hell. I'll send out another e-mail when that's ready. Thank you!
Also here are my pet portraits again! ❤️✨
(I know it's way too far to scroll back up to them again)