Creative Circle At Happy Medium
We're figure drawing! Wed, April 12th, 7-9pm.
Hello April Art Friends!
I’m here, today, in your inbox, to invite you to a different kind of creative circle for April. We’re holding April’s Creative Circle Wednesday, April 12th at Happy Medium, from 7-9pm!
April Creative Circle
Happy Medium describes itself as an art café, but it operates as a semi-secret recreational art community for NYC residents. They rent/sell supplies, offer events (you may have heard of their wildly popular build-a-chair workshop), host salons, and even offer studio space to artists looking for a place to work. On Wednesday evening, we’re going to join their figure drawing class led by Tommi. You do need to buy tickets to participate so you can find the event checkout link here. Note: If that link gives you trouble, you can find the April 12th event we’re attending here and can use that to navigate to the ticket page.
Because of the exclusively in-person nature of the Happy Medium experience, we won’t be holding a virtual hang for April’s circle, but we promise to report back with everything we learned while attending.
With the upcoming event in mind, I should mention that I am not particularly skilled in the drawing department. Recently, my mom found some old sketches I had made in college (it was a required course) and remarked “I found some of your childhood art!
Savage, Mom.
So when we were planning this upcoming session I immediately texted Lillian to preemptively excuse my lack of talent in this area.
Lillian, being a 6,000-year-old zen master disguised as a casual Brooklyn creative type, gently reminded me “That doesn’t matter, and mostly is the point of doing stuff like this.” This brings me to the Lillian-induced insight that there is generous inspiration available to beginners if we can just get over the unhelpful nag of pointless embarrassment.
This is not a new idea, but I think beginnings teach us a lot about ourselves. When you’re learning something new, where do you begin? How do you organize the lessons in your mind? What part of the novelty feels energizing? draining? What are you most worried about? Who gives you advice and how does that advice make you feel? Are you chasing an idea? Technique? What is most different about the experience and how would you explain that to another beginner? At worst, this curiosity can drown out the discomfort of growth. At best, these answers give us a glimpse into where we place our attention. And that, of course, is really a footprint of love.
ICYMI
March was one of our favorite creative circles to date. Gina and Kate both shared their growing ceramics portfolios, the radical egalitarianism of ceramics studios and how the wheel and kiln are conspicuous metaphors for the creative process.
“Sometimes you come to the wheel and it’s just not happening. If you’re not in an open and patient headspace, it shows in the work.” - Kate
Gina added important context to the wheel experience - studio time is booked in advance and if you’re having a bad day on the wheel, you’re likely going to sit in that bad day for hours on end. There’s no easy escape when it comes to working through it.
The kiln is another variable in the already challenging ceramics process.
“You can’t get attached to your work because anything can happen in the kiln. The kiln can just as easily destroy something you love as it can transform something you’re not excited about into a piece that’s surprisingly cool” - Gina
Olivia shared stories from her adventurous career in apparel design, her latest work for her collection Light Foot Athletics, and some lessons from the world of dip dying.
We also heard some great stories about wear-testing your designs in 200km races.
The lessons we took away from our many slow practices were really lessons about the dumb directive to “enjoy the process.” That is always the goal, and also, the challenge. It takes discipline, work, reflection, and humility to find joy on long slow roads. Our ultra-running friends shared stories of the difficulties of repairing and rebuilding your body. Many of us reflected on projects we’re just not pumped about finishing. So Lillian closed out our session with one of my favorite creative prompts ever:
“what would you start if you knew you could never finish.”
We’ll leave you with that.
Happy Making,
<3 Meg and Lillian
PS - for those of you that haven’t heard, Lillian has reached a big milestone - she now has a studio for her art practice! Studios are a big, scary, serious, brave venture for artists of all ability levels, so don’t hesitate to congratulate her when you see her.
Lillian - we’re so proud of you!