The week that was: Aug 17th-23rd
I sat by this glorious explosion of colour in the park and watched the butterflies play.
Working on
Onboarding a new assistant. Welcome to the Haus of Cats, Sophia! Bringing someone else into the business has been amazing, and has also made me realise how much I was holding in my poor little brain - no wonder I’ve been feeling so overwhelmed! It’s been a huge relief to be forced to empty it all out and organise everything properly.
This week we’ve also been doing the props and photos for the Flourishing collection sales campaign (coming to an inbox near you in September!) - eep! In case you’re new here, the campaign is a cross between a detective story, a treasure hunt, and a photo essay, and I think it’s going to be so much fun! It’s a bit of a mad experiment to see if I can make promoting art into more art.
Thinking about…
So I have this YouTube channel which is currently languishing because I started it when my art practice involved a lot of painting, so it turned into a sort of painting channel. Which is lovely, but painting is only a small part of my creative work and I felt like I’d sort of painted myself into a corner (no pun intended) with what I was sharing.
The YouTube videos I love watching most are vlogs - I love the little slices of life and all the intimate details of how other people do things, but most of the vlogs on YT are by beige 20-somethings who all do exactly the same thing (iced matcha latte, anyone?).
There are very few older women out there vlogging (taking up space online as an older woman comes with… a lot to unpack, shall we say), and even fewer who are mad, colourful, urban, queer, maximalist artists who love colour and cocktails, books and drag, which is the kind of content I want to see more of.
Oh shit, I guess I’ll have to make the content I want to see in the world!
All that to say, I’m planning out some new content for the YouTube channel, and it will be vloggy style. Think art (obvs), but also outfits (!), running the biz, slices of Copenhagen life, movies, books, drag - all the stuff you know and love from this newsletter, but in video form. I’m actually really excited about filming again and I can’t wait to share with you.
Reading…
Syllabus by Lynda Barry
Oooh this book is fizzy and delicious. It’s the actual hand-drawn syllabus from one of cartoonist & professor Lynda Barry’s university courses. So much good stuff on creativity, noticing, mindfulness, creating without judgement and much, much more!
Watching…
Following on from above, here are some of the YouTube vlog channels I have been enjoying lately (I watch a lot of art ones too which I’ll round up another day, but these are specifically the ‘slice-of-life’ ones):
Tara Leaver - Cornwall-based artist vlog (ticks the woman over 40 box!). Peaceful, thoughtful, and just lovely.
Snapdragon Life - also ticks the woman over 40 box! Lovely creative stuff, plus travel and interesting thoughts.
Sarah Camposarcone - maximalist heaven. She does a lot of fashion content, but she’s here for her vlogs, which I wish there were more of.
Indoor Kat - based in New York City, ticks the urban-life/cocktails box. Very sweet and wholesome.
Kathleen Illustrated - creative, crafty, outfits, books, movies. Very definitely NOT BEIGE.
Listening to…
Joan Armatrading is one of my top five musical artists, and I never get bored of this song. I highly recommend her Desert Island Discs interview, and if you will indulge my pathological urge to claim everyone I love as autistic, she definitely gives me the ‘tism tingles*
*like gaydar but for autism
