Live Like an Artist – The Secret Prerequisite
— From May Sarton’s journal, At Seventy: “What kept me going was, I think, that writing for me is a way of understanding what is happening to me, of thinking hard things out. I have never written a book that was not born out of a question I needed to answer for myself. Perhaps it is the need to remake order out of chaos over and over again. For art is order, but it is made out of the chaos of life.”
— In the same book, Sarton quotes Catherine Clayton who talks about being in a creative drought for a year and a half. She says, “Now a drawing is slowly coming into being. To work is to feel whole. To work for long moments unselfconsciously is grand. To still all other voices and to work, just quietly work.” And isn’t that a monumental task these days, to quiet the voices, to quietly work?
— I’m going to repeat here something I said on an instagram post last week:
In spite of everything or because of it, to be splendid, to not squander our gifts, to keep our joy, to use our imagination, to live urgently enchanted, to share poetic excellence, to practice our practice, to love and be wholehearted and divinely blissfully stupidly human — this is our task.
— I delightedly devoured Sarah Emsley’s new novel, The Austens. I love that the Halifax Public Library has a page on the Jane Austen connection to that city. This is a brilliant work about Fanny Austen and Jane Austen and if you love Persuasion, you’ll very much enjoy the “intriguing parallels,” as Sarah Emsley says in the afterword, between Anne Elliot and Jane’s sister-in-law Fanny. This comparison is extremely topical these days as it highlights the lives of women over 200 years ago, but “the challenges they faced are still very much with us in the twenty-first century, as women work to protect their families and fight for equality and the right to make choices about their own lives.” Readers are in good hands here as the novel is as Susan Allen Ford says, “carefully built on historical research but is so skillful that it doesn’t call attention to the scholarship.” I felt that I knew Jane Austen in all new ways after reading The Austens. So grateful I got to read it!
— My friend Cara Lianne McLeod has just released her song “Do You Really See Me?” and it is amazing. I would love it if you listened to it and watched the video. The lyrics hit on so many levels, and the video really tells a story.
— Another friend, Kerry Clare, has a new book coming out in March of 2026 and I am so here for it! Cannot wait. You can pre-order and help get the hype going! I love the title: Definitely Thriving. And the cover reveal is brilliant!
— The news has been next level traumatic these days, and I’m trying to counteract that by remembering all the amazing people I know (see above). As Marcus Aurelius has said, “When you want to gladden your heart, think of the good qualities of those around you.” It’s easy to get thrown off your game, but Marcus says, “When the force of circumstances causes you, in some sense, to lose your equilibrium, return to yourself with all speed, and never lose the rhythm for any longer than you must…”
— More than ever it’s important to support the arts, writers, artists. It is rough out there on us all. I’m not the first to use the expression, but being an artist in Canada, Edmonton anyway, is like being in the witness protection program. Like if you can get someone who even knows you to drop a like on your instagram once a month, you’re doing great. I want to say maybe it has to do with the tall poppy syndrome, but even though I’m tall I’m not that kind of tall, you know? If you love something, support it, as ever, but especially now.
— I was brought to this next video by Andy Adams and though it has a kick you in the teeth ending (and I’m not alone you’ll see in the comments), it was still inspiring. (Watch here if you’re in the newsletter or read in browser).
— I loved that there was a secret pre-requisite to get a studio in this artist’s apartment. And (spoiler alert) this was to say that you loved the space. So often we do love something and don’t ever say it. The world is so much better when we’re all screaming and going on about how much we love what we love.
— It’s the season of the last bouquet, which is something I wrote about in my first book of essays from way back when, Calm Things. This year before making my last bouquets of the year, I decided I wanted to try something different and see what they’d look like in my card catalogue. Nice? I think. I’ve been thinking a lot about card catalogues of late and I think one might feature in my next book which I’ve just begun to dream about. A novel-ish sort of thing.
— What is it to be an artist/writer in this historical moment? It doesn’t have to be any one thing. And we can move back and forth, too, depending on our capacities. We might be political in our private non-artist lives, and not in our art lives, or the reverse. Just making art is subversive. It’s real in a world that thinks AI theft is just dandy and ethical. Will the value of the human made increase? Maybe.
— In the words of Brittany Howard of Alabama Shakes, “I hope your pets live to 35 years old.” I hope something good happens to you. I hope you get the grant. I hope you make a creative breakthrough. I hope someone you never knew loved your work tells you. I hope you’re writing or making what is most in your heart to make.
