My Summer Reading List is All About Art
What are you reading lately?
I’ve been reading an unusual-for-me amount of nonfiction. Essay collections, instructional books, and memoir, mostly about art, writing, and building a creative life. This year has pushed me to prioritize projects in limited time, and these books help me find really practical ways to make the things that I imagine. It’s all about defining your own goals and finding the strategies that work for you—your own quirks and habits and constraints. By reading about how these professional creatives have made their careers, I can better see the paths ahead and feel like it’s possible for me, too.
I think these books could help anyone with a personal project in mind—and I’d love to discuss them!—so I’ve listed them below. But first, I have updates!
Summer of Ludd
We’re all coping with genAI in our own ways; I’m pivoting hard into antique printing technology. Surely it’s not just me, right?
There is a printmaking studio, Pyramid Atlantic, in Hyattsville, and I spent most of June taking classes. Printmaking— specifically wood engraving and copper etching—has been especially fun. Both are finicky and detailed crafts for precise, scientific work. My favorite! Letterpress (hand-setting type) has also been great, and I picked up some letterpress pieces at an antique store in Vermont. I love a collection-based hobby, after all. And, unlike notoriously-solo writing and painting, printmaking is situated in a community of learning and helping each other. It’s a wonderful space and I am looking forward to spending more time there in the fall.
Now I’m certified in the printmaking studio, so I can work there independently, and have my eye on letterpress certification, too. Hopefully I will have prints to share soon!
Year in the Garden
There is so much to catch up on with this project! It turns out that monthly is the fastest pace that I could possibly keep up with. Here are my latest watercolors:
February - Hylotelephium - Also known as upright stonecrop, and formerly known as sedum, this plant is definitely not yarrow as I originally thought. (It’s a good reminder of the limits of plant ID apps!)
I planted some yarrow from a National Arboretum native plants sale to make up for my mistake, so maybe I’ll illustrate it next year.
March - Crocus - I love the arrival of these little purple flowers each spring. This piece is now on display at Franklins Restaurant & Brewery in Hyattsville.
April - Redbud - I am so proud of this painting! I acquired a light table from our local Buy Nothing group, and immediately started the largest, most challenging piece in this series to date. The light table allowed me to cleanly transfer my sketch to watercolor paper—with a baby on my lap.
Sold at Brookside Gardens with the BASNCR exhibition.
May - Anemone - A big patch of meadow anemones bloomed right below our living room window, where our cat Dosy had a perch to lounge in the morning sunshine. She died on May 10, so to me, this painting is a memorial for her, the white flower an absence in the heart-shaped leaves.
June - ‘Sugar Magnolia’ Snap Peas - My excitement for snap peas in spring was entirely justified. The vines must have reached 7 or 8 feet tall, and fresh peas are delicious, and now I hope to plant even more next year.
I chose a scientific, many-view composition because there were so many aspects of the plant that I wanted to capture, especially the tiny baby pea pod on the branch.
July - ‘Midnight Snack’ Cherry Tomatoes - July was truly defined by the cherry tomatoes. Like the peas, they’re a purple variety, because that’s just who I am. I just took the vine down and started cleaning up the garden for fall.
I am now three-quarters of the way through my year in the garden series! I’m planning on black-eyed Susans for August, because our garden is basically a field of them right now. Looking ahead, the butternut squash are coming in, the marigolds are blooming, and I have big plans for a new raised bed and blueberry bushes next year.
Exhibitions
Franklins Restaurant & Brewery “Color Splash” - July 11 to September 12
Kentlands Mansion “A Closer Look” - July 17 to October 4
Paint the Town Kensington - September 5 to 7
Glen Echo Labor Day Art Show - September 5 to 7
Sparkle Mart Greenbelt - December 5 to 6
My Summer Reading List
Finally, here’s what I’ve read this summer:
Art Cure - A whole book of scientific evidence for arts engagement (as a maker or audience member) as a pillar of health. Every section comes with concrete recommendations for ways to bring art into your life for certain health benefits.
Art & Fear - Lays out common challenges to a creative career and how to overcome them.
Bird by Bird - Classic memoir of building a writing career. So much standard writing advice seems to come from this book, and it all makes way more sense in context.
Don’t Burn Anyone at the Stake Today - A series of essays about polarization and panic during a communications crisis, whether the internet or the printing press.
Printmaking - Printmaking, Etching Engraving and Other Intaglio Printmaking Techniques, Prints Art and Techniques, a Garden Of My Own, and Cat Cuts. (If you see any books of wood engraving in a thrift/used book store, please think of me!)
Fiction - Not pictured, but I read three very different books of fiction this summer: first, literary scifi “Klara and the Sun,” then “The Switch,” about a burnt-out 29-year-old woman and her grandmother trading lives for 2 months, and lastly “Circe” by Madeline Miller, an alternative to the Odyssey movie.