Dear reader,
The season changes slowly, then suddenly. You could miss it completely if you don’t pay attention. In today’s post, things that were seen under the crisp, falling leaves of autumn.
The SneakyArt Post is a publication of secretly drawn art of the world. Every week, I share the latest drawings and my best ideas from a journey of self-education to be an artist and writer.
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I took my coffee - having recently given my favour to soy-milk lattes - and went to the patio and sat under the blue sky with my back to the sun. At the intersection and around lay scattered these various things of the city.
After the page was complete, and my coffee too, I made a tiny drawing to leave at a Little Free Library nearby. I decided that I would draw the next person to stop at the traffic light.
Longtime readers are aware that I am giving away as much art as possible. I started a practice of art abandonment last spring and made it one of my 2023 resolutions.
This year, after reading Walter Benjamin’s 1936 essay The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction, I concluded that everyone should own art.
As an artist, I consider it my larger mission to make this happen. One tiny drawing at a time.
Giving away art is also a counter-intuitive practice to regain autonomy over my work.
Being an independent artist, I must dance to the tunes of social media algorithms when sharing my work with a vast, global audience. It is easy to get sucked into this panopticon and reduce yourself just to fit safely inside. I am trying to break out.
So it helps me to think that every drawing is not made for money. It helps to think that it is not for me to possess. By releasing it into the vast universe, I relinquish control and let it ride on the winds of Fate, and maybe go places, and maybe see things, and maybe be things.
It is a chance for the tiny drawing to have a tiny life.
I am pleased to report that this piece was picked up almost immediately by a free library user.
⏪ In case you missed it…
🎤 Last week, I was a presenter at PechaKucha Night Vancouver!
✒️ How and why I started using a fountain pen.
📚 All the good ideas from self-publishing my first book of SneakyArt
🎙 Some good reasons to never look at the numbers, if you are a writer or artist of any kind.
Thank you, dear reader, for your time and attention. I am glad to have a space in your inbox.
206. City Things