Like waves of the sea driven by contrary winds
of imposter syndromes, attention, and craft.
Dear reader,
After my most recent book event, I received a handful of emails asking about Imposter Syndrome and how to cure it. I refer them to my post titled, You were not supposed to cure your imposter syndrome -
I no longer believe in the idea that we can (or must) solve ourselves in order to achieve the highest rewards of our lives. We are in an age of self-optimization-even-at-the-cost-of-self-obliteration. I do not think art comes from such sanitized environments…
The SneakyArt Post is a newsletter of secretly drawn art of the world. Help it grow by sharing it with someone who may enjoy it too.
🇨🇦 Readers in Vancouver, next open studio is April 11. More news soon.
❤️ Spotted, in places
This week, readers have shared their copies of Make (Sneaky) Art from Ottawa and Paris and Perth, and I am delighted that my words can find a home in bookstores and museums all over the world.
If you pick up my book in your part of the world, or find it somewhere at a bookstore or museum gift shop, do me the favour of sharing a pic. It really makes my day.
✍🏼 A Reason to Draw
A fair number of questions and emails I receive are about how someone can motivate themselves to draw when they are not very good at it. My frank answer is that you should not draw simply because you are good at it. In fact, skill level has nothing to do with this. At a recent book event, I spoke about reasons to draw that have nothing to do with making a good drawing.
Here is the first one. Drawing what you see is a way to pay attention and, as poet Maggie Smith wrote, attention is a form of love. In divisive and dangerous times such as these, our love needs to flow from us towards this world we share with others. We cannot restrict it to our private spaces, to the things we possess, and our close friends and family. Attention, which derives from the Latin attendre, which means “to stretch towards”, is the human superpower by which we touch and understand the richness of the spaces we inhabit with others.
The forces of this world dehumanize other people in other parts of the world. Their dead do not count. Their lives are lesser than ours. But … there are no others. No man is an island, we are a piece of the continent. To be fully human is to understand that dehumanizing others leads to our own degradation.
I do not know how to save you from your phone. But if it can begin in some little way in your little world, perhaps a little sketchbook can be the spark. Do not draw because you are good. Do not not-draw because you are bad. Drawing your neighbourhood, street corners, cafes, parks, and the people in them, is a way to notice, be curious, and creative, and to make something. I think this is how we replenish our humanity.
In this month’s Insider Hangout, we talked about sketchbook-craft and my plans for the next couple of sketchbooks I will make. I also shared updates from the current Special Project - teaching myself block-printing.
Here is a quick timelapse of the session:
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This year, in my journey to be more human, I am making more things by hand. If this is your goal too, join me:
Thank you for reading.
Beautiful said Nishant!