Category Archives: sketchbook

Books, sketchbook

Reading Sharp

Last year I read Sharp: The Women Who Made an Art of Having an Opinion and it was immensely inspiring. The women in the book whose lives and work are chronicled are Dorothy Parker, Rebecca West, Zora Neale Hurston, Hannah Arendt, Mary McCarthy, Susan Sontag, Pauline Kael, Joan Didion, Renata Adler and Janet Malcolm. In fact after this book, I went on to read another book by Janet Malcolm which made me read another book and another, and so on.

Anyway in a nutshell what really inspired me was the incredible resilience all these women had, in the face of terrible partners, abandonment, difficult motherhood, creative and psychological rejection, financial troubles — apart from the usual baggage women subject themselves to — but they still kept at it! Some with a smile and poise, and some with just dogged determination. Great motivation for our ordinary, easy lives.

“I wanted to be cute. That’s the terrible thing. I should have had more sense.”

Dorothy Parker

” The critic shouldn’t need to tear a work apart to demonstrate that he knows how it was put together. The important thing is to convey what is new and beautiful in the work, not how it was made.”

Pauline Kael
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Life, sketchbook

Staying sane

My survival and stress relief strategy has always been through drawing.

Anteater: Just writing the word won’t make them disappear, you know…

When I was younger I usually drew everyday, but since becoming a parent it’s every other day, and always on weekends. Looking back at all my published and unpublished work I always feel grateful for this gift.

“Everyday do something that gives to you.”

Yours truly

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Event, Life, sketchbook

Fifteen years with the brown boy

Today the brown boy and I celebrate fifteen years of being married. I am incredibly proud of this milestone, but the entire credit goes to him – who knew patience could last that long?

He’s put up with my weirdness, taken full responsibility of being the parent to our child

…all for the pleasure being in this blog!

He’s the Bergman to my Ullman,

my sense of home and my ends of days:

This marriage may have been a mistake but I would make it again to live through all these years with this brown boy again.

❤︎❤︎❤︎

APPENDIX

The story of us: Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 • Paris, not me

And here’s the drawing that I made after our first anniversary: We had sat and watched the waves in Bandstand.

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sketchbook

“When it comes to the world around us, is there any choice but to explore?”

Sometimes I listen to podcasts while doing mundane activities like washing dishes. Some time ago I caught Lisa Randall, a theoretical physicist at Harvard, talking to Krista Tippet on the On Being podcast.

“Most of the time we all behave as if what’s here on Earth is all there is.”

Listening to the conversation I envisioned her creating models similar to a gardener creating terrariums or bonsai plants.

“Simplicity isn’t always beautiful, and sometimes complex things are more interesting.”

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sketchbook, travels

Listening while flying

During a recent flight I was listening to a couple of my regular podcasts The Knowledge Project and The Tim Ferris Show. These podcasts represent two different aspects of work/life for me: The Knowledge Project is a podcast that usually provides a new perspective to knowledge and learning concepts, and helps me understand different/difficult ideas. The Tim Ferris show is a great mix of tactical and inspirational, and usually themes I go through in my day to day work/life.

This drawing is Shane Parrish talking to Jason Fried of 37 Signals. I’ve used 37signals’ (now called Basecamp) flagship productBasecamp at work and been an avid reader of their blog since my early days as a designer, and usually find them to have a unique perspective on things.

“Always figure out what’s the right thing, even if you don’t do it.”

Personally this attitude to company building and creating sustainable team culture was really eye-opening for me.

And then I listened to Tim Ferris talking to Debbie Millman: Busy is a decision. What really stood out for me was the focus on prioritization, always my weakness.

“Make the time to do the things you want to do, and then follow through and do them.”

This is her advice to young designers starting out:

Am I constantly refining and improving my skills? What can I continue to get better at? Do I believe that I am working hard enough? If not what should I be doing in order to succeed? She says you should have a point of view and share it respectfully.

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