When We Stop Growing, We Stop Living
Raymond Loewy, considered the father of industrial design, developed a technique in his work known as MAYA - Most Advanced Yet Acceptable. When designing, he understood that people would accept change, but only up until a certain point. We like improvement and innovation, but advancing things too far or too fast from the norm can confuse and overwhelm us. It can even cause us to reject the change entirely, opting instead for what we're already familiar with, even if it's less desirable or beneficial in the long run.
I was reminded of this first hand when my husband and I bought a house here in Portland over the summer.
It's been an exciting and welcome change, but one I wasn't prepared to feel as deeply as I did. The first few weeks in the house I was overwhelmed with anxiety about everything...if things would break, if I'd hate the responsibility of a house, if I'd miss my old neighborhood, if this had been a foolish mistake that would cause me deep unhappiness for the rest of my days...I took a lot of stress-driven walks around my new block trying to shake my feelings of doom and dread.
I found myself missing my old apartment quite often during this time, if only for the fact that it was comfortable and familiar. It was known. And the unknown - this new house, new neighborhood, new phase of life - was scary, tiring, and uncomfortable.
Brené Brown refers to what I was experiencing in the most eloquent terms of FFT...Fucking First Time. An FFT is the painful process of going through anything new - a new job, a new project, a new relationship, a new house.
"I think for all of us being new at something is incredibly vulnerable, even when we're excited and committed and we're like, I'm gonna do this. I'm going to try this new thing. The awkward uncomfortable time comes right after the excitement and it feels awful. I can tell you if the definition of vulnerability is uncertainty, risk and emotional exposure then being new at something is the epitome of vulnerability.
What's also tricky…is by the time you reach middle age, which I define somewhere between late 30s and dead, you know that the only way to get to the other side of the discomfort of being new is to push right through the middle. Experience teaches us that as much as we want to fast forward through the hard rocky parts of doing something that we've never done before we just can't."
Brené Brown, Unlocking Us
I've been in my house for almost 2 months now and I'm glad to say I feel much more settled and far less anxious. I'm starting to enjoy the new space instead of anticipating distress and catastrophe at every turn. But I've still been thinking quite a bit about the intersection of these concepts. MAYA - that we're only able to accept and process a certain amount of change at a time and FFT - that we must subject ourselves to (often uncomfortable) change in order to grow and progress.
I'm coming to believe that most of the fabric of life - relationships, work, beliefs, creativity - is constantly trying to calibrate these two truths. To nurture ourselves and find solid ground beneath our feet, while always pushing ourselves off balance and out of our comfort zones in order to continue moving forward.
Real Simple
I illustrated several pieces for the August issue of Real Simple. This feature was on how to stock your medicine cabinet for each type of family or phase of life.
With some projects, the artwork flows really naturally and I felt that way about this one. The result is a bit looser and more playful, which I really enjoyed.
Art Direction - Lina LeGare. Thanks Lina!
Starbucks Fall Flavors
Because I'm woefully behind on updating my website and because it's one of my all time favorite projects, I'm revisiting this one from this time last year.
Starbucks and Eater asked me to illustrate an interactive map highlighting the unique fall flavors and traditions from across the US.
In addition to the full map I created quite a few spot illustrations (even more than you see here!) specific to each region, as well as artwork to accompany festive fall recipes by Lauren Ko, Jeremy Jacobowitz, and Valentina Mussi.
You can see the full project + interactive map here. Grab a PSL to sip while you scroll for extra fall effect.
Apartment Therapy’s Restival
Another fun one that hasn't graced my website yet is the Restival series for Apartment Therapy. Back in the spring, Apartment Therapy put together a week long festival with great articles each day all about rest and relaxation. I love lounging but drawing people who are lounging is good, too.
Art Direction - Erin Wengrovius. Thanks Erin!
Web Developer?
While reading through this newsletter you may have noticed the trend of me being behind on updating my website. If you are or know someone who could help me with a few custom tweaks to my Squarespace website...hello. Shoot me an email and we can chat!
Thanks as always for reading and subscribing. Have a Happy Halloween and I’ll see you in November.
Reading:
True Crime is Rotting Our Brains
One Lab’s Quest to Build Space-Time Out of Quantum Particles
The world’s deepest cave…
There's No Such Thing As An Easy Job, Kikuko Tsumura
Watching:
Squid Game (Netflix)
Seinfeld (Netflix)
Blazers Games (After 4 years of living in Portland I am into the Blazers now)
Listening:
Boy Scouts - Wayfinder
Tenci - My Heart Is An Open Field
Unlocking Us with Brené Brown - Brené on FFTs
Enjoying:
Girlfriend Collective socks - which is odd because I do not like socks, but I’m obsessed with these.
A masterful storytelling of maybe the worst date ever