🌊 February Bottleship
Bottleshipmates!
It's me, Lucy Bellwood, delivering another infrequent missive to your inboxes. (If you'd like to disembark for any reason, there's an easy link to unsubscribe at the bottom of this message.)
Winter has been...well, it's been a lot. And everything is still a lot. I'm writing to you because connecting to this community reminds me that there are good people in the world who value art and tenderness and activism and joy. Just by being yourselves out there you do this. You give this gift. Thank you.
I'm getting close to releasing my 100 Day Project from 2020—the one I kept secret, and have been tinkering with for the last couple years. It's a spiritual successor to 100 Demon Dialogues, but it's also going to be very different in form and function. It makes it all exciting and terrifying and new.
The difficulty with being on the cusp of releasing a Shiny New Thing is that I've been using it as an excuse not to write to you! "No, no Lucy," I say to myself, "don't bother anyone until it's OUT, then write the big email announcement! You have nothing worthwhile to say in the meantime."
This is silly.
I'll have this new thing coming your way...soon. I've given up predicting exactly when, but I'm very excited about it, and will absolutely be sending another email once it's live. To avoid overloading that email, here are a few things I've been doing since I last wrote in November...
Inspired by wonderful cartoonist Cara Bean (who also hosts doodle hangouts on her Patreon) I've been hosting very low-stakes Drawing Zooms for the last couple months. This is partly because I desperately needed some accountability to start drawing in my sketchbook again, but also because the folks who gravitate to my work (hi, that's you!) tend to be thoughtful and funny and creative and kind, and I wanted an excuse to put all of us in a digital room together.
We need each other right now.
The general format is that I put on some tunes and throw up some reference pictures and then we all draw them however we like. There's an optional show and tell. It's been incredibly friendly and gentle. The next one takes place tomorrow (Friday, March 4th) from 12pm-2pm Pacific Time. We'll be drawing frogs and hats and bridges. You're all invited.
I released this year's installment of Hourly Comic Day, an excuse to chronicle everything I do on February 1st in words and pictures. HCD 2021 marked my last week in Portland before moving to Ojai, and now my life is very different, so this was a hard one. But drawing it gave me so much to chew on around repetition, absurdity, love, grief, and the invisibility of care work. I'm hoping to get some minicomic editions printed up soon, because I miss making tangible things.
The Right Number is back! This was a simple project that started in 2020 where you call a phone line, hear a recorded prompt, and, if you like, leave a short answer. (I found out recently that several people just like calling to listen to a friendly voice, which I find very charming.) I try to release new prompts every two weeks. Call 503-673-6267 to join in.
Finally, if you happen to be anywhere near Ojai later today (5pm-7pm, to be precise), I'm hosting an outdoor art show opening at The Farmer and The Cook with my family, and I'd love it if you came:
This last one is the biggest, emotionally speaking, because it's been a means of trying to bring my dad a sense of creative agency and joy during a very isolated and challenging season. You can learn more about how I've been recombining his hoard of psychedelic bookmark designs into new collage pieces here.
People to Celebrate & Support
It's important to remember how many of us are helping, in big ways and small, even in the face of unspeakable grief and fear. Here are five folks doing work I admire right now:
Sarah made a zine you can print and share for free about getting abortion pills by mail.
Ilya is sharing tweets full of heartbreak and hope about the war in Ukraine.
Christina released a new zine about moving beyond "Don't work for free!" as a guideline for ethical pricing.
Wendell just launched a Kickstarter for his fabulous book Mastering the Game of Allyship.
Rain's donating all sales of this track to Mercy Corps in Ukraine.
If you're working on something you're proud of, or want to lift up, write me back. I want to celebrate you!
I'll leave you with a question, which I'd love a reply to if you feel like it:
Do you have an internal part of yourself you turn to for advice or guidance? If so, what do you call it?
That's all from me for now. Take care of yourselves, and maybe I'll see some of you on Zoom tomorrow.
<3
Lucy