Prescribe yourself some art

*Growing pains*, 2024, fluid acrylics on paper, 10×10”

This is the first email I’m sending this year, so I want to start by saying thank you to everyone who looked at my art or bought a painting from me in 2025. I’m realizing more and more that art needs to be “looked at” (just like music needs to be listened to) and that makes you (the “viewer”) an important part of my process. I probably only share about 10% of what I make or write (or less?), but releasing work always helps moves me forward and evolve my practice.

To see my paintings again, or claim one for yourself, click here. I will be closing the sale and removing this page from my website Saturday, April 11, so please reach out before then if you want one!

What’s next:

This year, I’m committing more of my time and energy to my studio practice:

I’m still part of Homework Club with Beth Pickens and the theme this year is REJECTION. In our first workshop, we (all 73 of us in the zoom chat) shared the personal number of rejections we will try to get in 2026. My number is 12.
I’m doing the 100 day project again this year! The first time I did it in 2016 (10 years ago??!), it completely changed my understanding of what it means to be an artist. This year I’m doing 100 days of making zines. My goal is to get more comfortable making and sharing zines by just...making them. My rules: analog only, complete at least 1 page per day. I’m on day 41. Right now, this is a personal practice (like a sketchbook), but I hope to share more soon.
I’m taking Night Class with artist, Lindsay Stripling (see my favorite painting by hers below). It’s a 6 month commitment that started in January, meeting every other Thursday online for two hours. The structure and peer-support I’m getting from being part of this group is helping me think like an artist again.
A Resting Place, Lindsay Stripling, 2021, watercolor and gouache on paper, 26x40”

Reality check:

*“It has been an exercise in emotional stamina and creative persistence to believe that art still has meaning in the face of so much overwhelming horror”* -Anbara Salem, in the acknowledgements of her novel, The Salvage

To make the above, I combined two images I cut out of a magazine by weaving them

Unsolicited advice:

I think everyone is born an artist, but most of us slowly lose that innate interest in process-oriented self-expression over time (for many reasons I will not get into here). But making art is good for you. When life feels overwhelming, prescribe yourself some art. If you need help getting started, get out some paper and any materials you have to draw or paint with, and then watch this, or listen to an episode of this.

more soon 🖤
nikita

Metamorphosis