- Jul 14, 2024
- 4 min read
Updated: Apr 13
Illustration of windhoek winter care secrets @smarti
It's weird to be going through the coldest months while everyone in northern hemisphere is melting under the hot summer sun. But this is our second winter in Windhoek, and while the days are warm under the sun, the desert winter nights can feel brutal. I've been testing some new things this time around, and I think I'm finally getting the hang of the season?
So Namibia is a dry arid desert landscape. There are hills and mountains, but it's mostly shades of creams, tans and browns. There's a brilliant short spring where the rains make everything suddenly very green. But for the rest of the year it's mostly neutral and sparse. It can be quite soothing actually, even though the verdant green is so exciting when it appears!
With the desert landscape, we also get the dyness. Moisture evaporates quickly. It can be a matter of minutes before things are bone dry. Now this is awesome when it comes to line drawing your laundry really fast, but it's awful when the back of your hands and knuckles start to crack and bleed.
The cool thing about the desert is that the sun will never abandon you. It's always there, and the sunshine and heat is so comforting year round. (When we lived in Copenhagen I really struggled when the sun would not appear for days on end. One time we clocked 20 days in the winter with cloudy grey skies and no sun!) But in the winter, even though the sun is out, that heat will only kick in around midday once it has had a couple of hours baking the land.
So you will wake up frigid with the sun rise. Then feel the warmth expand all around by midday. And as the afternoon fades into sunset, the heat will wane and you're back into deep dark cold winter. It's probably exacerbated since the insulation in the houses here sucks - because they have to prioritise dissapating the heat during the summers. (Totally opposite of Copenhagen which had great insulation, which would create its own summer nightmare when the tiny windows couldn't be opened enough for airflow and summer heat relief!)
Here are the things that are working for me so far:
Take fewer showers. I rinse once a day, mostly before bed, and especially after a workout. But I've learned to take fewer showers and I don't always scrub and soap as intensely. I've been told that soap strips the skin of oils and that's what makes it so vulnerable to cracking and bleeding cold. I soap where I must, but it's not worth soaping all over when my skin feels raw under the shower-head.
Slather on oil post-shower. I got a glass bottle of baobab oil, and have been refilling it with jojoba oil at the zero waste store. After toweling off from the shower, I spend a couple of minutes just pouring it all over and massaging it into my skin. I suppose you could add lavendar oils and other things and make it more of a indulgent experience. But just as is, it's already making a huge difference in soothing my skin. And I love that it's all natural and whatever is absorbed into my skin won't cause allergic reactions or exczema like synethic oils and vaselines do. Yay nature!
Add oils to meals. I cook with coconut oil and olive oil, but I'm also adding hemp oil to smoothies and salads to help retain some oil in my body as well. When I do sweat, I like to imagine that the oils in my body are helping to lubricate my skin. I mean, it works for people who eat garlic and then you can smell it as it seeps out of their pores. So why not hemp oil? Here's to hoping.
Layer on the clothes. I make sure to plan a spring outfit as my base layer - tank tops and leggings. And then I pack on sweaters, fleece-lined pants, knitted socks, wool berets. Top it with a puffy jacket or puffy vest - even for a day inside the house. As the day goes on, I take off layers as needed. I bask in that midday sun. And then I pile it all back on as the afternoon freezes into evening hours.
Bring a notepad to bed. I can no longer stay up working late nights because the cold is so intense. Afternoons are my jam and my brain sometimes crackles out some firework midnight ideas! I tried sitting at my desk and wrapping myself in a blanket - but oh gosh, the cold seemed to seep in from every corner. I would shiver and shake like a chihuahua. So now, I just pack it up before dinner and bring a notepad to bed for doodling or planning. (We are a no-phones-in-the-bedroom household.) It's frustrating to not be able to work when I know my productivity takes on a magic quality, but it's probably better for my health and immunity to stay calm and cozy in bed on those dramatically cold nights.
Cuddle a flaxseed heatpad. A couple of years ago, I bought a period relief pack from Somedays to help me manage cramping. And their flaxseed heatpad has become the true multipurpose star of the show! I'm heating her up in the microwave every night before bed to cuddle under the covers. I remember reading about this in an old book where they would heat bricks in the fireplace, wrap them in flannel and then slip them under the comforter to create a heat pocket. If I had a water bottle I'd do something similar. It definitely makes the winter sleeping in these freezing temperatures more bearable.
I could probably just buy a space heater and move it around the house with me as needed. But I really struggle to buy more things with my expat nomadic minimalist lifestyle. If I do buy something, I need to make sure that it's quality made and won't just be plastic baloney that'll end up in landfill. Besides, every time I go to the store, all the heaters are sold out! So...I'll just keep making do with what I've got.
Here's to hoping the NoHemi is keeping cool in that summer heat,
and the SoHemi is keeping warm with the sun's retreat,
smarti
- Jun 14, 2024
- 5 min read
Updated: Apr 13
Illustration of Yellow Vending Machine @smarti
At the bus stop for school there was a small yellow vending machine with aluminum cans of hot chocolate, hot coffee and...corn soup. I was 7 years old. We lived in Japan. In all kinds of little and bizarre ways, Japan is eye-opening. That’s where my design love story started. It's the first time I remember paying attention to all the small things that we touch, carry, experience in design and packaging. It also gave me the first inkling of why I would struggle with my future design career.
It wasn’t my first time abroad. We had popped in and out of Spain since I was a baby because Momola is from Spain. That in itself is special - the sidewalks are tiled, the village houses are chocabloc tight, the playground kiosks have bright posters of ice creams, and soda is served in tall glasses. Ah, Spain! But I had normalized the language, the cultural and architectural details just by virtue of growing up with it.
Japan, however, was so outrageously different, I couldn’t help but pay attention. Pocky stick packaging with its red clam-case top for easy storage. Neat-o! Folded origami or pastel lanterns and light decor in the streets tickled me pink. Weekly visits to a small shopping center displayed the Japanese design experience from plastic bath stools, music players, and Hello Kitty printed underwear. I saw a very different expression of commercial commodification. Charming and unexpected - novelty is entrancing.
On the weekends, my parents would volunteer our family for beach clean-ups. Walking along the seaside to collect litter along the shore, I remember picking up little bits and putting it in my bucket. Some of it was colorful bits of plastic. The plastic bits would swish around at the bottom of my bucket. When I started recognizing candy logos and colored wrappers, it dawned on me that it was the discarded end of design. No longer beautiful, no longer special. Rubbish. It was the first time I connected that the things that brought me so much joy could also be so sad. I couldn’t verbalize it, but I remember feeling disheartened.
To be frank, this isn't a knock on Japan. A lot of Japanese products incorporate ecological design - rice paper candy covers, furoshiki gift wrappings, bamboo packaging. But as a kid it was the first time I noticed how products were made without planning for their demise. When I was becoming a designer, the after-life consequences of my creations became more important to me. And like many other artists, I learned to try to be careful about the tools I own and plan for what I make to minimize waste and maximize sustainability.
As a result, I have so many mixed feelings about being an artist/designer.
Illustration of Beach Clean Ups @smarti
First, I struggle with how so much of creative life requires tools, equipment, fabric, energy, etc. It's important to just start, and yet there is inevitably always some kind of waste. There's ways to be more mindful about the tools, but moreover, the creation of the tools themselves is an act of destruction. As in, at the very least, the tool creation comes out of destruction. Paper requires tree mulch. Dyes require toxins. Paint requires synthetic stabilizers. Ultimately, it’s unrealistic to not want to harm anything. By virtue of being alive we are already contributing to the growing waste of society.
And gosh, I hate how there is such a push to commodify the result of the creation. Hustle culture encourages artists to print creations on anything and everything that can carry a design. Towels, t-shirts, mugs, keychains - merch, merch, merch - it's the commercial way of "getting ours" out of our creative expression. It supplements (or frankly, even completes) a salary that so many struggling artists dream to stabilize. I get that. Merch is the proverbial cliff that all artist have to decide if they will jump off of too. It's hard to say no.
Then as a minimalist, I realize the consumption itself is also dangerously exploited. Especially with the globalization of commercialization. Endless options. Overwhelming access. The Story of Stuff. The never-ending conveyor belt of new items. Unboxing. Oh man, unboxing. So much unboxing. Everyone's individual choices unboxed in pursuit of showcasing a life well-lived. What toys do you have? What's your personal collection? All while averting our eyes away from the environmental destruction. (I sound like the Grinch complaining about a Whoville Christmas here...)
But, on the other hand, I also deeply understand the joy of creation. The inspiring spark of ideation. The challenge of making something out of nothing. The special mix of talent and determination that gets me through each project, sometimes just barely hanging on. How much I feel alive - focused, happy, connected when I'm making something! Even in the middle of a hard project, I know I wouldn't feel fulfilled doing anything else.
Self-expression is also so important! It's truly painful to contain. It has to come out! If not, I ruminate and feel crazy. It just has to get out! Pencil to paper so I can feel the release. When I have tried in the past to contain it, I would feel less human, almost numb, like a zombie. And eventually, it would come bursting out through frivolous side projects anyway.
And geez louis - novelty IS wonderful to share! That blessed yellow vending machine! The surprise and joy of finding the unknown. Colorful patterns, new flavors. Expectation. Experience. Memory. Humans are wired to seek something different, to try new things, to just basically want more, to expand the limits of life. There's something charming about how curious and excited we are for something new. Even to our own demise, let alone that of the environment.
Illustration of Litter Combing the Sand @smarti
So I think about that yellow vending machine and the beach too much. I wrestle with my personal and artistic choices all the time. Knowing it's such a unique privilege and yet, so hard. So very hard. Getting bogged down in my mind about what choices I'm willing to make. Feeling insecure and frustrated about how it has probably limited me and my career. How my choices are imperfect, because every choice comes with ecological consequences. Even the mindful choices come with consequences. I guess this is the reality of living in the climate-change era. And at the least, I know I'm not alone.
For now, I'm trying to focus my personal projects only on the making small things that we touch, carry, and experience to connect with each other and with the world around us. I don't make a lot. But I do make things. Maps, toys, zines, cards, games. As close to paper as possible, as safely printed as possible, as consciously made as I can...knowing it's still not the best, but it's the best I can do right now.
A pledge of hope:
May I have the courage to use what I already own.
May I build a network to help me borrow what I need.
May I thrift the resources to make what I want.
May I produce using homemade alternatives when I can.
May I create using ecological resources where I am.
May I only buy or make with the highest intentional plan for the end-of-life cycle.
here's to my fellow artists who also struggle with their choices while still making beauty,
smarti
- May 14, 2024
- 4 min read
Updated: Apr 13
Plateaus are normal. Especially with art skills. One can look back and see tons of progress and feel encouraged, while at the same time feel stuck in a perpetual spinning hamster wheel of stagnant tools. It's the worst. I want to share a story about a challenge series I used to move my skills forward two years ago. It's my 100 Inanimate Objects which started as a drawing challenge and turned into a lovely Vintage Object poster.
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As a writing warm up one day, I made a list of vintage things that I find incredibly adorable. Normally these lists are just to get the juices flowing. But I found myself later that week flipping back to the list, adding things to it, looking up items on Pinterest, and daydreaming about this list quite a lot.
I was home at the time, visiting my parents, and Momola let me play with her antique UnderWood typewriter. So I decided to take the vintage objects idea and turn it into a personal drawing challenge. My drawing skills were frustrating me - relying on digital too much, crutching on dark outlines, languishing on immature flat shapeless coloring. The goal was to draw a little each day and hopefully fail-forward to understanding color, light and darkness. So I typed out the vintage object prompts on a stack of little sheets. I brought the stack home to my desk and drew out a couple at a time as a daily warm-up.
Underwood photo, stack of illus, blue chair illustration by @thesmarti
Personal challenges are often embarrassing and exhausting. You have to be ok with being really bad AND still have the courage to keep going. So many of my first attempts were lame. I mean, likely - really lame. There was a lot of groaning and a tendency to want to just slink down out of my seat to the floor. I just wasn't improving as I thought I would. But at least it was fun to look up vintage things...
And then eventually around day 60, I started to see a shift. Coloring with pencils forced me to look at hues - and I started to see color as an elusive eye trick. Things that are blue are not actually blue but green and black and purple sometimes. So I let myself play with different colors and lean into the exploration. And then I started to see shadows. Muted colors of undertones in and under every object. So I started to try to smudge them in with my pencils. And it gave objects weight and gravity and a bit of realism in a wonky way. Play and exploration - silly and unforgiving - but still a way to get into the lessons and try to absorb some knowledge.
perfume atomizer ilustration by @thesmarti, stack of illus, radio ilustration by @thesmarti
I think, more interestingly, my hands and fingers started learning a language of their own in movement. Sliding, swooshing, shimmying across the page with an audible satisfaction of grit and texture conferred on the page. I liked seeing how my eye-to-hand coordination got more exact and I felt a greater sense of subtlety in the pencil pressure I put on the page. I still leaned heavily on outlines and my shadow work is immature, but I felt like I was slowly getting somewhere. I posted the progress on IG during the year of 2022 and took a lot of joy in researching the history of the objects for the captions.
At the end of the challenge, I had a stack of 101 inanimate objects sketches. I scanned each one in, cleaned them up and assembled them together in a celebratory poster Vintage Objects. I, of course, only used some of my best drawings, or at least the ones I felt were the best portrayed. (You can find that poster and more of the drawings here.) And is it amazing? Not exactly. But am I proud of myself? Yes. Did I learn a lot? Oh heck yea. I could literally track my progress and see that over time, this challenge had changed my ability to "see" things and capture some nuance.
Vintage Object poster by @thesmarti
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Trying to be an artist can feel ridiculously frustrating at times. I see other artists all around me on instagram who incredible and talented beyond my wildest dreams. The lesson I sit with often is that I have to be ok with where I'm at right now. Growth happens slowly. Purposefully. Paying attention and creating moments of learning is important to building my own talent and failing forward.
And even when I've figured out some skills, I will always be failing in some other aspect and that's ok. The goal is to find joy wherever you are. I feel like this project gave me a little taste of that. There is a beauty in the willingness to experiment and feel foolish, and the everlasting lesson to not give up. [...] It's also fun to know that a good gritty pencil can soften my mood any day.
happy art challenges, dear friends,
smarti
