An anniversary snuck up on me. As I was preparing my 2026 dot journal pages and getting ready for an upcoming workshop, I’ve been looking back at the journal-filled section of my bookshelf. December 2025 marked exactly 10 years since I first started exploring the Bullet Journal Method and then went on to find other dot journaling techniques and started adapting them to fit my needs.

How I started

When I began, I had no idea this practice would stick around in my life for so long. I’d never been great at keeping up with planners; in college, I used them a little, but they were mostly left blank. Then, during a career transition, I needed to get organized around big goals and create structure for myself, while working from home.

At the time, I was down a rabbit hole researching organization methods and reading Getting Things Done — literally trying to understand how to get things done.

Flexibility is why it stuck

The way I think about dot journaling is that it’s not just one method, and it’s not for one thing. That flexibility is what’s allowed me to stick with it. When I first started, I used it in a very task-oriented way, like a self-made planner with an overview of what was happening in my month and lists of what I wanted to do.

The journal I started with was one I already had, which ironically included the smallest to-do list element on its pages. This let me get started without investing in a dated planner or worrying that I was wasting money on the endeavor.

Over time, I layered in other uses and techniques, naturally finding the elements that worked best for my life organization. As a physical tool, it's an adaptable touchstone for other habits and rituals important to me. It became a core element of my morning routines and helps me feel set for the day — a way to think about what's ahead without accidentally getting sucked into a screen.

Flipping through journal pages is time-traveling

Throughout this post, I’m including photos from the span of 10 years of dot journaling. When I flip through them, I see a souvenir of what I was giving my attention to during different seasons of life. They’re a record of my interests, big goals, with creative evidence sprinkled throughout — calligraphy practice, experiments that didn’t work, pages that sometimes became scrapbooks.

My journal pages might only make sense to my brain, just as only your own journal pages might make sense to you. But the physicality matters — flipping through pages, seeing how my handwriting changes, how each page looks different. It's a way to see myself that digital tools can't capture, where sameness of formatting would flatten the lived experience.

Two spreads that bring consistency to my week

Two core structures ground my practice: a monthly reflection and a weekly overview. The index is what makes it all accessible. This tool felt like a magic key when I got introduced to it. It allows me to see into my full journal at a glance and track down past ideas.

Monthly highlights capture media, experiences, and creative endeavors. Between the index and these reflections, I can quickly see themes and how I spend my time.

A shift in approach

A big shift started to happen a couple of years ago, when I got my ADHD diagnosis. Looking back with this new awareness, I could see dot journaling had been an essential tool all along, and could recognize where I’d been unnecessarily hard on myself trying to fit into techniques that didn't match how my brain works. These journals have been one of the tools for getting to know myself.

Eras of creating my practice

• 2016 — Getting to know focus and prioritization techniques

• 2018 — Establishing core practices that have endured

• 2020 — Focusing on function as a grounding tool during uncertain times

• 2024 — Reframing and increasing intentional gratitude and reflection

Perfectly messy

It feels vulnerable to share these pages that were intended for only me. There are many areas of my life where I give a lot of care and attention to aesthetics, but for these journals, that hasn’t been the important part. Getting things done and living a life is messy, so I need a place where I can be messy.

Seeing my 10 journals together, it’s a lot of daily-ish, weekly-ish, monthly-ish activities that add up to years. It makes the passing of time tangible and eases some anxiety around the question: What have I been doing?!

There have been time periods where the journals get overlooked or underutilized because of changes in schedule, life events, or other factors, but I always circle back to this grounding tool. It welcomes me back from vacation. It helps me find focus when I’m feeling frazzled. I've kept up the practice over these 10 years because it's flexible enough to shift with me. It was helpful from day one, even if how I use it now is not the same as December 2015. These imperfect, changing rituals end up being the routines that are ideal for me.

Make time visible: Dot journal with intention

Join me in learning the techniques I’ve been sharing above.

🗓️ Friday, March 27, 2026
🗓️ Sunday, March 29, 2026
📍SF Stationary Fest

View session options

When the world feels overwhelming, creativity can be a grounding force. Today I’m sharing ways to touch into fall creativity as a tool for gratitude within our experiences — to buoy our energies for whatever is ahead.

Summer energy

I think a lot about the different energies that come with each seasonal shift. Of course, creativity can be accessed anytime, but I find fall and spring to be especially creative times. In the spring, we’re emerging from cozy winter restfulness. In the fall, we’re transitioning from summer’s active relaxation.

Your summer might have looked like many things. Maybe you took a vacation. Maybe you didn’t, but found your social life fuller in the evenings — BBQs that took advantage of those long summer hours, outdoor concerts, spontaneous adventures.

For me, my summer was beautifully local: filled with out-of-town visitors, which meant playing tourist in my own city. Yes, I did take my quinquennial drive down Lombard St., and the stomach-turning Filbert St. For only my second time, I walked halfway across the Golden Gate Bridge. I enjoyed some free concerts and went on museum visits (I wrote about my Ruth Asawa experience in my last post.)

Summer gives us permission to explore and play. To say yes to things. To let our schedules be a little looser, our routines a little more flexible.

Fall energy

The hours have been long in the summer, and now, as the light shifts, it brings our bodies closer to home. Closer to reflection. Closer to taking action on ideas that may have been percolating during all that active relaxation. There’s also that ‘new school year’ energy that comes with fall. I still get that feeling every year with new learnings and projects ahead, perhaps ingrained from 20 early years in the education system.

Have you noticed that fall is full of creative moments built into the calendar? Halloween, the most creative-centric holiday, with plenty of opportunities to create make-believe. And then November and December can bring about kitchen creativity and holiday decorating or crafting.

Making the transition intentional: ideas for creative harvesting

Before we dive headfirst into the fall creative calendar, we can pause and gather up what summer gave us.

Think of it as creative harvesting. Just like farmers bring in crops before the first frost, we need to bring in our experiences, observations, and inspirations before they blur or fade from memory.

This is why I love practices like journal-keeping and sketching as practical tools for an active, creative life.

The images you see throughout this post are from my own summer souvenirs. Spending time creating the artwork was an active gratitude exercise for those experiences. This doesn’t need to be as elaborate as making a series of postcards like I did.

Summer reflection questions

The experiences you collect and observations you make can become the raw material for your creative work.

• What moments do I want to remember? (Try looking through your photos or calendar to spark the memory of those experiences)

• What did I notice or learn about myself?

• What ideas came to me that I want to explore further?

• What made me feel most alive or present?

Summer souvenir ideas

Creating something can be a nice way to make experiences tangible and memorable later on.

• Make a handwritten and decorated memory list

• Turn your list into a haiku

• Create a drawing dedicated to one experience as a souvenir

• Send a pen pal note to someone you visited or visited you

• Make a playlist

  

Your fall creative energy ahead

It’s also worth looking at what’s on your creative plate this fall. Taking stock now means you can be more intentional about where your energy goes.

• Is there anything creative you’re trying to finish this year?

• Is there anything you want to start?

• What events or dates on the calendar might require some of your creative energy?

• What creative practices help you feel most grounded when things get overwhelming?

Hands-on creative memory-keeping

🗓️ Sunday, Oct. 12, 2025
📍Arch Art Supplies

For some hands-on memory-keeping techniques, I’m teaching a workshop on October 12th: Inked Monoprint Postcards and Souvenir Sketchbooks.

We’ll explore drawing and printmaking concepts for capturing memories and creating small, meaningful keepsakes. They’re the same techniques I’ve been sharing in this blog post. No experience necessary!

Grab your ticket

Meandering drawing meditation

In last month’s blog post, I shared all the art I’ve been creating inspired by the Ruth Asawa retrospective at SF MoMA. This month, as the show winds down, I’m sharing a tutorial for the pattern I developed from studying her wire sculptures. Like her work, it builds from simple, repeated actions into something larger and more complex.

The Ruth Asawa retrospective at SF MoMA closes Sept. 2, 2025.
If you’re local, don’t miss it!

On my second visit to the Ruth Asawa retrospective, I noticed how profoundly pattern runs like a wire thread through her entire body of work. There were literal patterns made with stamps and drawings, and those that emerge through the woven wire sculptures. She found ways to work with repetition and rhythm across every medium she touched.

I learned that she called the relaxing act of drawing patterns "meanders"— what a perfect word for the gentle wandering quality of drawing. I'm calling this pattern "Asawa's pattern" because it came from engaging with and learning from her work. It feels like a gift I can share with you to honor Ruth Asawa and what she contributed to my home of San Francisco.

Video: Asawa’s Pattern Tutorial

Step-by-step

“Play ethic”, a definition by way of observations in Ruth Asawa’s art and life.

When I wrote of my biz name change I mentioned that “play ethic” can have a multitude of meanings. The core idea is valuing exploration, and an alternate way to view “work ethic.”

For the first in this series of play ethic definitions, I offer what I noticed while looking at Ruth Asawa's art and reading about her life.

play ethic [verb]

“Wire can play.” – Ruth Asawa

Throughout her life, she sought out art even when it didn't seem accessible. As Marilyn Chase wrote in her biography, Everything She Touched, while at Black Mountain College, Ruth became part of a group of “independent women who lived in the pursuit of a creative life.”

She explored many mediums and continually played with them, pushing them into new forms. She found her way to baker's clay, taking something she was using to make art with her kids and SF art students and discovering it to be an adept tool for building bronze sculptures.

In reading about her life, she also sounds like she was fun to be around! And someone who instilled creative play in others.

Book Recommendation: Everything She Touched, Marilyn Chase

In July, I visited the overwhelmingly good SF Art Book Fair. That's where I met Marilyn Chase, who was signing the newly printed paperback version of her biography about Ruth Asawa. I learned that the book had originally been released in Spring 2020, but due to the pandemic, it didn't receive a full book tour or release.

I'm glad this book is finding new audiences with the Ruth Asawa retrospective because it is an engrossing and inspiring read. It made me understand the art even more. I even went back to the museum a couple of times to check out specific rooms after reading about certain eras of her work within the book. I hope someday there will be a film or TV adaptation of the book, because there is so much we can continue to learn from her life.

Legacy you can engage with in SF

I liked the dandelion image that Marilyn writes about related to Ruth's volunteer impact in SF arts education. She brought the seeds of her Black Mountain College influences and connected working artists with schools, in turn creating new artists who continue the artistic quirk that is San Francisco (and needs to be protected).

For us San Francisco residents, we have seeds from Ruth accessible to us. Besides the sculptures and murals that still dot San Francisco, we residents have Asawa legacy to interact with now.

• Visit: SCRAP, which came out of her volunteerism and thankfully got much needed funding this year.

• Visit: The free viewing tower at the de Young, thanks to Ruth's influence.

With this current exhibit, we have a chance to use this as a reminder of the importance of art in our lives and arts education. In the face of so much defunding of the arts, we can hold what we know is true in our hearts and be the seeds of sharing as we work through and challenge this hard time period of the 2020s.

Sometimes an art exhibit sparks my own creativity in entirely unexpected ways. Last summer, I was enthralled by The Listening Room, part of the SF MoMA Art of Noise exhibit. This spring and summer, I've been captivated by the Ruth Asawa Retrospective at SF MoMA.

Finding active rest in the presence of art

The first time I visited the Asawa retrospective, I was in need of some active rest, that restorative kind of engagement you find while surrounded by art.

The visit was needed to restore my energy after having spent the weekend preparing and teaching a workshop. I craved an opportunity to create while surrounded by art. So I carved out a chunk of time on a Monday to visit the recently opened Ruth Asawa show, bringing my travel sketchbook with hopes of squeezing in some drawing.

Drawings in the air

I ended up spending three hours immersed in the exhibit. Finding an out-of-the way spot, I settled in to draw.

Because Asawa's sculptures are created with wire, they're almost like drawings suspended in air. My favorite warm-up exercise—blind contour drawing—seemed perfectly suited to these pieces. Looking at them, it strikes me that they resemble blind contours floating in space.

They were so fun to draw and, then later, I filled them in with gray watercolor washes. The result was remarkably similar to Ruth's own diagrams of her sculptural ideas (shown in the image above).

Drawing for understanding

After the warm ups, I drew the sculptures more intentionally. Through this process, I began to truly understand them — to grasp the interplay of shape within shape. I noticed that while the wire remains a consistent gauge throughout, when one “basket” is layered inside another, it creates an optical illusion of depth. And that’s what creates the depth in the cast shadows, much like how watercolor washes appear darker in overlapping areas of my blind contours.

Asawa’s Pattern

It was a lovely day, and I would have been completely satisfied if drawing in my notebook had been my artful experience of the exhibit. But then, when I returned home to refine my sketches, I had an internal spark.

Looking through my drawings, an idea flowed through me intuitively. It happened, purely through visual understanding of the sculptures, and recognizing the pattern that emerges. I saw how it could become a pattern to explore and play with. A pattern I’ve been regularly playing with since April! What you see in the following images is my exploration of this pattern.

See this blog post, where I provide step-by-step instructions for creating it yourself.

To learn more about Ruth Asawa, visit the retrospective through September 2, 2025 at SF MoMA. There has also been a lovely series of posts written on Substack by Wendy MacNaughton.

If you’re feeling inspired to see even more art, check out my recent blog post for other California art on exhibit.

As we wind down June, I'm reflecting on the beginning of the month and SF Design Week. In this post, I'm sharing some key takeaways from the talks I attended, the main theme that threaded throughout the week, and a recap of the events I hosted at the Drawing Room Annex.

I made it to eleven talks and gatherings, so I can't recap absolutely everything—but there was one theme that showed up everywhere: AI and its relationship to human creativity, which makes sense — we're designers at SF Design Week! I'm often thinking about human creativity, so the topic of AI is always both intriguing and overwhelming.

If you're not interested in learning about AI, skip to the bottom of this post for pics of the events I hosted!

For those sticking around, some of this might help you think about your own creative practice. I'll be continuing to write and share more on this topic without this blog becoming exclusively about AI.

Something to note is that the official theme of SF Design Week for this year was Reform: reshaping outcomes with conscious design. Thinking about that in relation to AI, we are in a giant time period of reshaping.

Observing the “vibes”

Before diving into relevant talks, I have to call out the word that came up most frequently across all these AI discussions: VIBES.

Maybe you've heard the term vibe coding? Vibes is thrown around so much that at this point, I think it's almost losing its meaning or shifted to so many multi-meanings that it doesn't bring much nuance to a discussion. We've had a few years where "vibes" has elevated itself from casual slang to professional vocabulary. There’s a lot of discomfort in the zeitgeist about AI. I notice “vibe” being a different verbal way of saying you’re doing something with generative AI, without saying “generative AI” that might sound more palatable (or even fun) to people.

[These are my general notes and thoughts from the talks, not direct quotes from the speakers.]

Phone a (AI) Friend with Anthropic

This was a broad panel discussion about Claude, the AI tool offered by Anthropic. Being the friendly, helpful AI is very much the branding theme for Claude. If you're curious, you can watch this recent Config talk with Joel Lewenstein, Head of Anthropic Product Design, on the intentional use of referring to AI as a collaborator.

So here are some notes and tidbits that stuck with me:

Where we're headed

Currently, there are two simultaneous (opposite) forces shaping the future of human-AI interaction:

1. Increasing human distance from AI: Tools like agents that operate more independently from humans

2. Bringing AI and humans closer: Models designed to work more collaboratively with people (like Claude.)

Designing for boundaries

Their focus is on empowering vs. replacing. It's a thinking partner and pro-human. (Pro-human is a weird term to type out vs. human-centered)

Preserving humanity

It's important to focus on the things that "tickle our humanity"—those uniquely human elements that can't be replicated.

Authorship and differentiation

In a world heading toward output parity, your unique perspective is what makes the difference. When thinking about "human-created," "AI-created," or "AI + Human created," it's the intentionality that separates unique creation from AI slop (which is the current spam d'jour. See John Oliver's most recent Last Week Tonight).

How do we keep up?

From the audience, there was concern about feeling overwhelmed by the amount of AI tech to be aware of and keep up with. And how not to become irrelevant. (The feeling of overwhelm was a theme I heard throughout Design Week conversations.)

An answer was: Don't keep up. Tech will always outpace humans, but you need to keep up with what's important to you.

In talking with others afterward, there had been hope that they'd dig deeper into what this all means for the design industry. Most people felt the presentation stayed surface-level, though the Q&A got more substantive.

Pablo Stanley: Am I the Creative, or Just the Prompt?

Pablo's talk went much deeper into the personal implications of AI integration. He told his story about how using chat based AI across many areas of his life fundamentally changed how he thinks.

As he spoke, he shared a drawing that reflected the various self-reflections he's had in relation to using AI. He mentioned using it in a multitude of aspects in his life to the point it felt like having a "robot-friend" by his side.

Losing his entire ChatGPT

He had an inciting incident: losing his entire ChatGPT history, which sent him into a panic and forced him to reflect. These are the Qs I captured him mentioning he asked of himself (and the world at large):

• How much is he creating a remix of the robot?

• Who's building the stuff?

• Am I forgetting to think?

• Are we going to get bad at hearing “no” in the real world because the AI is a validation machine?

• Are we all going to become the same?

This self-questioning seemed to help him process what had happened and look at his relationship with AI differently. However, his conclusion surprised me. Given that his story was about becoming incredibly reliant on the technology—to the point where losing access caused panic—I expected him to advocate for finding balance, which he briefly mentioned.

Instead, his takeaway seemed to be acceptance: "This is how my brain works now."

Folks I chatted with liked that the talk went deeper than other AI discussions. Unfortunately, there was no time for Q&A since Pablo had to rush off, which left us without the group discussion this topic deserved.

James Hurst: The Tension Between Familiar and Unfamiliar

This was one of my favorite talks. Its focus was switching between the ideas of uniqueness and normalcy within the context of branding.

"Weird the normal. Normal the weird."

The majority of his presentation outlined rogue types of branding or using design in a rogue way to approach hard problems. There was another layer to the talk, because James also offers training and services approaching graphic design and branding utilizing AI. To keep with the theme of this post, I'm just going to touch on the aspects most relevant to AI that made their way into his talk.

Aesthetic Intelligence

He used a term I'd never heard before that made instant sense to me: Aesthetic Intelligence. He was using it in the context of how you can utilize it in visual design to help people discover something for themselves. I'm pulling it out here because, as it relates to AI, I wonder if people will begin to value their own "aesthetic intelligence" more highly. Will it help with critical thinking when it comes to spotting something nefarious made with AI?

Inductive Reasoning

His AI-related advice was practical: Let AI handle the deductive reasoning, then ask yourself, "What didn't the AI tell me?" Use that gap to push toward inductive reasoning and insights only you can provide.

What can we focus on?

James's talk touched on how we're living through a "polycrisis"—multiple crises happening simultaneously, which includes the tech shift of AI.

When getting involved with or designing for specific solutions amid the polycrisis, the key question to ask ourselves is: What are we uniquely equipped to focus on? That's where to put our energy.

This echoes what was said at the Anthropic talk about reducing overwhelm.

How I'm feeling after SF Design Week

There's a lot to contemplate about AI, creativity, and maintaining our groundedness in the scope of it all. AI is something I spend considerable time reading about, thinking about, and attending talks on. You can expect more musings on this topic in future posts, especially as it relates to maintaining our creative health.

Events hosted by Play Ethic Studio

Now for the fun pics—this is how it went at my Drawing Room Annex events! I'm so thankful to them for providing the space to gather. If you're local, please visit their galleries.

Friday's Watercolor Social

For the Communal Table event, I finally brought to life something I'd been wanting to make for ages: giant communal watercolor palettes. These oversized palettes were designed specifically for shared mixing and exploration, creating a central gathering point for people to play. I provided some inked watercolor sheets to act as a "starting prompt" if people wanted it.

All evening, it was wonderful to see people from Design Week drop by the Drawing Room Annex. There's something special about providing a space where the design community can unwind, play, and connect with each other in a unique way.

If you’re wishing you’d gotten to play with the palettes in person, there are color mixing zines and watercolor palettes currently available in the shop.

Check 'em out!

Monday's Visual Dot Journaling Workshop

In my Monday workshop, I taught analog planning and reflection tools, and we naturally found ourselves talking about AI and what it feels like to our brains. I'm happy to report that analog tools like dot journaling can help keep us grounded in our thoughts—a nice counterbalance to the swirl and circling people described in some of the AI discussions throughout the week.

I'm planning to teach this workshop again in September, so stay on my mailing list to be notified when tickets go on sale!

Wondering if I used AI to collaborate on this post?

I did, using Claude. And I think "collaborate" is an accurate term in this instance. This is the first blog post I've ever written utilizing AI in this way. I'll note that the time it took to write was essentially the same as writing this type of post without AI.

This is not me advocating for you to use it. I can confidently say that this is entirely my thinking, dot connecting, and fits with the voice in my head. For transparency, I'll share my process:

• Input my complete rough draft

• Reviewed the first draft from Claude that retained the majority of my structure and words.

• I asked a lot of questions about nuance of what I wanted to say.

• Fact-checked when it made assumptions

• Made edits to the draft outside of Claude.

• Brought it back in and did round 2 utilizing same process as above.

• Made real-time decisions about what to keep vs. change

• Made the last final tweaks on my own, here in Substack, and utilizing Grammarly. Spelling and punctuation have always been a challenge for me.

What’s most important to me is that you’re understanding what I’m aiming to express.

As I’ve been bopping around galleries and flipping through event calendars, I’ve noticed there’s a huge amount of retrospective work on exhibit (or about to be on exhibit) by artists who have roots and lives intersecting the Bay Area. Recently, I learned that it’s common practice for museum departments to consider the exhibit calendar as a whole when planning exhibits, often years in advance.

While visiting a few of these exhibits, I’ve enjoyed the experience of walking through history to see art influences. In future posts, I’ll highlight some of these exhibits. Here’s a little roundup of what I’ve found and where it’s at.

SF MoMA

Ruth Asawa
Group F.64 (Bay Area photography)
SF Art Institute Stories

Legion of Honor

Wayne Thiebaud
100 Years of the Legion of Honor
Lawrence Ferlinghetti

Oakland Museum of California

OMCA is dedicated to always featuring art and histories of California. Check out what’s on exhibit

The High School Show at The Drawing Room Annex

On the other end of retrospectives are beginning prospectives. At The Drawing Room Annex, loads of San Francisco High School students are gaining their first experiences of exhibiting in a gallery. This is a curated show that includes work from 16 local high schools.

At the opening a few weeks back, it was a bustling environment of teens and parents excited to be celebrating the exhibit opening. As I walked around the room, taking in the art, I could sense emotion being a layer within the art. The work itself is a time capsule of now. A time capsule of these teens processing everything going on around them. Our political world is on display. Concerns for the environment are on display. Joy and curiosity are on display and written about within many of the artist statements. The show is up through June 29, 2025.

More opportunities to be inspired!

As this newsletter drops into your email, San Francisco is four days into Design Week. I’m having fun running into design friends, past colleagues, and meeting new people while also prepping for my upcoming events. It’s not too late to grab tickets! There are many events happening through Tuesday, June 10.

In the next newsletter, I’ll provide a design week reflection. For now, I don’t want you to miss these two events I’m hosting! Both will be at The Drawing Room Annex, where the H.S. show written about above is on display.

This week I’m bringing the biggest watercolor palettes I’ve ever made to Friday’s Communal Table. It’s an SF Design Week art night! Can’t wait to see them come out of the kiln and have people paint with them.

Communal Table at The Drawing Room Annex

🗓️ Friday, June 6
🕕 6pm - 10pm
Add to your Calendar

There’s always something to be learned from each other when bringing together people with mutual interests and curiosities. I’m excited to share these analog journaling techniques with designers and creatives. Watch the workshop trailer above for a preview.

Intro to analog dot journaling and life logs workshop

🗓️ Monday, June 9
🕓 4pm - 6:30pm
Buy ticket

Learn new ways to organize your life

Additional blog posts related to dot journaling

• Journaling is good for creativity

• How I use my dot journal

• Creative project tracking with a time ladder

  ---

Do you have a journaling practice? Have you ever wanted to start one?

There are so many types of journal practices: old school “dear diary,” gratitude journaling, morning pages (stream of consciousness), 5-year journal, dream journal, travel journal, memory journals, art journals, fitness/health journals, and more.

A commonality is they all capture ideas and self-reflections. And they’re good for us. There’s tons of research and evidence to support that journaling is good for maintaining our mental health.

As someone who is advocating for taking care of our creativity, it’s a great tool for that, too. Without maintaining our mental health, we won’t have frequent light bulb moments. Journaling can be a first step to mental health, and amazingly, helps maintain our mental fitness similarly to how regular exercise maintains our physical fitness.

However, I understand and have felt the intimidation of the blank page. That’s why I love dot journaling. By putting a little bit of structure on the pages ahead of time, I know what I’m doing when I open up my journal, especially on the days I’m lacking motivation for self-care and know I need it. Plus, some of my activities don’t take very long.

June is nearing, the marker of being almost halfway through the year. It’s a great time to start or restart practices of self-reflection and organization. Join me in a Design Week edition of my workshop, Intro to analog dot journaling and life logs. See below for more details!

If these ideas are intriguing and you can’t take the workshop, please shoot me a message!

Play Ethic Studio @ San Francisco Design Week

Years ago, I was a volunteer with AIGA SF when San Francisco Design Week was first launched. That was almost 20 years ago! It’s full circle to be facilitating two events this year hosted at The Drawing Room Annex. There’s a free creativity event and a paid workshop. Besides hosting events, I plan to attend many as well. Come join me at SF Design Week!

Communal Table with Play Ethic Studio

🗓️ Friday, June 6
🕕 6pm - 10pm
📍 The Drawing Room Annex

Free for Design Week attendees.
Drop-in sliding scale donation to the Drawing Room Annex for others.

This is an event for play. Wind down your Friday at The Drawing Room Annex for this Design Week edition of their weekly Communal Table for drop-in creativity. We’ll play with watercolors, handmade palettes, and basic drawing supplies. No painting experience is needed. I’ll be available to provide mixing advice if needed. Bring your big kid energy!

There will be a selection of palettes and watercolor supplies for sale.

Add to your Design Week calendar

Intro to analog dot journaling and life logs

🗓️ Monday, June 9
🕓 4pm - 6:30pm
📍 The Drawing Room Annex

Learn more and purchase tickets

This all analog workshop can help with your digital days. You’ll build a custom planner and thought keeper that adapts to your needs with popular dot journaling techniques. Find the fun and creativity in planning. You’ll learn tools to organize and reflect on your days, months, and year.

Workshop takeaways

• Kick off second half of year with a practical planner set up for your needs

• Learn over 10 concepts, frameworks, and functional layouts

• Approaches to fit analog journal planning into your routines

• Ideas for pairing analog and digital organization tools

• Fun and creativity in planning

  Purchase Tickets

Additional posts related to dot journaling

• How I use my dot journal

• Creative project tracking with a time ladder

About The Drawing Room Annex

Both Design Week events are graciously being hosted by The Drawing Room Annex. This gallery space is positioned perfectly on the corner of 17th and Valencia Streets. Bathed in natural light from expansive corner windows, this particular space had been dormant for years. By transforming long-shuttered storefronts into dynamic gallery and community spaces, The Drawing Room not only showcase San Francisco’s diverse and vibrant artists but also revitalize dormant potential — bringing people, community, and engagement to spaces in need.

Hello from the newly renamed Play Ethic Studio! I’m Shasta Garcia, owner. My business has been evolving and needed a name better suited to what I’m offering; support for creatives and the creatively curious. Shastablasta remains my longtime nickname and artist moniker as it relates to my own personal art and creative explorations.

Prototyping is a design principle that I lean into — trying things out and iterating. I’m announcing a few things here today and acknowledge all the expressions of my business on the internet are always works in progress. If you’re reading this you’re sharing in my journey as I grow my business, shape the experiences I’m creating for you, and create resonant posts on Substack (where these emails are always accessible). Thank you for reading and supporting me!

Where we’ve been

For many longtime subscribers to my newsletter updates, you’ve seen me through many “Shastablasta” phases over the years. To reflect on where we’ve been here’s a short list.

• Blogging about DIY paper crafts (2011 - 2016)

• Being a finalist in Scotch’s gift wrapping contest (2012)

• Selling cat related letterpress stationery. Anyone remember my catnip tea?

• Silly Halloween costumes photo essays

• Being featured in the Uppercase Compendium of Craft & Creativity (2015)

• 100 Day Project documentation (2015 - today)

• Developing and creating watercolor palettes and art tools (2022 - today)

• Starting this Substack (2024)

• All alongside my design career

What’s ahead

Play Ethic has been a phrase I’ve been using for many years. It’s what I’d found to best describe how deliberate I am in cultivating creative practices and taking care when showing up and using them in the workplace. It was an alternate descriptor for “work ethic”. Now I see a broader meaning.

Play Ethic can mean taking care of our creativity and taking care of our creativity is taking care of ourselves. It’s cultivating creativity as a tool for connecting and experiencing our worlds. It’s important to maintain creative energy for the workplace and our own lives.

That’s what I intend to bring to you here on Substack and into the Play Ethic Studio business. This is not a 180 of what I’ve been sending to your inbox. It’s broadening and focusing simultaneously the creative musings I send your way.

New offering: Creativity and design coaching

An important achievement over this past fall/winter was completing life coach training and acquiring my coaching certificate! As a human-centered experience designer, one of my favorite parts of the process is research into understanding client needs related to the product or service being designed; bringing empathy and translating it into solutions to solve problems.

Creativity and design coaching is a human-centered experience. As a coach, I’m able to bring my design and strategic thinking skills together with coaching tools to aid clients in designing their lives.

There is more to share about my coach offerings. This has been a big announcement already. For now, if you’re curious to learn more about becoming a client or to book a connection session, please message me!

Looking forward to supporting your play ethic,
shasta

Two workshops for color mixing confidence. On sale now!

Watercolor theory and pigment basics

Start with the basics of color theory. From three colors to many.

Sunday May, 4 @ Arch Art Supplies
11:30 am – 2pm

Nature and neutrals watercolor theory

Then gain an understanding of blues, greens, and grays for a well-rounded approach to color for natural settings. Both classes are beginner friendly. Take one or both!

Sunday May, 18 @ Arch Art Supplies
11:30 am – 2pm

My next workshop is April 6th! These workshop samples capture the memories of a special LA trip last spring. One worth commemorating in my sketchbooks just like a long vacation even though it was only a long weekend.

The impetus for the trip was to visit Luna Luna. Now a traveling exhibit, at the time, it was uncertain if it would be on display again. It’s a celebration and restoration of a 1987 amusement park with rides, attractions, and experiences designed by world-renowned artists spanning multiple generations all brought together and contributing their creativity. The collaboration continued with music by Miles Davis, René Clemencic, and Philip Glass scored and provided for specific amusements.

When I learned about the exhibit I had to go! And everything lined up to visit a friend and have a mini LA adventure.

While not possible to ride on the rides, the exhibit felt immersive and told the story of a unique collaboration in time. I instantly felt 80s nostalgia and could imagine myself being there even though the Luna Luna Park in it’s original existence was far away in Germany while I was a California kid. To hear how the restoration came about I recommend listening to this NPR story and scrolling through all the original artworks including ones not yet restored.

It just recently closed its latest exhibit in Brooklyn and looks like they’re planning for the next.

To complete my LA experience my friend curated a couple of other memorable experiences. We enjoyed mid-spring sunshine at an orange wine tasting event.

And to top it all off we spent the last morning shopping Mathew Weiner’s down-sizing estate sale. It felt very Hollywood perusing through lots of mid-century gems. Now I have gems of memories added to my travel sketchbook.

You’re invited to learn ways to capture your trip memories!

Inked Monoprint Postcards and
Souvenir Sketchbooks workshop

April 6, 2025 11am-2pm, In-person @ Arch Art Supplies

Turn photos into paintings in this all-skill-levels mixed media class!

Using pen, ink, shape, pattern, and color we’ll go on a 3 hour tour of simple sketchbook, watercolor, and monoprinting techniques.

Gain a creative toolbox you can use as warmups to detailed drawings or for quickly capturing a memory on-the-go. Put it all together to create monoprint postcards using photos, ink, and watercolor. This is a great way to document and create your own souvenirs after travel or local touristing.

Workshop takeaways

• Basic approach to capturing experiences and memories using shape, pattern, and color

• Basics of monoprinting technique and ability to recreate the setup for additional sizes or for use directly in a sketchbook.

• Playing with a variety of mixed media tools

• Strategies for packing art supplies on-the-go and recommended tools

A wide variety of supplies will be provided for use in the class. Students will take home a micron drawing pen, monoprinting plate, the art they make, and a full supply list for shopping for their favorites. Bonus, both Arch and Shasta offer a 15% discount on any supplies purchased on workshop day!

Tools you’ll play with

• Drawing pens

• Pointed nib ink pen

• Water soluble pencils

• Artist grade watercolors

• Paint brushes

• Ceramic watercolor palettes

• A variety of art and watercolor papers

A few more samples of the monoprint technique can be seen in my love letter to The Listening Room substack post.

On the Horizon… a name change!

In the coming weeks I’ll be changing my business name here on Substack and on Instagram. More to share about that in future posts. This is a heads up in case you see an unfamiliar substack title in your email. It’s still me and my profile name on Substack will remain, Shastablasta!

One of the layout frameworks I teach in my dot journal workshops is the concept of a Time Ladder. It’s useful for many long-term projects or tracking progress on a project with an undetermined timeline, like a job hunt. It’s especially useful for any creative endeavor, like a 30-day challenge or The 100 Day Project.

Time Ladder Journal Framework

A time ladder is a way to see any project unfolding and acts as simple project planning. It can be used for projects with clear timelines or projects that are less defined because it allows for reflecting on the activities that have been experienced and see the passing of time.

This is meant to be drawn in a dot journal planner or any regularly used notebook. Dates represent the passing of time and create a “ladder” in the middle of a page. The segments can be broken up however you please. Generally, the time is broken up into reasonable chunks of time to track. It could be weekly, bi-weekly, or monthly.

Use the left side of the page to plot out key points in a project. On the right side of the page keep track of what was done. This could include important convos and the surprises that inevitably happen when working on a project with a longer timeline.

Benefits

• Planning key tasks

• Keeping track of tasks and activities further out in a project

• Visually see progress being made on a project

• Use as a self accountability tool

Adjusted Time Ladder for the 100 Day Project

This is a twist on the tool for use alongside a 100 Day Project.

Instead of it being a tool of tasks, the left side can be a record of what was worked on or made each day. Use the right side for reflection during the project, which encompasses a significant chunk of the year.

Benefits

• A record of creativity

• Visually see how much time is left in the 100 Days

• This could serve as an alternative to posting images every day on social media if you want to keep a project less public

• Note feelings and insights as the project progresses

Internet research shows Bill Westerman being the originator of the Time Ladder concept.

Why do a 30-day creative challenge or The 100 Day Project?

These types of projects are a daily reminder to take time for creativity. Often done alongside others, they also provide some structure for accountability.

The mental challenge

Doing something consistently every day for a time period is the challenge. But if a day is skipped, it doesn’t mean failure. Sometimes doing the thing includes just thinking about the thing or needing to take a break from the thing. That might sound counterintuitive to project success, but paying attention and making space for creativity is the whole point. So it’s a great time box for creative success in whatever form it takes!

As a participant for 10+ years of The 100 Day Project, I’ve written about my project tips here. In 2024, I flashed back to all my projects on Instagram.

Offering one-on-one creative support

It can be incredibly rewarding to experience completing a 100 Day Project or creative challenge. The first project I outlined for myself was very simple. I found that after I knew I could complete a project, subsequent projects felt easier and easier.

If you’ve struggled to complete a project in the past, I’d love to help you! Let’s get your project started and keep it going this year. I offer 30 min 1:1 creative support sessions. We’ll chat through your project, potential obstacles, and ways you can set yourself up for your time box of creativity.

Book a creativity support session

One of my most consistent practices over the years has been to keep a dot planner/journal. I’m in my tenth year of remixing journal methods and collecting analog tools. I first took on the practice during a career transition and have used it in many seasons of life since.

Most consistently it’s been a grounding tool for my daily and weekly mindfulness routines. Importantly it’s a visual tool that holds ideas, keeps memories, and has helped create and keep new habits.

What I love is its flexibility. The pages of my first journal don’t look like my current journal as my tools and preferences have evolved. It’s part of how I start my day before looking at screens. And I use it along with digital tools that also keep me organized.

Benefits of analog journaling methods

• Improved memory and recall

• Stress reduction

• Overcome decision fatigue and mental clutter

• Improved time management

• Habit building

• Visualizing your life

• And more…

About the workshop

Sunday, February 2nd 11am - 1:30 pm @ Arch Drafting Supplies

Build an analog planner that adapts to your needs — an introduction to popular dot journaling techniques. Find the fun and creativity in planning. You’ll learn tools to organize and reflect on your days, months, and year.

Analog journaling can flex for your seasons of life. It’s a check-in tool for calendaring, productivity, time management, note-taking, keeping organized, mindfulness, gratitude, life reflection, tasks, goals, or habit tracking. Keep what fits and skip the rest.

Workshop takeaways

• Start your year with a practical planner set up for your needs

• Learn over 10 concepts, frameworks, and functional layouts

• Approaches to fit analog journal planning into your routines

• Ideas for pairing analog and digital organization tools

• Fun and creativity in planning

I’m excited to share all the various tools I’ve collected beyond the bullet method I started with. Many great resources are available online. The workshop aims to be a comprehensive place for information, to get support, and to walk away with a prepped journal ready to use and experiment with.

Creativity on the horizon

• Last year I taught three different watercolor-related workshops. I’m looking ahead in the year to plan the next dates for teaching those workshops again.

• December was a busy month. As I start the year I’m focusing on reintroducing my creative play practices into my weekly routines.

👋 Hello to new subscribers! Thanks for stopping by my booth at a recent holiday popup.

Last holiday orders

Today Dec. 18th is the last day to order from the holiday palette shop! Orders today will ship Dec.19th 2024.

Shop palettes

Last 2024 in person pop-up

Saturday, Dec. 21: Noon - 5 pm
@ The Drawing Room Annex

Tree Twins shenanigans

Have you encountered the Tree Twins? Jingle and Tingle were sent by Santa to spread cheer from Thanksgiving through to Christmas Eve. They romp around the streets of San Francisco (and sometimes other cities like NY and Paris) spreading joyful smiles across the faces of anyone they encounter.

I connected with them a few years ago and have been collaborating some evenings on festive silliness. I’ve put together a holiday “cheer” outfit to assist passersby in getting in on the merriment and helping them grab a snap with the Trees for their holiday memories.

It’s a joy watching others react to encountering the Tree Twins. Sometimes it’s serendipitously for the first time and sometimes they’ve sought them out as part of their holiday traditions.

Going out into the evening makes me feel connected to San Francisco. Each evening the twins announce what neighborhood they’ll visit. It’s a great way to see the cheer other people are creating with festive outfits and trimmings hung on houses and local businesses.

I’m grateful for this playfulness that’s become part of my holiday tradition. Visit @TreeTwins on Instagram to find the next neighborhood they’re visiting along with pics of all the shenanigans. Join them every Christmas Eve with the official San Francisco xmas tree at Mclaren Lodge in Golden Gate Park.

Creativity on the Horizon

My first workshop of 2025 will be Feb. 2nd. I’ll be offering a dot journaling workshop at Arch Art Supplies. Look out for more info and signups mid January!

Happy holidays to you and yours!

Shastablasta.shop is open now through Dec. 18

If you’re reading this Substack my holiday palette shop is open! As a solo maker, I’m able to open up online sales a couple of times a year, like right now! There will be limited availability online to ensure I have stock on hand for upcoming sales. As items come out of the kiln I’ll be re-stocking. And there will be some new products to share that haven’t made it out of the kilns just yet.

Orders will be shipping on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays. First shipping date will be Dec. 2. Last shipping date is Dec. 19.

Shop watercolor palettes

Popping up in San Francisco

I’ll be popping up to sell ceramics in person the three weekends leading up to Christmas! All locations are in The Mission.

Sunday, Dec. 8: Noon - 5 pm
@ The Drawing Room Annex

Saturday, Dec. 14: 11-5 pm
Clay Room Members Ceramics Fair @ Southern Exposure

Saturday, Dec. 21: Noon - 5 pm
@ The Drawing Room Annex

Hope to see you there.

#Inktober #colortober

While we’ve officially kicked off the Christmas holiday season with Thanksgiving I’ve got a bit of Halloween creativity to share.

My creative fall project was participating in a combined daily challenge for #Inktober and #Colortober. These are drawing/painting challenges, as the punny spelling suggests, organized in October on Instagram. They utilize lists as inspiration to draw and paint from. However, I skipped the lists and made up my own rules.

I combined ink and color into one activity. Each day, I chose an object to draw and then randomly selected a color to paint the object. On days 1-15, I chose a single color. Days 16-30, I chose two colors. And for day 31, I utilized any of the colors I had left.

My focus was on shape and shadow. Some days, I only drew a blind contour of the object and other days, I did a full drawing.

During the last bit of the challenge, I pulled out some Halloween silliness to paint.

Cyanometer as inspiration

What's a Cyanometer? It’s a tool for measuring the blueness of the sky. Originally created as a scientific measuring tool by Horace-Bénédict de Saussure and Alexander von Humboldt to understand if the quantity of moisture in the air affected the blueness of the sky. One could go down a rabbit hole reading about the scientific layers that make the sky blue.

The original cyanometer is made of round paper dyed with different shades of Prussian Blue. A hole is cut in the middle so one can hold it up to the sky and visually gauge; how blue the sky?

It’s fascinating that the paint pigment Prussian Blue became a tool for scientific discovery. To me it seemed the perfect tool for taking into the field as a quick way to assess what blue to use as a starting point when painting the sky, water, or anything blue.

The cyanometer sparked the inspiration for my next workshop exploring the colors that show up in nature.

In-person Nature and Neutrals workshop

November 10th, 2024 I’ll be teaching a workshop using the cyanometer concept at Arch Supplies. We’ll create beginner friendly tools while learning about color mixing.

Learn how to work with a limited color palette by getting familiar with a range of blues. We’ll use those same blues to create grays (and even black) without using any black pigment. Then the blues will join a range of yellows to complete the nature and neutrals triad for mixing and evaluating greens. Walk away with a system to continue mixing the infinite world of greens while gaining insights to make more informed paint purchases.

All activities use a beginner friendly approach, utilizing tools to visualize color relationships.

Make a watercolor skymeter of your own

I’ve been calling these skymeters because they can be useful for more than just blue. The skymeter is the starting point in my workshop for more color mixing but on its own is a fun exercise for assessing all the blue watercolors you might already own. And you don’t need circular paper.

• Start with a square of watercolor paper

• Divide your square into as many segments as you have blues

• Paint a light and dark wash of each blue

• Cut a square hole in the middle

• Point your new tool to the sky!

Recently I also found this blog post explainer on making a Cyanometer.

Creativity on the horizon

As October approached, I felt energized to participate in the 31 day #Inktober and #Colortober challenges that are organized on Instagram. I made my own rules for the project. I’m doing quick drawings and blind contours and then painting them with a randomly chosen color. I’ll share the results here next month.

New Instagram account

I got a new business account! Find it @playethic.studio. I wanted an IG space where it was easy to see what my current offerings are. Nothing changes with my personal account, I’ll still be sharing progress on my creative explorations there.

In this post…

• New workshops

• Beginning watercolor mixing zine

• Getting comfortable drawing in public spaces

• San Francisco Bay Area in-person drawing meetups

New in-person beginner watercolor workshops

I’ll be teaching two watercolor theory workshops this fall at Arch Supplies. Each workshop can be taken independently. There will be some overlap in techniques. The concepts will be different and useful in whatever your level of color theory knowledge. Get a discount on both classes by purchasing the color theory workshop bundle!

Sunday, Oct. 13: Watercolor theory and pigment basics

From three colors to many; create a wheel of color possibilities

Sunday, Nov. 10: Nature and neutrals watercolor theory

Create essential blends: Blues, grays, and greens using a limited color palette

Key takeaways from both classes

• Understanding the basic properties of watercolor as a medium

• Understanding pigment basics

• Transferable color concepts that apply to mediums, like gouache, acrylic, oil, or ink

• Creating tools to use while building a watercolor practice

• And more activities unique to each class!

Please let me know in the comments if I can answer any questions about the classes!

Beginning watercolor mixing Zine

If you’re unable to take the workshops but interested in some guidance for color mixing I have a zine available in my shop. Included is a bit of watercolor to get you started and activities printed on 100% cotton paper along with instructions.

View in shop

Drawing in public spaces alongside community

Recently while eating lunch with friends and family, I was asked, how did I become comfortable drawing in public?  The question came from a friend who went to art school, received an MFA, and expressed having feelings of perfectionism stand as a barrier to drawing in public spaces.

The question sparked a free flowing conversation within the group about navigating those sorts of anxieties and where they come from. We landed on some of it coming from learned patterns instilled during pursuits like education, societal competitiveness, and internal self-critique (a whole bag of worms).

In the conversation my mom had a good analogy; that having an art practice is like going to the gym. You can’t expect that after one visit you’ll suddenly have huge biceps. So it would be true that those anxieties aren’t going to disappear through one experience drawing in public. But maybe after many, it gets easier, just as it’s easier to pick up more weight. Awareness of anxiety is key to working with it.

I’ve had these anxieties myself. Practice is how I view creating art in public spaces. When I’m drawing or painting out in the world I view it similarly to going on a leisurely walk. The act of going on the walk, and keeping up the practice, is more important than the end result. It is of course nice if I like the end result or something about the end result. When I finish a walk I never wonder why I didn’t do it some other way.

Since the discussion I’ve continued to ask myself, how did I become comfortable drawing in public?

Feeling relaxed drawing in public arose through various experiences and finding the tools I like to work with most. If there’s one thing the experiences have in common, it’s creating in the company of others. Having the company of others made the most impact in dealing with imperfection in art.

There’s a unique creative group here in S.F. called Social Sketch that’s been dormant since Covid, but for many years I attended regularly. Attendees were encouraged to create unfinished work for others to then pick up and add on too. I remember the feeling of not wanting to “ruin” the art of someone else when it landed in front of me. But what actually happened was fun collaborations and lots of laughter. 

People are nice. And in every creative space I’ve been in people are likely to serve up a positive comment about something. Sometimes this happens from unexpected encounters. While I was drawing the skate event above a pre-teen kid walked up to me and said “I love your drawing.” That was the exclamation point to that adventure of drawing in public.

Approaches for getting comfortable drawing in public spaces

• Define the goal. Is the goal to have fun, get better at a technique, work with a specific medium, or something else?

• Do you have portable materials?

• Would you feel more comfortable drawing in quiet spaces or lively spaces?

• Is there a space you already feel comfortable in that you could bring your art supplies to?

• Would it be helpful to invite a buddy?

• After the drawing excursion reflect on what worked and what didn’t.

Local (Bay Area) Free or almost free in-person drawing meetups

There’s likely a drawing meetup to find in your local area for creating in the community of others. I’ve gathered a list for local San Francisco, Bay Area events and will keep this as an on-going list as I hear of others. Please comment if you know of a regular event!

Most Tuesday evenings: Figure drawing at Madrone Art Bar

I’ve never attended but know it’s very popular and usually accompanied by music.

Friday evenings: Communal drawing table at The Drawing Room Annex

Set in a gallery space with live music. Supplies are provided.

Every Thursday evening: Drink and Draw at Eli’s Mile High Club

Often provide prompts and collaboration.

3rd Thursdays Drink and Draw: SF Artsy Stuff meetup at 540 Rogues

Discounted drink ticket with RSVP. Bring whatever you’re working on. Sometimes there are fun surprise activities.

Most Saturday and Sunday mornings: SF sketchers (locations change every weekend)

Outdoor and indoor settings. Draw somewhat independently and then come together to reflect positively on each other’s work. It’s neat to see how everyone has a different approach to creating art in the same setting. There are Urban Sketchers groups in many locals to search for while traveling or in your home town.

Creativity on the horizon

Over the summer I’ve been prototyping a couple of new ceramic art tools. I’ll be moving into production with them along with ceramic watercolor palettes to make available during the holiday season.

Over the past three months, I’ve been hanging out in a unique and relaxing third space. It’s part of the SF MoMA Art of Noise exhibit coming to a close on August 18th. The OJAS HiFi Pursuit Listening Room Dream No. 2 is a hi-fidelity custom-built sound system. In layman’s terms (which is me) it’s huge speakers and turn table that plays records (and CDs, reel-to-reel tape, and I even heard digital files). When I closed my eyes I could imagine the performers standing in front of me in place of the speakers, transported directly from the recording studio to my ears.

There are only four museum days left of the exhibit (as of this writing). Throughout the last three months, I’ve visited nine times… so far.

My first visit

Early May, on my way to a dentist appointment, I planned a quick visit to the museum not knowing how many times I’d return over the coming weeks. As a member, I often don’t read about exhibits ahead of time, instead choosing to just show up for the experience.

I’d spent time in the bigger exhibit areas feeling pleased I owned versions of a couple of sound objects on exhibit. I headed to the elevators to grab some lunch and saw that tucked to the side was one more room to explore.

I walked in. Jazz was playing on giant speakers. The sounds were familiar, enveloping, and like nothing I’d ever experienced. I sat as long as I could, about 20 minutes because lunch and that dentist appointment were calling me. After the appointment, I rushed back to the museum until closing.

At home, I read up on what I’d experienced with my ears and eyes. And realized it was Devon Turnbull the creator playing that day.

I was moved. I’d come for the posters and stayed for the music. My drawing and pictures in this post can only represent a piece of being in the experience. If you haven’t heard it yourself my best metaphor of the quality of sound is like a hot tub for your ears. And you have until August 18th to check it out!

(Read ‘til the end for several Spotify playlists.)

Mark Ronson visits the listening room

My next listen was much longer in time than the first. I stayed for all five hours of Mark Ronson playing DJ. It was truly a dream musical experience. Took me back to listening to him on East Village (internet) radio in my 20s.

He played many favorites that live deep in my soul. When he played Radiohead it confirmed my ears’ perception of the musicians feeling in the room with us. I could imagine myself seeing them at The Greek.

Mark put on the Up Town Funk Backing track. I could feel the room smiling. Then he smiled and said, "I had to hear what it sounded like".

He talked to us at the end about being able to feel and adjust to the energy of the room. I heard a gal say she felt like she had changed in her body after all the hours in the room. I agree, and feel that way almost every time I leave.

Third space living room

The Art of Noise exhibit exposed me to HiFi listening. I’m an avid music goer and appreciate good sound quality at live music venues but this was my first experience with a HiFi system. A life experience I didn't know I'd been missing. The beauty of this exhibit is how accessible it became to have an audiophile experience.

Some flexibility in my schedule allowed me to treat the room as a third place. I regularly joined the communal living room with hosts playing their favorites and sharing the music important to them. I got to feel the room’s energy with small and larger groups. I brought friends, reconnected with old friends, and coincidentally bumped into friends!

I now have a desire in the future to build a speaker kit for my home. With this experience in mind, I don’t think it would truly come alive without being able to share it with friends.

”Playing” my own records

A very lucky experience was accompanying a museum employee and friend for a staff listening day. We brought way more vinyl than we could play. Joseph Becker, Art of Noise, curator generously cycled through playing everyone’s choices.

Special moments from the day were hearing a flexi-disk, part of the library collection, with music created for Timothy Leary's acid trip sessions. The three hours of listening ended with one long song, Tubular Bells, a 25 minute composition. The beginning is the familiar creepy rhythms from The Exorcist. For a movie I’ve never seen it’s amazing how that sound cuts through in familiarity. After the first minute it plays out in a completely lovely way.

I chose selections from Jeff Buckley, PJ Harvey, Elliot Smith, and The Gifted Ones (Dizzy Gillespie, Count Basie, Ray Brown, Micky Roker). And a bonus selection because someone else had also brought Daft Punk.

Sound textures played by Beck

An experience with the most concert-like aura was the announcement of a midday curation by Beck.

After an hour in line, a friend and I miraculously sat in my favorite listening spot to enjoy 2.5 hours of curation. Sometimes Beck would pause to tell a little story about his relationship to what we’d just heard.

He created a tapestry of sound with his influences. He didn’t play any Beck but his albums speak the same language of rhythmic choices he played that day.

He intentionally selected songs to highlight voice through the speakers and lots of Brazilian music. As a curated set it felt like being in an old movie, punctuated by some Henry Mancini and a nod to SF with the Bullitt soundtrack.

More unique listening experiences

Besides what I’ve already shared there were many more unique listening moments. It’s amazing that for months, every day the museum has been open, there’s been someone curating and in the room. I’m sure it took a lot of coordination. There was clear reverence for playing music on the sound system from each operator I encountered.

• Hearing sides from Blue Note Records

• Selections from Jazz Dispensary

• Selections by DFA Records

• Stuart Bogie playing clarinet live while accompanying a drone sound which was a collaboration between him and James Murphy (released on DFA)

• Listening along with Susan Ciani, who herself was listening for the first time to her first-ever concert recorded on tape which is now newly released on vinyl.

• Selections by Art of Noise curator Joesph Becker

• And of course selections from OJAS creator Devon Turnbull!

All my experiences in the room are wrapped up in my drawings. I draw to create sense memories. When I flip through my sketchbook for years to come I hope to remember the sound waves on my soul during this summer of listening.

Did you go to the listening room?

I’d love to know if you went, who you saw operate, and if you have any sound memories. Have you been to other HiFi listening experiences? Please share in the comments!

Devon has a few other pieces currently on public exhibit nearer and farther away than San Francisco.

Los Angeles (weekly listening nights until Oct. 24, 2024) — Common Wave HiFi

London (listening time slots until Sept. 28, 2024) — The vinyl factory at 180 studios

Spotify playlist memories

Devon in the Listing Room – Some music heard over several sessions

Beck – A lounging about the living room dream

DFA and Stuart Bogie – He played the last song on this list live in the room

OJAS Dream 2 – Eclectic listening from SF MoMA staff

More workshops on the horizon

In July I taught a sold-out workshop at Arch including inkblot mono-prints, the same technique I used to make the OJAS prints I shared above. And earlier in August I taught the same workshop again in a private home. It was so fun sharing these concepts and activities with students.

Ahead for this year, I’m designing at least one more workshop about color to teach at Arch. I’ll share more info in my September Substack!

Summer Solstice ceramics fair

Saturday! June 22nd 2024

Hosted by Clay Room at Groundfloor, 455 Valencia St, San Francisco
11am - 5pm

At the beginning of the year, I had a goal of adding a watercolor feeling to the ceramics I’ve been creating. I’m excited to share my Imagined Horizons collection I’ve created along with some summer-inspired ceramic treats. They’re a nice complement to the watercolor palettes I sell. If you’re local I hope you can see everything displayed together and shop from my Clay Room studio mates.

(For those not local I’m hoping to offer some items online in July.)

I’m teaching a workshop! Turn photos into paintings

Sunday, July 14th 2024: Monoprint postcards and travel sketch souvenirs

Hosted by Arch Supplies
11am - 2pm

Using pen, ink, shape, pattern, and color we’ll go on a 3-hour tour of simple sketchbook, watercolor, and monoprint techniques. We'll learn the techniques I use as warmups for detailed drawings or for quickly capturing a memory on-the-go. Then we'll put it all together to turn photos into paintings!

Over the last 7 years, I’ve been consistently dedicated to creating drawings and art from my experiences. It’s changed how I look at the little things in my environment. The monoprint painting technique I’ll be sharing is a way I add to my travel journal after I come home from traveling or enjoying a local experience.

This is a beginner friendly workshop. I’d love to introduce you to memory keeping through sketch booking.

Reflecting on 100 Days of Creative Reflection

This year’s 100 day project concluded at the end of May. Being my 10th year participating I celebrated it with my project #100CreativeReflections. I wrote reflections on my past 100 day projects and shared them on Instagram. I’d also planned to reflect on past creative experiences in unfinished pages of sketchbooks, especially the art from my Italy travels.

The project became more internal than any previous project. I found myself in a swirl of reflective writing about my art practices and the creative problem-solving I do in my design career.

All my past projects produced a lot of visual output. As the project went on I realized I’d subconsciously given myself a writing project. Which was perfectly what I needed at this time of life.

In contrast to all the internal reflection, it became a prolific time for creating new art unrelated to the project. I made a ton of ceramics, continued my sketchbook practice, and designed the monoprint workshop I’ll be teaching in July. A direct correlation between reflection and creation? It’s definitely a tool I’ll be using with more intention as it relates to my art practice.

Writing is an integral part of my self care routines. I often bounce back and forth between drawing my thoughts and writing my thoughts (which I categorize all as reflection). These practices have come to exist in my life almost like water. The project highlighted how integral writing is to my art practice even if my words are just for myself.

This is my second Substack post… if you’re wondering how I landed in your inbox, here’s my first post; A little bit newsletter, A little bit blog.

Upcoming events

Saturday, June 22nd: Summer Solstice Ceramics Fair

Hosted by Clay Room at Groundfloor, 455 Valencia St, San Francisco
11am - 5pm

I’ll be selling ceramic watercolor palettes and other explorations from the studio this past winter and spring.

Sunday, July 14: Workshop: Monoprint postcards and travel sketch souvenirs

I’m excited to teach a workshop at Arch Art Supplies about easy travel sketch and memory-keeping techniques. This will include creating ink and watercolor monoprints from photographs. (Tickets and more info coming in June.)

10x100 #100CreativeReflections

The end of my 2024 100 Day Project is about a week away. This year’s project is 100 Creative Reflections to mark my 10th 100 Day Project. Instagram is the main place over the years I’ve shared about projects. For ease, I’ve been reflecting and sharing there. As of this writing, I’ve posted 5 project reflections so far. Check them out in my 10x100 story highlight.

I’ll share a reflection on reflecting in my next post.

Remembering my creative Grandma

If I ever called my grandma, just “grandma”, I was reminded that her name is Grandma Lois. She died in February. She went to bed on the eve of her birthday but died before the sun came up on number 94. She didn’t want to celebrate any more birthdays. The sun’s cycle brought her the door to whatever is or isn’t next and she got her birthday wish.

Until the last few years tipping into her 90s, she’d been very interested in creativity however she could access it. She loved to read and at the end was reading every classic she had never read and re-reading old favorites. The book in the above vignette is one from her childhood with a note on the inside from her teacher. When I was struggling to read chapter books she gave it to me.

With my Grandma Lois I share silliness and creative exploration. The ceramic frog face in the photo is made by me. The day she died I went into the studio to make a memory from my mind of something she had made.

A small list of the mediums I can remember her playing with are; oil painting, photography, woodworking, chair caning, ceramics, macrame, knitting, embroidery, and making creatures from dried gourds. If she was inspired to make something she figured it out. Without the internet. 

Her primary work was portrait photography. That’s a self-portrait with a borrowed boa. She was an animal lover, a long-time member of the Humane Society, and caretaker to countless dogs, cats, and a desert tortoise named Slow Jen that walked into her yard one day. Sometimes it seemed she preferred all these creatures to people. So a fur coat was never something she wore, but a live snake, sure!

That’s my Grandma Lois.

If you’re receiving this in your email inbox you’re on my mailing list. Perhaps you joined recently at a winter 2023 holiday fair, or waaaaaay back when I regularly blogged at shastablasta[dot]com (unfortunately I lost access to that web address though an archive is still available). 

Let me reintroduce myself. 

Studio Shastablasta is my creative space.

I’m Shasta, a designer and artist living and working in San Francisco. Always finding new ways to cultivating my play ethic has led to exploring various mediums over the years. These days I predominantly work with pen, ink, watercolor, and clay. I regularly use sketching and watercolor as tools to capture memories of my travels and local outings. Ceramics is the newest medium I’ve been exploring and has led to selling ceramic watercolor palettes.

Fall 2023 was a creatively full time period for me and I’d wished I had a space to share with a bit more narrative and context than can fit into a Instagram post or story (where I mostly share now). So here I am, creating this Substack! A little bit newsletter a little bit blog, it’s an evolving space and I don’t know yet if there will be a regular format or cadence to these creative shares. 

What’s a Substack? 

If you’re signed up you’ll receive my updates to your email inbox but you can also find the archives (in the future) on my Substack home page. 

To learn more about the tech platform that powers this publication, visit Substack.com.

Shastablasta.shop is open through February 27th

Throughout 2023 I started selling ceramic watercolor palettes and opened a web shop for the holiday season. It’s back open for the valentines pre-spring season. I’m committed to shipping once a week on Fridays. The shopping window is through Feb. 27. The shop will be open again later in the spring. 

There’s a variety of watercolor palette sizes to choose from for yourself or gifting.

Besides palettes I have a few special ceramic “toasts” available. Yes, I said ceramic toasts. They’re big enough to keep your tea/coffee warm or use as a spoon rest. On the back I’ve calligraphed in clay “A toast to you everyday”. They’re a multi functional cozy reminder to acknowledge something nice about yourself everyday or gift to someone else you’d like to toast. Bonus, they’re gluten free but please don’t eat them! 

On the horizon: The 100 Day Project

What hasn’t changed since my last blog post in 2017 is my regular participation in The 100 Day project. February 18th 2024 is the beginning date for this year. This will be my 10th year of projects! I have some ideas about my project this year but my project is still formulating.

Tips

Tons of info can be found at the official The 100 Day Project website and Substack. If you’ve never done a project I recommend listening to a recent podcast episode that’s very comprehensive.

I have a few tips of my own if you’re thinking of doing a project for the first time.

• The number one way I approach the project now is as a time box for creativity. I don’t stress about how much time each day I’m spending on the project so long as I feel like the project is alive within my creative sphere and I’m giving it regular attention. 

• And along those lines I focus on the 100 days and not about producing 100 things.

• Start simple with something that can be done in 10-20 mins per day.

• Sharing on instagram and finding others in the community during the project time period is a lot of fun but documenting and sharing every day also takes it’s own time. For this reason I tend not to share daily but have the goal of at least a weekly update.

• 100 days is a little less than a third of the year. At the end of the project I reflect on what has changed in my life or creative life during the 100 days. And if the act of the project had any impacts on me. I often find that, yes, it has.

Hope you find these tips helpful! And if you’re planning to do a project I’d love to know what it is. Drop a note in the comment section.

Follow my instagram to see my regular posts for this years project. And I’ll likely reflect on the project here in a future newsletter.

Until next time,
Shasta

p.s. If your interests have changed since I last regularly sent communications or you’re keeping your inbox tidy feel free to unsubscribe. Important updates will always be viewable in the archive.

p.s.p.s. If you’ve just found your way to my corner of the internet please do subscribe! Would love to have you here.

Subscribe now