Letters 21

Hi hi,

If you live in my part of the world (Boorloo, Perth), then the morning are getting brighter, the sun getting towards the bitey-ness of summer, and the weeds have suddenly grown to the height of a person. Or maybe that's just me putting off pulling them up until they started towering over me. I spent some time last weekend attacking the spiky intruders whilst listening to Masakatsu Takagi's Marginalia, which made me feel like I was in a Studio Ghibli film. If there was ever a mundane domestic chore that needs romanticising to get me through, it's weeding.

Lately I've felt the paintings I make aren't quite turning out the way that I want, which sometimes makes me question the endeavour. But looking back over my past art that I was happy with, I think it's a combination of trying new things that are challenging, plus taste that keeps evolving ahead of my skill level. So these paintings I was disappointed with are a product of continuing to push and grow rather than staying in my comfort zone, and that's not such a bad thing. I just need to take the time to learn from mistakes and keep going.

One of the paintings I wasn't happy with actually sold - I did the Quick Draw event at Plein Air Down Under 2026 whilst in Mandurah, and priced it very reasonably (maybe a little too reasonably). It's nice to know that hanging in someone's house! Painting on location is always challenging, and I did learn a lot doing this one.

I do find it interesting to look back and remember that and the start of this year I had never really done a proper painting outside of my sketchbook. I had never exhibited a painting, sold a painting, or made anything with watercolours that I wanted to display in my house. Even with some diversions into knitting, video, animation and web development that are only useful to me, I'm still growing and making progress. And I'm so excited to keep going.

Other things

• I was on the organising committee again for UXCamp Boorloo | Perth and ran another sketching workshop - Let's sketch people! I fulfilled my dream of being the kind of person who can just scribble cartoons on a whiteboard (I did have to practice heaps).

• The website has had some changes, check out my fancy new home page and cute new self portrait. Just a reminder that I don't use AI for personal writing or art, but I do sometimes use it to help me with coding stuff.

• More life drawing - different bodies and faces, all beautiful

• Worth reading: Sorry Sylvia Plath, but I’ll eat every fig found via the Wild Geese podcast

  I want to write badly and build beautiful things. I want to know what it feels like to become exceptional at something and then abandon the comfort of being good at it just to become a beginner somewhere else. I want to live in cities I can’t point to on a map. I want to study things that will never make me money simply because they delight me. I want a home I adore and a life that frequently pulls me away from it. I want to be known for something and still reserve the right to become someone entirely different.

  • Also: in Can Chestnuts Save the World?, I learned the term "agroforestry" and I love this way of thinking (which of course goes back to the practices of the First Nations people of the area)

    The premise is simple: instead of tilling an open field every year for crops that need fertilizers and pesticides to survive, grow a forest that provides food for humans, an ecosystem for animals and microorganisms, carbon sequestration underground, and holds onto soil rather than shedding it at a rate ten times faster than it can be replaced... It’s slow, multigenerational work that goes well beyond your own lifespan.

See you next time!

Teresa

P.S. You might also be interested in what I’m up to Now.