REFLECTION: life is one big knitting project
I’m currently in the process of crocheting a scarf. My method is to crochet a dozen or so squares and then sew them all together. Like the amateur I am, I’m not working with a pattern. I’m just going with the flow, learning as I go.
Though I think about the scarf often, imagining how it’s going to look when it’s done, how exactly I’m going to sew it all together, which of my coats it will look best with, I don’t work on the scarf every day. I really only work on it in the evenings when I’m watching Gilmore Girls with my boyfriend in the living room and I have enough leftover energy from the day to really devote to it.
Since this is my first crocheting project, I’m making a lot of mistakes. For example, the first few squares I did are much tighter than the ones I’ve been completing more recently, so even though they’re all 20 stitches by 20 stitches (is that the right terminology? I don’t know, I’m literally an idiot), the early ones are smaller than the newer ones. The size difference is so dramatic that I am probably just going to chalk it up to a loss and use the smaller ones as potholders. If I tried to sew these all together, that would be one ugly-ass scarf.
What really keeps me going with this personal project is the idea of being able to wear something I made with my own two hands. Being able to go out during the cold months and know that my own time, attention, and labor went into every single stitch of this thing that is keeping my neck warm. There is just something so appealing to me about that vision.
As I approach the end of 2023, I am getting a taste of that vision. Not the part that involves cheap craft store yarn or cold PNW winters, but the part where hours of work that almost always feel fruitless, scattered along a painfully long period of time, start to actually look like progress.
I left my news job in July so that I could devote my days to working on my comics career. I did this because the progress I was making as a comic artist during the year I worked at the news station felt extremely stifled by the fact that I was spending 40 hours every week on the 11pm broadcast. I loved my job, but I wanted progress more than I wanted stable income. My body of work was just not growing fast enough to satisfy my ravenous artistic spirit.
Nearly five months later, I can honestly say that I feel exactly the same. I am still not getting things done as rapidly as I would like to, but the only difference is now I feel like I have less of an excuse. Over these months, I have been hit with the same rude awakening over and over again.
Everything happens so, so slowly.
I am just one person. While I will always try to do the maximum amount possible without burning myself out, the truth is that I can only do so much with my silly girl brain and my feeble little hands and my limited energy levels in a given day, month, year.
But there’s a trend that many artists do on Instagram at the end of the year called “art vs. artist.” It typically looks like a 9-panel grid with a picture of the artist occupying the middle panel, the rest of the panels being filled with various art the artist completed throughout the year.
Here’s mine for 2023:
I love this trend, because I always feel like I’m not accomplishing enough. Even when my back hurts and my eyes are fatigued from staring at my iPad screen for 8+ hours, I end every single day thinking, “man, I could have done more.”
But when I look at this grid, I remember that I actually did a hell of a lot this year.
Let’s go through it all. This year, I…
Published three new episodes of Anhecomics! While I absolutely intend on tripling that number in 2024, I am so proud of this, and I am so proud of these episodes, which are titled “Depression is Cool!,” “The Band Aid,” and “Mother Nature Loves Variation.”
Published two new zines! Asexual Things I Did Before Realizing I Was Asexual, which is a collection of comic strips about being asexual and clueless about it, is by far my best-selling zine. I had to go to the IPRC so many times this year to print out enough to meet demand!
Bad Atheist Volume One is the first installment of a series of zines I intend on creating over the next few years. Each one will contain three short graphic narratives about contradictory, semi-spiritual experiences I’ve had as someone who does not believe in god.
Started this newsletter! And it’s been a delight! Thanks for being here!
Opened my Etsy store and made way more sales than I expected to! Thank you to EVERYONE who ordered from my Etsy store this year, especially the ones who left nice five-star reviews! Are you kidding me! I love you all!!!
Completed five autobiographical mini-comics for Instagram! These are some of my favorite comics that I do. While I wish I had been able to do more, I’m very happy with how these turned out. They are called…
Thoughts From the Assignment Desk (my favorite, tbh)
Tabled at six different shows! I’ve written about all of these at length already, but I just want to say again how grateful I am to live in Portland, where local organizers are always putting on shows for us hustling independent artists to sell our work and make new connections. All of the shows I did this year, with the exception of Cartoon Crossroads Columbus, were in this beautiful city.
Got a grant! I wrote more about the grant in this Substack post in case you missed it. What I use the grant money for will largely depend on what opportunities come my way in terms of shows and conferences in 2024, but regardless, I am so thankful to Artist Trust for this.
Did Hourly Comics Day and Inktober for the first time! These quick-drawing challenges allowed me to broaden my horizons and challenge the perfectionism that so often plagues me.
Made progress in the reformatting of Anhecomics. Anhecomics is getting a makeover in 2024, and I can’t wait to show y’all what that’s going to look like. I wrote more about that here.
Finished another zine… But I’m not saying anything else until January… :)
To be honest, I don’t expect myself to be any less frustrated in 2024 with how slowly things are moving. What can I say? I’m impatient and I want to be a trailblazing graphic storyteller noooooowwww!!!
But I think I will be able to handle the frustration better in 2024. If not due to the wisdom that increases with time and experience…
…perhaps due to the feeling of that scarf warming up my neck, the texture on my fingers, knowing that I patiently oversaw every single one of the thousands of stitches making up this article of clothing, and now I get to reap the benefits.
But before I can do all that…
I need to finish the damn scarf.
Thank you for reading this post, and all the posts that came before it!
If you haven’t already, please follow me on Instagram! My handle is @cooklin_comics. My Etsy store is currently closed until early January, but my Instagram and this newsletter will have all the shop updates when they’re available!
So if you haven’t already… Make sure you…