📚 reading + seeing + boring
Three things I am making, loving + thinking about this week
01 | making
Not much to report on the making front this week but I have been reading a lot. My guilty pleasure has always been reality TV, specifically of the Real Housewives variety. I am not proud of it; every episode I watch, another handful of my brain cells atrophy and die. I’ve been trying to cut down but I need to replace it with something. And then I came across a John Grisham novel in the free little library and just like that I went from bingeing on reality TV to getting lost in a legal thriller. I read Mary Higgins Clark books when I was in high school and wave of nostalgia washed over me. I remembered why I love these types of books: they’re easy and engrossing, not sad, social or political. They satisfy the same itch as the Real Housewives, with less makeup and screaming at each other.
I’m going for the big names and best sellers with proven track records that don’t require me to think too much — pure entertainment. This is my current list of binge-worthy authors:
Agatha Christie*
Tom Clancy
Dean Koontz
Stephen King
James Patterson
John Grisham
Dan Brown
Anne Rice
Michael Crichton
Mary Higgins Clark
Patricia Cornwell
Harlan Coben
Tana French
Let me know if there is anyone I should add to my list! 📚
* Did you know that Agatha Christie’s And Then There Were None is the #4 all time best-selling book? It’s next up on my list…
02 | loving
Seeing in Circles by Brad Nichol
There is no shortage of articles, classes and rules about composition but they are always in the context of rectangles and squares. If you’ve ever worked in a circle format you’ve likely discovered that the format presents a few unique challenges and opportunities that differentiate circle compositions from their straight-edged counterparts.
That said, I have never read anything about how to work within a circle composition. That is, until I came across this article by photographer Brad Nichol. He approaches the challenge from a photography standpoint, but his observations readily translate to any visual art form: drawing, collage, or painting, realism or abstract. Not only did I walk away with great ideas and approaches for circular composition, I learned that the first Kodak Brownie camera took circular photos! I went down a quick rabbit hole and found this gallery of vintage circular snapshots from a Kodak No.1.
03 | thinking
“I believe it will end, this so-called way of life. Not through the Silicon Valley oligarchs spontaneously developing a conscience or being legislated into acting with a modicum less sociopathy. I don’t believe people will be frightened into changing how they act or suddenly shamed into putting their phones down for once in their lives. Such interventions don’t work with most addicts and more and more people are legitimately hooked on their devices than we are currently willing to countenance.
No, I think this will all end, as T.S Eliot said, with a whimper. People will simply lose interest and walk away. Because the internet now is boring. People spend all day scrolling because they are trying to find what isn’t there anymore. The authenticity, the genuinely human moments, the fun.”
icymi, last week…
I debuted my new project mood wall »