The Last Of Us (2023) Study 🍄🌿

Kate Donachie, Clouds Are Pushing in Grey Reluctance, 2009, Oil on canvas

quilt worm, for @mossworm

monarch

The Animal

Library fines have gotten really weird since the change in management…

I enjoyed this movie so much, I couldn’t not make art

sea slugs

Blimunda - Baltasar and Blimunda (Memorial do Convento), by José Saramago

an illustration for Ladies of Literature Vol.2 - ladiesofliterature

Blimunda (a.k.a. Seven-Moons) has the ability to see people (and everything else) on the inside. She’s one of three protagonists, and they’re trying to build a flying contraption in 18th century Portugal during Inquisition. Bartolomeu, the “brains” of the operation, figures out there’s something inside people - “human wills”- which are necessary to lift their contraption. And it turns out Blimunda has the power to capture those into a jar as they leave the body of dying or desperate people - so she sets off to Lisbon as a plague spreads.

My favourite character from the only required reading book I truly enjoyed in secondary school. I was tempted to pick a more international or trendier character for this anthology, but… this felt right.

if you’re interested in mutual aid and aren’t sure where to start, i can’t recommend enough joining a local Buy Nothing group. in a nutshell, it’s a totally free gift economy— people give from their own abundance and ask for what they need. it’s indispensable as a recent grad household— we got the majority of our basic furniture, as well as an AC unit through the group— but what i find particularly wonderful are the ways other forms of community aid popup through the group.

i’ve seen people organize meal trains for strangers. people fleeing from domestic violence have gone from a suitcase of possessions to a fully stocked house in 48 hours. home hospices being set up with goods from six different households. cookbook lending. distribution of windfall apples and tomato harvest overabundance. grocery pickup for ill folks. people looking out for listings for others. everything from bread to baby carseats to house paint to pet food.

and much of it is done between strangers, often between people who would not recognize or identify with the term “mutual aid”. it lowers waste, goods go directly to people who need them, and it avoids the sometimes dubious morality of the thrift shop circuit. i’d really recommend it.

it takes years to develop your craft. do not romanticize the idea of an ‘overnight success’. be a student. grow organically. get really good. hate your work. start over. find new ways to express the same ideas. the student becomes the master. your time will come.