I don't know about you, but the past year has been full of contradictory feelings. Time felt both slow and fast as my days became mostly identical. With no defining events, the days blur together; I've worn the same 5 sets of pajamas on rotation for months. I've felt stagnant in one sense, but this year has also been transformative on a personal level. I've learned so much about myself and the world - I feel like my world view has been irreversibly altered. 

I've also learned that inspiration and appreciation can still be found anywhere: in the simple moments at home, inside your own mind, and the containment I felt from the pandemic has in turn forced me to expand my own personal inner world, and I actually discovered new things. 

My home has transformed from an apartment that I merely eat, sleep, work, and hang out in, to a place I can paint, plan, sew, cook, dream, read, listen, and learn in, and all the little corners that I ignored before have opened up. For example, two months into the pandemic, I set up a larger art table (my creative world expanded), and sometime after that, I ordered candles and started taking more baths (my bathroom became a sanctuary rather than just a utilitarian room). I've discovered new uses and new joys with the same resources I had all along. I think that's the biggest lesson of 2020: to fully appreciate what you already have.

“Domino papers were printed on single sheets of paper by the guild of Dominotiers in France during the 18th century. The original intent of domino papers was for lining trunks and chests of drawers, and they were also used as book end pages. But people saw the decorative aspect of the designs and began pasting them to their walls as they were less expensive and more available than other forms of decoration. These were printed by woodblock with the color accents painted on using stencils.” 

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Hilma af Klint has one of the most interesting stories in Art History, and it has to do with the advent of abstract art. It may be hard to understand in today's terms how bizarre abstract art was before it was considered normal - to them it looked like madness - completely nonsensical. 

But when Kandinsky came along and proclaimed to be the father of abstract art around 1920, the world was more receptive to the idea, and nobody challenged him, until recently.

You see, women had been creating abstract art years and decades before Kandinsky - first was Georgianna Houghton, whose self-hosted exhibition of abstract work not only bankrupted her but also resulted in public ridicule. Then, a couple decades later, but still years before Kandinsky, Klint had been painting her monumental series of swirling, otherworldly canvases.

Klint was a 19th century Spiritualist - she and her peers believed they could contact other realms through seances. Klint claimed that her abstract paintings were commissioned and guided by a heavenly being. She knew that her artwork was ahead of their time, so she wrote in her will that they should be kept in storage and hidden from the world until 20 years after her death, and it's not until now, roughly a century later, that we're really taking notice.

One of the more incredible details of this story is that Klint named her abstract series Paintings for the Temple, which she imagined to be a round space with a spiral path. In 2017, her vision became reality when they were shown at the Guggenheim, famous for its central spiral pathway. That exhibition, called Hilma af Klint: Paintings for the Future, was a sensation - the most popular exhibition in the museum's 60 year history - and launched her from obscurity into the light of recognition and respect. It even helped to rewrite a monumental part of Art History: that women were the pioneers of abstraction.

I sincerely hope you enjoyed this email! If you have any thoughts to share or questions, please reach out on Instagram or reply to this email. I'd love to know if anything in particular captured your fascination.