Lettie Jane’s Intuitive Drawing is a weekly newsletter about making art. This year I am trying to publish 52 newsletters that are each an art lesson of sorts. They are an invitation to draw, if you feel inclined, but also a description of why I do. I encourage you to take what you need and leave the rest. These are newsletters, not Pokémon, you don’t need to catch them all.
Greetings friends,
This past week in Portland, Oregon we had a snow and ice storm that shut down a lot of the city. For me personally that meant we had power, we had heat, we had enough food, our pipes didn’t burst, there was some water seepage in the basement, the kids were home from school all week and for two days we didn’t even leave the house.
After a week where my basic needs were met but quite a few of my higher needs* were neglected I thought a lot about the need for a A ROOM OF ONE’S OWN as an art practice. Virginia Woolf was famously naming this need in 1929 and almost a hundred years later, after one week of being locked inside with three children I found myself trying to be creative with finding space for myself and my thoughts.
*I was vaguely thinking of Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs, but concretely thinking of seeing friends, going for a walk, making art outside my home, going to the studio.
The idea of A ROOM OF ONE’S OWN can sometimes be a physical space: an art studio with all the supplies you need and a door you can shut. Sometimes as a parent, not even the bathroom is a place you can be alone anymore.
When the bathroom is not a sanctuary, there are other metaphorical rooms:
A pair of noise canceling headphones and an audiobook.
Mending the many places an ancient quilt in our house was coming apart.
I rearranged the artwork in my living room, a physical room that I took control over in a new way.
My favorite room of the week was when I took our metal garden shovel to the ice as it began to soften in our driveway. It was a cathartic room.
A ROOM OF ONE’S OWN can be a cell phone or a labtop, I made a room when I had therapy this week and the children didn’t interrupt.
A tiny sketchbook can also be A ROOM OF ONE’S OWN, a drawing on a piece of paper can open up your mind and give you a little space and a little breathing room. I know that there are spaces I have lived where I didn’t have a desk, or space to make big artwork and my artwork became more like paper scraps and sketchbooks. There is a monster in the Fantastic Beasts movies that grows to fit the space allowed, in one scene it’s a teapot in another it’s an attic room. Sometimes it feels like my artwork is like that. If you give me a corner, I will fill the corner, if you give me a studio I will fill the studio.
Yesterday I got back into the studio and I held my art classes for those who could get out of the house. I felt like I was flossing my brain, getting into some of the crevices that had gathered plaque this week. I was starting sentences and lesson plans in the middle and working my way backwards. I was jumping in and the water was chilly, but I was swimming.
This newsletter’s art lesson is not this is how to draw a… but rather this is why I draw. I draw to make my own rooms. I draw when I am having a hard time hearing my own voice. Maybe this is an invitation to take a scrap of paper and doodle on it, to draw a flower on a post-it, to notice that is your space, your flower, your version of the world, today at this moment in time.
Maybe this is an invitation to look at your week and notice the moments you had to yourself, the moments that were yours and no one else’s. How and when did you have a room of your own? Sometimes making art is drawing and sometimes making art is simply thinking of your life in a new box.
Until next week.
Much love,
Lettie Jane
And Then Some Tidbits
One of the audiobooks I eagerly consumed this week was In Memoriam by Alice Winn. This book felt like a place between All Quiet On The Western Front—an anti-war novel set in the trenches of the first World War, and the book I just finished, The House of Doors—a turn of the century novel set after Oscar Wilde was arrested depicting the double lives of homosexual men. This novel was a romance, between two British school boys who fought in the front lines of the war, it was beautiful and horrific, it was engrossing and depressing and somehow, against all odds (SPOILER ALERT) it had a happy ending.
I read the graphic novel And Now I Spill The Family Secrets by Margaret Kimball, her substack is
. The illustrations in this book were extremely precise, black and white and graphic. The tightness and control of the art felt like a way of processing and making sense of a life deeply affected by intergenerational mental illness.Matt and I finished watching the second season of This Flag Means Death on Max. I love this show so so so much. It is so deeply queer even couples that at first appear straight or cisgendered get queered with multiple partners or by staying friends after breaking up. Max has canceled a third season of the show and the fans are revolting, there is a petition to sign here:
It’s almost the end of Capricorn Season, which means I’ve got a new playlist for you. I have been particularly fond of CMAT (Ciara Mary-Alice Thompson) an Irish musician who has a penchant for country music.
The 2024 Calendar is SOLD OUT. Thank you everyone who purchased one. I am sorry if you weren’t able to nab one from me. You could still try the following shops in Portland: Flutter, Broken Dreams, Paper Jam or Radius.
TAKE A CLASS WITH ME!!! I love teaching in person and meeting fellow artists and creatives, whether you are a beginner or a lifetime maker the classes I teach are really about creating community and tapping into experimentation.
Friday Night Figure Drawing (Jan 26)
Date: Friday, January 26th
Time: 5:00-8:30Intuitive Drawing (Saturday AM) Feb/Mar 2024
Dates: Saturdays, February 24th – April 6th (no class March 30th for Spring Break)
Time: 10:00am – 1:00pmIntuitive Ink Work (Saturday Afternoon) Feb/Mar 2024
Dates: Saturdays, February 24th – March 9th
Time: 1:30 pm – 4:30 pmAbstract Play (Saturday Afternoons) March
Dates: March 16th & 23rd
Time: 1:30-4:30
I updated the MURALS tab on my website: https://www.lettiejane.com/murals
There are 36 murals on there for you to check out, interested in having me paint a mural in your shop / garage / apartment complex, email me.