Mackerel
You never know what you’ll do or what you’ll bring to the table that changes the way someone sees something forever.
Dear Friends,
Who else is overwhelmed by the suffering, conflict, and insanity that is happening in the world right now?
I’ve been haunted by this video of a girl escaping a burning building after an Israeli airstrike. It reminds me of the heart-stopping ‘Napalm Girl’ photo from 1972. I don’t want this newsletter to be yet another reminder of the atrocities that human beings can inflict upon one another. Too often it seems like each day brings an endless tide of bad news. But I do want to take a moment to acknowledge that things feel deeply bleak right now. Or at least I’ve been feeling that way.
There have been so many times I’ve sat down to start writing a June newsletter only to step away due to exhaustion and psychosomatic paralysis. For the past several weeks I haven’t been able to sleep. I’ll lie awake in bed with my partner on one side and my baby in a crib on the other side, safe in our cozy home and so grateful to be alive, on the verge of having a full blown panic attack.
It takes 10000% of my willpower to meta-cognition my way through the heavy shroud of unease and despair that weighs on me in the dark. I have to remind myself to breathe a path around all the senseless violence and all the things I can’t unsee.
My intention for this newsletter is to send you any small sparks of light or beauty I can offer, but lately it feels like I’ve been running on fumes myself.
One of my favorite filmmakers, Hayao Miyazaki, sums it up well:
“Personally I am very pessimistic. But when, for instance, one of my staff has a baby, you can't help but bless them for a good future. Because I can't tell that child, 'Oh, you shouldn't have come into this life.' And yet I know the world is heading in a bad direction. So with those conflicting thoughts in mind, I think about what kind of films I should be making.”
My daughter is 7 months old today. Still a baby, but time feels like it’s moving absurdly fast, and I can see her starting to put things together in ways she wasn’t able to in previous months. I’ve been preemptively wondering how I will handle things like technology and safety, how to protect her innocence and for how long, and whether or not that’s even possible. And most importantly, how to make the world a better place for her.
I wish I could just “unplug” but deep down I believe there’s a balance to strike between protecting oneself and staying informed. Knowing more about the world helps to navigate it. Yet we’re flooded with more information than we are meant to process. So when does information go from being fortifying to destabilizing?
I’ve been reflecting on how to re-focus my energy and attention on the things that help to ground me. Like making art, gardening, and spending time with friends.
I painted these fish last year, and the painting sold a few weeks ago. I still have no idea who bought it. Mystery buyer, if you happen to be reading this, thank you very much.
Unless the mystery buyer reads this, what they don’t know is that nine years ago while I was working at The Larder in Ballyvaughan, someone brought in the most beautiful bucket of fish. Freshly caught mackerel, their skin was silvery, opalescent turquoise with black stripes. I have never forgotten these fish. I still think about the pattern of their skin at least a few times a year.
What the fishmonger in Ireland doesn’t know is that a new mom in Queens, NY still thinks about this catch 9 years later, and it still influences her paintings sometimes.
You never know what you’ll do or what you’ll bring to the table that changes the way someone sees something forever.
Unless you’re Hilma af Klint who had the foresight to hide her paintings from the public until several decades after her death when she felt society was ready to receive them.
I recently had the chance to visit the Museum of Modern Art with my friend Melody, to see the Hilma af Klint show ‘What Stands Behind the Flowers.’ Hilma af Klint hid her paintings because she believed society wasn’t ready to understand them spiritually or intellectually; as a woman in a male-dominated art world, she knew her work would be dismissed or misunderstood, so she preserved it for a future time when new ideas and female voices might be more accepted.
The museum provides visitors with magnifying glasses to see some of the details up close:
I was super inspired by this exhibition. So much so that I turned it into a workshop and will be teaching a class on it next week:
Two weeks after that, I’ll be teaching my very first Sunday morning workshop. I don’t normally work on Sundays; I’ve tried hard to preserve this as a day of rest. But it was really the only day that worked with my schedule, so I’m trying to make it as joyful as possible. You can put a smile on my face and help make it worth it by painting with me that weekend or by sending the workshop link to any of your friends that might have a beach-combing habit who also like to paint.
Last but not least, we’ve been tending to a vegetable garden in our backyard. Like anything rewarding, it’s a lot of work, but there is something awe-inspiring about watching a tiny seed turn into something that feeds our family.
I am super, super grateful we’re able to do this. With so much death and destruction happening everywhere, it is a good reminder that there is so much life too, if you are very lucky. I’m completely aware that the only thing that keeps me and my family afloat is pure luck. May we all be so fortunate.
Wishing you a happy summer filled with strawberries and delight.
Love,
Melanie
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♥
On a podcast I heard someone say that every conversation you have is a seed planted that may bloom into something years later. Your newsletter reminded me of that. While reading I already felt enraptured by your mackerel painting, but then to see the photo that inspired it—wow. I can see how that striking image made such an impact in your work.
Being in the first years of parenting during the Gaza genocide has been a constant effort to hold gratitude and grief at the same time, to see the systems that need to change and to work to change them. Everyone should get to hold their babies without fear of bombs and starvation. My heart just breaks again and again. Thanks, always, for the spot of light that is your art and your newsletter. I’m so glad you’re here.