Every day I am captured by the features of people around me. Maybe it’s due to my easily-distractable nature, or my desire to draw everything I come into contact with; either way, I tend to notice the people around me. Dimples, freckles, scars, bright eyes, long eyelashes, uneven skin tone, dark skin, light skin, bushy eyebrows, large noses, small noses. Anything that makes a face unique makes me yearn to pick up a pencil or stylus to sketch with. Read more…
Creating connects us—to our intuitive selves, to the world, to creative traditions, to imagined futures and realities, to each other. I have studied art and art history, in classrooms, museums, books, galleries, and workshops since I learned my shapes and colors, but when I am making art, I feel connected to the community of creators that spans time, place, & cultures. These images come from my community. They triggered the artists’ response in me, inspired me, energized me. I share them to further create community here through art. Read more…
“Two Scholars” series by Alexandra Chan
I have always found great comfort in, and been inspired by, the Zen Buddhist philosophy that “the obstacle is the path.” It encourages us to beautify the gaze we cast on whatever hardship or challenge we may be facing and invites us to examine the stories we tell ourselves about what it is that’s actually happening. To see the obstacle as part of the path, for example, rather than a hindrance to it, can awaken curiosity and courage in even the worst-stung heart, for it situates us implicitly in the middle of a story, which is only now beginning to unfold, and whose ending can only be guessed at. Read more…
StorytellersCo 