One Drawing, Every Day
At the end of a dinner with friends, on one of the first nights of the summer, one friend (who is also a designer) pointed out, “Why don’t we ever talk about the fact that we were all once painters?” — which makes me wonder, why don’t so many designers talk about our (often) common backgrounds in the visual, and finer, arts?
Curious about how art can heal a relationship with design, one day I decided to start drawing again and didn’t stop for a week. Here’s what I made, and learned (from making):
1) Drawing as a means to practice gratitude, for myself. Drawing had become a way to re-find trust in my own intuition, and appreciating how I find beauty and value in my visual perceptions of the world.
2) Drawing as a means of healing — my relationship with memories and places. Drawing gave me a sense of ownership over place, and became a method of re-remembering (as in remembering in a new way)
3) Learn through making. Believe in figuring it out along the way, and suddenly anything is possible (lol). I’d been drawing landscapes/nature so far, and I wanted to draw a cityscape, but maybe in the same style? I would have never figured it out without just starting it.
4) Doing and making, without knowing what if can offer you in exchange.
5) Discipline, but also forgiveness. I couldn’t finish the drawing I wanted to on this day, but I still wanted to be drawing one drawing every day. So I scratched out an orange slice, and forgave. 
6) Inspiration is everywhere, and allowing something to inspire you makes it (and therefore, the space it resides in) precious.
7) Making it easier on myself to do the things I enjoy. I set up up my projects/workflow in ways knew the five-min-in-the-future version of myself would appreciate.
I believe that to love our work is a choice, the same way we choose to love our people. So the question becomes — how can I prepare my work so that I loved it for as much and as long as possible? This, I found, was my most fulfilling and beautiful challenge to design for.
Overall, this became one of those projects that I am happy to have just simply exist in the world and I am happy that this work was ever made and experienced.