Can We Have It All?: Redefining Success

Our culture is obsessed with success stories. We love a good rags to riches tale, an American Idol who came from nowhere and rose to the top can move millions to cast their votes, and we teach our kids they can become whatever they want to be if they just work hard enough. The dark [...]

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Summer Pierre: The Artist in the Office

“How we spend our days is how we spend our lives.” – Annie Dillard I have been thinking a lot about jobs lately – why we work, how we end up doing what we do, what those choices lead to, etc.  I’ve often felt a disconnect between what I do for a living and what [...]

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Little Man Reads – 10 months

We are getting back into the swing of things after our trip. It is wonderful to be on our home turf in our beloved city, San Francisco. Sometimes it takes going away to see your life with fresh eyes and realize how good you have it. We really do live in one of the best [...]

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Inspired (finally!)

Ah, the muse is back. The fog has lifted. The juices are flowing. Insert whatever mixed metaphor here that works for saying I feel like my old creative self again. My son is almost eight months old, and on a great sleep schedule, and suddenly my brain is functioning again. For awhile there it was [...]

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To expose or not to expose?: Deciding how much info is too much when it comes to my kid

It turns out I have boundaries. I know that’s surprising, given the gratuitous photos of my giant pregnant belly and explicit details of my son’s birth story that appeared on this blog. But when it comes to posting his vital stats and even any photos, I hesitate. It’s tough, because everybody’s doing it. Mommy blogs [...]

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Studio Envy

I know I just wrote about being grateful and in the moment and enjoying just being, but this is also the time for looking forward and making resolutions for the new year and all that, right? I never make resolutions and I’m not about to start, but I do need to channel this feeling I’m [...]

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Contemplations on being a mother and an artist

This is supposedly a blog about “living creatively”, but it’s mostly been about surviving pregnancy and the early days of motherhood. Now that Little Man is five months old, we’re getting a bit more sleep and I’m creeping back into the creative swing of things with a couple of mural gigs (which I’ll post about [...]

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INFJ – A dreamer and a doer

Someone sent me an interesting online personality test, and I came out an INFJ. I thought it was a surprisingly apt description of who I am, especially this profile, which calls me a “Counselor Idealist” – someone who has great compassion for humankind, but does well working at something like writing which requires solitude and [...]

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What It Is by Lynda Barry

When I heard that Lynda Barry, one of my comics artist heroes, had a new book I rushed out to get it. It’s big and beautiful and bound with a hardcover that begs to be cherished. I devoured it in a day, but will go back to it many, many times as it’s filled with [...]

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