3 Things I Learned in Art School
Dear friends,
The book I illustrated – Edible — is coming out soon! It comes tomorrow in the UK and in just over a month in the US! I’ll include more reminders about pre-ordering later in this newsletter, but first I wanted to share some reflections I’ve been having lately about my illustration work and the winding journey that brought me to where I am today … (it’s a winding reflection, so if you just want news, scroll down!)
I have an art degree. Did you know that? It’s been 20 years since I graduated, and I often feel funny sharing this fact about myself. It feels almost like it was a different me in a different life who did that work, because for most of my adulthood, I haven’t directly used my degree at all. It felt like a thing I did before moving on to other adventures like farming.
However, after not really thinking about art for over a decade, eight years ago I started trying to draw again … and it felt like I had completely forgotten how. The connection between my eye and my hand felt broken. I couldn’t remember how to translate what I was seeing into lines or shapes on the page. In those early attempts to draw again, I certainly didn’t feel like a person who had earned an art degree.
It was slow going getting my eye/hand connection back, especially since at the time I had little kids and would only get very brief moments to even try to draw. Much like when I write, I have to actually focus on drawing in order to feel like I do it well. I can’t talk or even listen to music much, let alone try to also watch young children. It took me years to really find more time to practice and then even longer to feel my skills return. But I did eventually build back up a creative practice.
My drawing then evolved in unexpected ways as I worked outside the context of an art department (which honestly sometimes felt like a cool contest, and spoiler: I didn’t win that contest. Not even close). I started drawing things that felt authentic to me. I started digesting all those other experiences I’d had since graduating. I’d lived in the mountains! And started and run a farm! And had children! And cooked SO MUCH FOOD! I was a different person this time and, working alone in my studio, I felt more comfortable following my own delight. Which, of course, meant drawing plants — a subject that would never have occurred to me when I was a young college student.
Because of the time gap and different medium (colorful digital illustration rather than the analog B&W photography that I mostly studied), sometimes what I’m doing today does feel completely disconnected and distinct from my earlier training and college experience. It would be easy for me to miss appreciating what grew in me in that time. But clearly that experience shaped me, and lately I’ve been observing exactly how it is at work in my art and life today …
3 Things I Learned in Art School:
1. The power of composition and form. Whatever we do in art and design, whatever media we use, this is what it always comes back to — how the shapes fit together, how they create harmonic balance or intentional disorder. How one element leads the eye to another. All of this creates energy in the viewer, can make us feel at peace or angry or curious. How we lay out a page helps guide our eyes to what’s more or less important. Design is everything in art, and we certainly discussed it in every single class I took, whether it was sculpture, drawing, graphic design, or photography.
Really, I don’t think I’ve ever stopped thinking about composition — in how I put food on my plate or how we lay out our fields. And today, any time I begin drawing, it’s my first question: What are the elements I want to include in this? And how should I arrange them to have an interesting and useful hierarchy? To feel balanced? If a page doesn’t feel right, I’ll add or move or delete elements until I achieve my design goal. To me composition is an endlessly fun puzzle, one I got to play with on every page of Edible, as well as in all my Instagram vegetable guides and calendar (2024’s calendar is coming sooooon by the way!).
2. The importance of being intentional. In art classes, most completed projects are followed by a group class critique. If you’re wondering, yes, it’s brutal and weird having your work discussed in your presence by your teacher and a handful of other students. Critiques can be more or less useful and more or less painful.
But one message seemed to come up in every single critique and stood out to me. Inevitably, there’d be a moment when someone would say, “Hey, that thing you did there? It doesn’t look intentional. It would be really cool if you LEANED IT to it more and made it look intentional. Push on it.” That was probably one of the most positive consistent messages I heard being passed around in critiques. By “leaning into” our quirks and oddities (even into our weaknesses sometimes), we can make them look intentional, be intentional. And through that, we can develop our own unique style and voice.
3. How to work HARD. At a holiday meal one year, I told a family friend I was majoring in art, and he replied, “Oh yeah, I chose an easy major too.” I just looked at him, mouth agape, totally bewildered by this statement. Art classes are NOT easy. I took a wide ranges of stimulating, mind-stretching, growth-filled courses, but without a doubt art classes were the most challenging, taxing, and time-consuming classes of my college experience.
An art class requires a student to think creatively about a prompt and consider how to solve its puzzle with the media at hand. I used to lie awake at night on fire with ideas for art projects that would always seem to come right as I was trying to fall asleep. Then to complete the assignment would require hours and hours of actual physical labor. Ideas matter but so does craftsmanship. There are no short-cuts really — the process takes as long as it takes. Often hours and hours for one assignment. I spent so much time standing in the darkroom developing film and prints that I tried out different shoes to avoid aching legs and feet (Birkenstocks worked way better than sneakers). My art classes helped me grow a stamina for work that has stuck with me into my farming and beyond.
So, I was shaped by my schooling, in spite of how long ago and distant that degree seems at times. Now that I’m in my early 40s, I have better perspective on how formative many of my early learning experiences were — both the formal schooling I did, but also other life and work experiences.
For my farming and parenting book, I interviewed four young adults who grew up on farms and homesteads, and I heard them reflect on similar themes. While they mostly valued their childhood growing up on the farm because it was fun, as they grew older they saw more and more skills and experiences that have shaped everything in their lives.
What a gift it is to provide these kinds of experiences to young people, to help them grow skills and perspectives (and sometimes simply the stamina) to become capable, responsible, engaged humans. As I reread (and reread and reread) my farming and parenting book in the editing stages, I’m struck by the investment all of these farmer-parents are making in their kids’ futures. They don’t always see those fruits in the moment, and in fact many parents I’ve spoken with for the book were very forthcoming with assessments of where they wish they could parent differently (most often because of feeling stretched thin for time). But I’m reminded again and again of how the things we learn aren’t always what we set out to learn. When I started my art degree, I wasn’t even really sure what my goals were — I just knew that I felt called to exploring the world visually. It was really that basic. And at the time I knew I was learning very specific skills, but I didn’t see those bigger picture lessons that have come to mean so much to me in life.
I suppose the moral of the story for all of us — parents, life-long learners, anyone who works with kids — is to trust the process. To put ourselves and our kids in the path of real experiences, good books, travel, work, opportunities to feel frustrated and feel successes. And trust that growth will happen.
Edible coming out soon!
The book I illustrated is coming out very soon! Edible will be released in the UK tomorrow (woo hoo!), and its U.S. release date is October 24. It is available to pre-order now wherever you buy books. Here are some suggestions:
For folks local to me, I encourage you to pre-order from Third Street Books in McMinnville, Oregon. (I will be signing all the copies they sell there!)
If you are not in my area, and you’d like to further support my work, you can pre-order using my affiliate link on BookShop.org. (I will get a bit of extra if you buy that way, and you will help support independent booksellers too! Thank you!)
And of course, I’m sure your local bookstore would love to order Edible for you too!
Wondering what book I’m talking about? In last month’s newsletter, I shared the whole story of Edible and how I became involved. Thank you to everyone who has already pre-ordered it! I know you will love it!
Recently on the podcast
I’ve had two exceptionally interesting interviews on the Growing for Market magazine podcast this last month:
Nella Mae Parks (Nella Mae’s Farm) and I talked about growing on clay and why it’s a truly unique farming experience. She shared the challenges and positives of clay and provided lots of practical tips for farmers in a similar growing situation.
Cynthia Flores (Labor-Movement) shared why farmers benefit from thinking of themselves as “athletes in overalls.” In her role as a farmer-turned-personal-trainer and educator, Cynthia has worked with hundreds of farmers to help them rethink their body mechanics. She provided some great starter tips toward long-term farming sustainability — how farmers can build strength and avoid injury!
You can listen (and subscribe!) on any podcast app or go to the GFM website to listen or get more info from the show notes for each episode. New episodes drop every Tuesday — my co-host Andrew’s interviews are also fascinating! There are so many diverse stories to be told about the world of market farming!
Nella Mae’s photo courtesy Nella Mae Parks. Cynthia’s photo by Kelsey Kobik.
Fresh merch & 2024 calendar coming soon!
Fall is arriving this weekend, which means it’s time to be thinking about end-of-season farm crew gifts and then eventually even winter holiday gifts and the turn to a new year. I don’t want to rush anyone who is still savoring the end of the summer, but I am working to prepare my 2024 calendar for a mid-October release. I am also designing new vegetable mugs, stickers, and shirts that you will be able to order from my website very soon! I’ll let you know when all the exciting fun new stuff is live on there (maybe early next week?), but in the meantime I’ll leave you with some sneak peeks of some fresh Autumnal-themed artwork …
Life around here
It’s the end of September, the great in-between time! Out here, mornings feel like fall and the afternoons still feel like summer, but I know the balance will shift toward more of those misty gray days — especially as we pass the equinox on Saturday.
Here on the farm, we’re harvesting and enjoying the fruits of the season. My daughter has been baking pies, and my son has been picking apples for apple butter and to share with others. It’s a sweet time, in so many ways.
As I said, I’ve been busy working on editing and design details for the farming and parenting book this month — so much goes into a book! This is the second time I’ve been at this point in a book project, and I’m still amazed at how much work it is to attend to ALL the details, even with a team of excellent people sharing the work! Really, my gratitude for all the books in the world just grows the more I see the behind-the-scenes efforts.
In another 20 years I’ll likely be looking back at this season of my life and seeing the new lessons it brought me. Because the growth keeps on going!
What are you learning these days? How are you growing? I would love to hear from you about projects you are working on or experiences that are stretching you in new directions.
Wishing you a sweet and golden transition into fall!
With gratitude,
Katie