Issue #1: Rebekah Osborn eats strawberries and cream and feels rich!

I cannot emphasize enough how hard I work to nurture my body! Nurturing means food, but it also means nourishing the brain with joy. What pleasure can I have around? It’s a way to resist the scarcity mindset. When I first got divorced and moved, I hardly bought any food. Partly it’s because my schedule was weird, but also I fell into being almost ascetic – buying dry beans and rice and calling it a life. But I learned I had to prioritize having food that will actually serve me, and that includes budgeting for treats. I can’t get to where I want to be in my career or life by being stressed, restricted, tightly clenched and deprived all the time. Of course I can’t get there by being foolish either, but that is not my danger. While there are systemic issues in the world of course, more of my life than I expect might actually be in my control. Could I give myself the life I want? Do I maybe already have all that I need? Could I buy myself strawberries and cream? Maybe so. To quote Cardi B, I’m rich, I’m rich, I’m rich!

Issue #2: Amy Applegate uses an old-school palette

This is my palette which is kind of a new thing for me. I never would’ve thought to use a handheld palette because they’re so old school, but they’re really practical and I really like it. It’s become one of my staples.

I think I hadn’t realized how nice it is to be in that posture of “oh, I’m standing here, I’m painting here, and I’m mixing here.” I can immediately adjust my paint not have to go over to the side to mix on a table palette. So I don’t lose my physical point of view. It makes sense that people used to do that. Although I’ve been working small, it makes a big difference. I definitely feel like more people should use it in the studio than they do now. Palettes for everyone!

Issue #3: Jody Friend’s coffee grinder used to hold crayons

This is the coffee grinder I bought at an antique store and restored a bit. It was one of the first things I bought when I started living alone for the first time in my life. I use it most mornings if I’m not opening up early at the coffee shop where I work. It’s difficult to use compared to an electric one, but the coffee it produces always stays in my memory more than the others. The tray you pull out with the grounds has waxy crayon marks in it from a previous owner, and I’ve decided to embrace that. I love thinking of a child storing something precious to her in such a particular spot. I am grateful to her, and think of her when I make my coffee.

Issue #4: Rachel Dupont uses beautiful journals for shitty first drafts

These serve a different need than my dated and Roman-Numeraled moleskine journals. These are for shitty first drafts. I choose journals that feel good in my hands, that flop open easily, and if they smell like buttery leather, all the better. It’s a way to make writing a piece a really sensory experience for myself and more organic rather than planned out — with these, I try to steal an aspect of the physical pleasure of drawing for my writing. And I try to channel the writer I was at 14, who took walks to parks and wrote clandestine stories, when it was all pleasure and no editing, no critiques, no readers. Just curiosity and abandon.

Issue #5: Annie Clark gets out of bed to check on the garden

When I think of touchstones around my home, my plants come to mind. The garden literally gets me out of bed in the morning; I get up to check on it first thing every single day. That gets me moving for the day, and then when I get home from work it helps me transition back into rest for the evening. In this photo I have zucchini, chard, kale, arugula, and tomatoes. I also have herbs and strawberries. As I’m learning about the house, I’m also learning about the environment and how to work with it lovingly — the soil, the nutrients, the sunlight patterns, what wants to grow here natively. I want to keep cultivating it, and gradually add more so that I don’t have to have a lawn. I am very anti-grass. Grass ruins native ecosystems! I’ve started cooperating with a local farm that is going to help me get more native plants, and I am so invested in seeing this little place flourish.

Issue #6: Abby Wolfzorn eats from a heart-shaped plate

This is my favorite dinner plate! I love kid’s art, and try to surround myself with children’s visions and how they see the world. I found this while thrifting, and it makes me feel so happy. I can’t tell if it’s a mushroom or a house, I really don’t know what’s happening but I just love it, and it brought me joy in a sad living situation. This is a plate I use, not just display — I eat off of it a lot.

Issue #7: Darren Chittick displays his art supplies and counts it as decorating

In my house I have a lot of textile materials hanging up in all states, and I pretend it counts as decorating. It makes a certain aesthetic, but really I hang them up because I like to look at them for a long, long time. This is some rug wool that I bought in Mexico earlier this year, now hanging up in the room where the looms are. As I see it, I think about what those colors are going to be when I weave them. I need to spend time with my materials for a while, see what they can be. I hesitate to say “what it wants to be,” because I don’t think the wool cares. But I need time to wonder about it. I’m embracing the aesthetic. If I can’t see the materials, my mind forgets – but if they’re visible to me, they’re humming in my brain in the background, getting me ready for the work. It keeps my eyes open.

Issue #8: Weihui Lu is not a brand

For a long time I had thought of myself as a painter and had complicated feelings about the medium of painting and what that meant, but once I got into carving, I felt a more innate connection to the medium. I’m trying to not give myself any strict rules or expectations, but after popping around to so many different genres that there is a part of me now that’s interested in staying with something longer, just to see if there’s a level of depth that it can yield. I feel a connection to the craftsmanship, and it makes me think of architectural moments I’d see when my mom would bring me to China and take me on tours of historical places. I was always drawn to details of molding and carvings. It makes me think of what the lives of the craftspeople was like back then, and I think there’s a part of me that really wants to have that life now where it’s just about your relationship with this object, the rhythm of your hand and your technical ability. It feels outside of the dehumanizing visual economy around painting and branding that feels overwhelming today, like a place I could rest for awhile.

Issue #9: Khara Woods needs a bigger studio, but stays for the window

This is the window in my studio. I rent a space at a local studio called Marshall Arts. In reality I might be needing a larger space soon, since I’ve been working on pieces at bigger scale, but for now I’m telling myself that with this giant window, I have what I need. I get a ton of natural light and I get to watch the wind in the trees or whenever a storm blows through. It’s so tall! Here on the windowsill are some tools and some artifacts – a roll of paper if I need to wrap something or make sketches, a lamp, an organizer where I keep post-its and paper clips, as well as a piece of work from my mother (the triangular piece on the right). She is also an artist her in Memphis (you can find her work here). She is a self-taught folk artist who has been painting as long as I’ve been alive, and now we get to support each other in our art.

Issue #10: Harin Song cultivates analog experiences

My boyfriend is in Korea, and we’ve been in a long-distance relationship for three years now. I actually visited Korea this summer, so it’s been three months since we’ve seen each other. This photo of us is a spiritual thing, it gives me energy. Love is very abstract but then it’s also the most powerful thing that makes me go on every day. This is just an object, representing just a brief moment… but becomes something that’s really important. I don’t see a lot of photos on my phone of friends or family, so this is another intentionally analog thing—I try to get that out of the digital world and into the tangible. The frame is random vintage I collected at one point for a past project.