The month of Inktober starts with excitement, then the month drags on with waning interest, and finally limping into the end. I’m quite happy with this five-pack, but these pieces dip into some calligraphic habits (straight brush, flat brush, and architectural-ish wild style).
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I had a hard time with figuring out what to do with gangly. I fell back on the straight brush,
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I’m super happy with this one, but many of the attempts at contraption came out well.
I reuse the reverse side of rejected pieces. While scanning new pieces for another series, I noticed a rejected contraption that was decent. A few years ago, I would have been ecstatic at making such a piece.
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A big heavy brush felt right for flightless.
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This confused is similar with contraption but with a dip pen. The hatching was inspired by Sandra Kay Dixon.
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Another heavy flat brush, trying to find the minimum strokes to make a lounge.
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Cya next time!
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PS—Voyagers, Nicholas Thomas, 2021
The book is about the settlement of the Pacific. From the perspective of a dude in a shiny 21st-century desert metropolis, it might as well have been about an alien planet.
The book is even-handed. Without heroes or villains it’s a bit dry, but it will scratch your curiosity about how these remote islands got populated amidst vast expanses of nothing. Admittedly, I listened to it, but this needs to be read with eyeballs to be fully appreciated.
Even without maps, the scale and distances are mindboggling. In a world of instant entertainment and distraction, the boredom of sitting in a canoe for days is more terrifying than the unknown ocean.
Ultimately that was the most foreign part of the book. With all the tropical goods we consume, and all the imagery on the internet, nothing feels foreign anymore. Everything seems normalized until you are confronted with the lived reality of our ancestors.
—January 2022
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PPS—Road to Oxiana, Robert Byron, 1937
After reading this book, I drafted this email to the professor who recommended this book to me, but never pressed send. He’s gone now. Send those notes, even especially when they’re imperfect.
~
Ray,
My first ever purchase from Amazon included the Road to Oxiana due to your recommendation. Over the past 22 years, this book has followed my moves to Houston and to Vegas, always hovering near the top of my to-read pile.
I finally read this lively mix of architecture, travel follies, and imperial tension!
Thank you for the recommendation. Your ED101 seminars were the most influential of my time in Berkeley. Of the various arts I studied in college, writing is the one that I still practice at work and at home.
My blog has a small audience of five (including myself). It’s plenty—four more than necessary.
Aside from that, I’m living the comfortable suburban life of a government bureaucrat. Nothing heroic, but fate has granted a good family and meaningful work.
Like Robert Byron, maybe some uncomfortable travel is in order.
Hope all is well in Berkeley,
Justus
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—March 2022
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PPPS—Collage
—October 2026, all the magazine clippings are from a Rice Alumni magazine that I was about to recycle.
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