I will start by saying that this is a tricky one to write. There isn’t a neat or tidy way to package how being a mom has changed how I make art, because motherhood isn’t neat, and neither is being a painter.

As my daughter approaches her 2nd birthday, I’ve been reflecting on how much I have changed as a person since she entered the world. I am humbled by what an honor it is to care for her and watch her grow. I am also exhausted in ways I didn’t know were possible.

Being a parent is so all-consuming, it’s hard to know where to begin. Then there’s the fact that I am so chronically sleep deprived that it’s difficult to physically bring myself to begin at all. After work, diapers, errands, doctor appointments, endless laundry, grocery shopping, cooking all our meals, and bathing a child covered in blueberry oatmeal, I can barely summon the energy to write these words.

Just last week, she went to bed at 9pm then woke up at 11pm, 1am, 3am, 6am, and was up for the day by 7am. “Probably teething”, says our pediatrician. I don’t drink, smoke, or do drugs, but I frequently feel as though I am operating in an inebriated state.

The fact that I even completed a single painting this year is a miracle.

This painting took six months to finish. It’s challenging to sustain an art practice while raising a child and working full time. I’ve had to carve out little pockets of time here and there to finish it, bit by bit.

Despite the challenges, I’m filled with wonder on a daily basis, which sort of makes up for being tired as hell. A baby has a way of making the everyday feel strange and new again. This is my first time watching her first time for everything. And the sound of her laughter is a karmic cleanse for the universe. It’s a rich place to be as an artist.

All the clichés are true. Perhaps the truest cliché is: “It changes you.”

So what changed? Oh just my body, brain, emotions, energy levels, identity, relationships, ambitions, priorities, values, sense of time, my work, my freedom, and my awareness of mortality. You know, my whole life. No big deal.

Of all the changes, I’m focusing on my art practice, because it’s the one place where the transformation is most visible.

What is an art practice?

In the simplest terms, an art practice is the way a person regularly makes things and develops their ideas. It involves what you make, how you make it, why you make it, and how you keep evolving over time.

Motherhood has changed all of these things for me, but the biggest change (at least right now) is time.

Time

I used to work in long stretches; lengthy luxurious blocks of uninterrupted time where I could get lost in a flow state and paint for hours. Now I work in fragments. Tiny patches of time. Twenty minutes here, ten minutes there, maybe an hour or two before bed, sacrificing my sleep to the creative gods.

Time is no longer entirely mine. It is wrapped up in another person’s needs. I often have to make extremely calculated decisions about how to spend it. I am still in the early days of parenting: I have a child who cannot yet dress herself or put herself to bed. She can’t wipe her own bottom, or clip her own nails (how are these tiny fingernails razor sharp, and why do they grow twice as fast?), so creative time has to be planned around all of this.

Since I know my time is fragmented, I try to set myself up for success within those constraints. I deliberately choose methods that allow me to make meaningful progress in brief windows of time. For example, I might create a grid that can be filled in piece by piece, or work on a small composition that doesn’t require much detail.

Subject

The work I used to make was largely concerned with exploring personal symbology. I’d find stuff like hermit crabs or a cool looking rock, and attach psychological meaning to them until they became part of my internal landscape.

So it should be no surprise to anyone that the person I spend absolutely the most time gazing at these days has emerged in my visual language. I’ve added a subject to my work (not to be confused with an object) and everything I make is now colored by caregiving, nurture, and maternal responsibility. I’ve never had little children appear in my paintings until now. And one day, before I know it, she won’t be little anymore. So I’m trying to pay attention while I can.

Making art can be many things, but at its core, it is paying attention. Paying attention, at its best, is a form of love.

Repetition

So much of early motherhood is repetition. Diapers, feedings, baths, laundry, bedtime. The same books, the same songs, the same walk to the local library, day after day. Sometimes the days blur together.

I’ve been learning to embrace repetition in my work. I don’t have a lot of time or energy for experimenting with new ideas, materials, or mediums at the moment. So I return to the same tools, the same subjects, the same colors. Repetition has become the process, and in a way, its own experiment.

I used to think experimentation implied trying something new. I’m finding that there is another kind of experimentation — staying with something long enough to see what happens.

I completely understand why some artists put their work on hold for a while after having children. Sometimes I’m tempted to do the same. But I suspect I’ll have more regrets about what I didn’t do than what I did.

So I’m still painting, little by little.

Memories and stories over the course of a lifetime are made this way too: piece by piece, day by day, moment by moment, highs and lows, the good and the bad, until one day you look back and think hey, what a life.

Why am I doing this?

Why am I taking the time to process this when I could be taking a much-needed nap?

Well, it’s like Dolly Parton said, “Find out who you are and do it on purpose.”

There’s something healing about taking the time to examine your life, especially when you’ve just gone through a big change. Even if you’re not a parent or a painter, I believe there’s always a drop of the universe in every human experience. Maybe sharing this will help make someone else feel a little less alone in whatever they’re figuring out.

I don’t know what life will look like when my daughter is five, ten, or twenty. I hope my work will grow and evolve as much as she does. I’ll do another check-in when the time comes.

To be continued.

Love,
Melanie

♥

PS: a huge special thanks to Thane, the best dad in the world, who is currently recovering from knee surgery. Without him, none of this would be possible.

PPS: Dear reader, this took an embarrassingly long time to write. If you made it this far, thank you. Your readership and support mean the world to me.

You are receiving this because you either subscribed or I signed you up because I love you. You can read Constellations in the format of your choice: as a newsletter in your inbox, on the webpage, or on the Substack app.

Thanks so much for being here.

♥

Earlier this month I turned 38. I almost forgot it was my birthday because 38 is not the most exciting number, and it’s been a busy summer! But I remembered just in time to keep my rituals alive. I have two birthday traditions: 1) celebrate somewhere new, and 2) make a wish on a candle.

Whenever possible, I’ve tried to celebrate my birthday somewhere I’ve never been before. It’s an intentional way to expand my horizons a bit. “Somewhere I’ve never been” can be as simple as a new restaurant, or as adventurous as a foreign country. This year it fell somewhere in the middle.

We made last minute plans to drive out of the city and ended up in Mystic, Connecticut. Our first night started off with dinner at Mystic Pizza. A few people have since asked whether I’ve seen the movie Mystic Pizza with Julia Roberts. I have not. Should I? Coincidentally, that movie came out the year I was born, so maybe it’s time.

The next morning, one of my earliest childhood birthday wishes finally came true: I got to see beluga whales up close.

I’ll have to make a grown-up amendment to the wish: I hope to see beluga whales in the wild one day.

Apparently in the 70s and 80s, capturing wild whales for aquariums and amusement parks was common practice, which is super fucked up. Whales do not belong in captivity.

Several of the belugas at Mystic Aquarium came from Marineland, the now-defunct marine park in Ontario. There’s recently been a massive rescue effort to relocate nearly 30 whales to accredited facilities across North America. People are justifiably outraged that these creatures were ever in captivity, and many questioned why they couldn’t simply be released into the ocean.

Unfortunately, the belugas living in aquariums today are now generations removed from the wild, born and raised in human care. Having spent their entire lives dependent on people, they have zero survival skills. They don’t know how to hunt, migrate, or integrate with wild pods.

So it was a choice between relocation or euthanasia.

Is it better to be safe, or to be free?

This is a question I’ve been grappling with since my dad passed away.

An unexpected highlight of the trip was a visit to Mystic Seaport Museum. With 19 acres of nautical history, it is one of the largest maritime museums in the Western Hemisphere. Highly recommend if you happen to have any boat nerds in the family. Highly recommend even if you don’t.

The person at the front desk informed us that the museum was having an 185th birthday party for their ship, the Charles W. Morgan that day. He explained that it is the last surviving wooden whaleship in the world. They even had a cake.

I lit up. “No way! It’s my birthday too! What are the odds?” I said. For a moment he stared at me with a degree of incredulity, then asked to see my driver’s license. After I proved that I was indeed telling the truth, he let me in for free.

A detail of the ship that I loved was the use of deck prisms: solid blocks of faceted glass set into the planks of the deck, making it look as though it were lined with diamonds. This nautical bling helps to illuminate the space below, reducing the need for candles or oil lamps. Less chance of a fire on a wooden vessel out at sea. A small thing with a disproportionate impact.

A fist-sized window wouldn’t let in much light. But a fist-sized prism refracts and spreads light in a way that makes it bloom in the darkness. In other words, witchcraft. There must be a metaphor in there about the power of being multifaceted.

I brought one home and painted it.

The museum utilizes the expansive grounds to recreate a fully functioning 19th-century seaport village. Next to the shipyard there is a blacksmith, a woodcarver, an old fashioned letterpress print shop, an oyster shack, and a vegetable garden. There’s even a tiny planetarium that shows you how they used to navigate by the stars.

As fun as it was to climb aboard all the vessels and pretend to be living in the year 1850, it was the artifacts inside the museum’s galleries that made a lasting impression on me.

Mostly the engravings on whale teeth, aka scrimshaw.

Scrimshaw is a form of folk art that developed primarily among 19th-century whalers, especially in the Atlantic whaling communities of New England. Sailors would scratch illustrations onto sperm whale teeth and bones during long voyages. Most of the teeth had depictions of boats, whale hunts, or women.

Further evidence that we don’t deserve whales. Imagine getting an image of how you perished etched onto your bones after you die. Or a caricature of you and your entire family. Or worse, someone’s girlfriend.

On some level it’s beautiful, on another level it’s also grotesque, and maybe that’s why I can’t stop thinking about it. The whale-tooth art that emerged from the commercial whaling industry feels different from other whalebone traditions, such as those of Inuit and First Nations.

Scrimshaw is like a sailor’s diary. A souvenir, or a symbol of conquest. Inuit whale carvings are often rooted in a relationship of survival, reverence, and cultural meaning. One emerged from a commodity industry, the other from a longstanding relationship with the animal and the land.

Regardless, humans have a long history of transforming what is available to them into expressions of creativity. If freedom is a whale’s birthright, art must be one of ours. I think about this constantly as I watch my child draw on our walls.

Next month I’ll write about how motherhood changed my art practice.

Stay tuned.

Love,
Melanie

PS: There was so much more I wanted to share from Mystic. I’ve picked out a few photos and one video as a special thank you to my paid subscribers:

Read more

Ten years ago I traveled to Norway on a prayer. The prayer went something like: I hope the people I’m staying with are nice and not serial killers. I was a broke grad student, and I relied on couchsurfing and hitchhiking to get around.

Couchsurfing is always a bit of a gamble. Although there’s a review system (similar to Airbnb, only with the expectation that you interact with your hosts), I honestly would probably never let my own daughter do this without first running an extensive background search on everyone.

You just never know.

The first person I reached out to was a Bergen resident named Patrick. He wrote me a kind reply, saying that he was unavailable to host, but offered to keep in touch.

I ended up having a memorable trip with a group of young international travelers and a pair of Norwegian empty-nesters who seemed glad to have visitors the same age as their grown children. They took us out on their boats, didn’t kill us (yay!) and we had an idyllic picnic on the sparkling water and sunny fjords. They taught me how to fly fish for the first time. My host even gifted me a woolen hat that he knit himself.

To this day, I’m grateful for their generosity and for the opportunity to experience Norway through the eyes of people who call it home. It gave me a deeper appreciation for the land and its culture, something I never would have experienced if I had stayed at a hotel.

I don’t know that I’ll ever be able to repay them. We’ve fallen out of touch over the last several years, yet I still look back on that time fondly. Oddly enough, the person I maintained a friendship with was not one of the people I met, but rather the guy I never got to meet.

Patrick and I became penpals. The improbability of maintaining regular correspondence with someone from another country whom you've never actually met in person isn't lost on me. After seven years of spontaneously ping-ponging messages back and forth across multiple time zones, moves, jobs, relationships, and other life changes, we finally met face-to-face for the first time in 2023.

How did we finally meet? We happened to be in the right place at the right time:

Between Brazil and Norway, Patrick had a layover in New York, and we had a 2-hour window to say hello. I happened to be nearby when he texted that he was in the same city, and would I be available to get coffee?

I was 6 stops away on the L train, and I dropped everything I was doing to get there before he had to fly back home.

Since then, Patrick has become a true friend. He met my daughter when she was just 2 months old, and more recently he came to stay with us during his East Coast tour of the World Cup. I can’t fully describe how surreal it is to witness the person behind all those years of text messages morph into someone who plays with my toddler and feels like family.

A decade ago I reached out to a stranger for a place to stay in Norway, and that platonic missed connection has now become our guest in Queens.

Now that I’m older, wiser, and in a position to host, I realize that there is a transformational kind of magic only a visitor can bring.

For those of you who are like me — completely sports illiterate — please bear with me.

I’ve never had the heart for sports. I can appreciate the intense camaraderie they generate, but I don’t enjoy getting emotionally invested in a score. I always feel sorry for the team that loses, and I’m allergic to competition. You want the ball? Please, take it.

Which is why it’s absurd that I am now 100000% watching the World Cup.

Patrick flew all the way here because Norway is in the World Cup for the first time in 28 years. Coincidentally, he arrived when the New York Knicks won the NBA championship for the first time in 53 years, which turned the city into a gigantic street party. People climbed scaffolding and lamp posts and practically defied gravity in celebration.

He was unintentionally in the right place at the right time to witness a piece of NY sports history.

A few days later, we were halfway through dinner in Koreatown when Patrick looked at his phone and said, “The Norwegians are gathering in Times Square at 7:30.” We hadn’t planned on going anywhere after dinner, but Times Square was only a 15 minute walk. Toddler in tow, we headed over.

We stumbled upon thousands of Norwegian FIFA fans and compatriots cheering, singing, performing the viral Viking Row, chanting “Ro!” in unison. I don’t know what I was expecting. Certainly not the largest documented gathering of Norwegians ever to engulf Times Square.

It felt electrically synchronistic. It was the solstice, it was unplanned (for us, anyway), and it was also Father’s Day. My partner Thane has Norwegian heritage, which means our daughter does too. And thanks to Patrick we were unexpectedly in the right place at the right time to witness a piece of Norwegian sports history.

Visitors often have a way of bending the ordinary into something extraordinary.

I know many of you read this newsletter because I’m a painter. But I’m also here to notice serendipity, observe the moments that stand out, and find the bright spots. Because life can be really dark. I’m searching for where the light shines, and I’m on a lifelong quest to map it out. Discovering personal constellations, if you will.

At the end of the day we’re all just visiting. We’re all passing through. And if you stay open, you might find yourself in the right place at the right time in unexpected ways.

You just never know.

Love,
Melanie

PS: Norway plays Brazil today at 4pm Eastern. They’ve never made it this far before, and I’ll be watching because I am now emotionally invested. Even if they lose, it kind of feels like they already won.

You are receiving this because you either subscribed or I signed you up because I love you. You can read Constellations in the format of your choice: as a newsletter in your inbox, on the webpage, or on the Substack app.

Thanks so much for being here.

♥

The Creative Retreat in Iceland launched last week, and sold out fast! Way faster than I expected.

For the last several months, I’ve been working hard to put together an international retreat in Snæfellsnes. With help from Alexis Joseph, Lana Porcello, and Hedi Jónsdóttir, we’re excited to host Case for Making’s first watercolor excursion in Iceland. I’m looking forward to July 2027 when we get to paint together next to mountains, glaciers, lava fields, hot springs, and maybe even a few humpback whales, since summer is peak whale-watching season.

It took a lot of effort to make this happen! Especially as an extra project in addition to our regular scheduled programming. It involved corresponding with people across multiple time zones, figuring out the logistics of lodging, transportation, budgeting, itinerary planning, and so much more. I’m hoping to help coordinate and host more of these in the future.

Lately I’ve been reflecting on the extremely nonlinear sequence of jobs that somehow led me here. In my last newsletter, I touched on how I’ve never had a super direct occupational trajectory. Some people are born knowing exactly what they want to do. For example, I have three family members who are surgeons. Some paths don’t leave a lot of room for error, or wandering. I have never been blessed with this kind of clarity, but I have been fortunate to stumble upon many opportunities that taught me something useful.

So I decided to create a list of every job* I’ve had leading up to this point. And hopefully there’s a lot of life left for further discoveries.

*To keep things simple, I’m only listing jobs where I paid income tax – leaving out all the work that was off the books.

Jobs I’ve had:

(in chronological order)

1. Baskin-Robbins – fun fact: Barack Obama and I had the same first job. We both spent after-school hours serving ice cream and rolling waffle cones. I was 15 when I acquired my first W-2. I developed scooping-induced carpal tunnel, and a phobia of getting trapped in the walk-in freezer.

2. Paint-your-own-pottery – sales associate & studio assistant, where I held my breath every single time I loaded and unloaded a kiln, praying not to break anyone’s lovingly painted cat figurines.

3. Peer Mentor – helped incoming students navigate life at Fairhaven College, which sometimes involved explaining why it was inadvisable to leave frothing homemade kombucha inside another student’s mail cubby.

4. Dog groomer – spent a college summer in the grooming department of Petco, giving dogs of all shapes and sizes a shampoo and blow-dry. A terrier bit my hand on the last day of work here.

5. Server – I served sushi at two restaurants long enough to learn that your crew can either make or break your entire working experience, and that having a good team is everything.

6. Activities Coordinator – at a nursing home serving long-term residents, many living with dementia or Alzheimer’s. I organized their bingo games, led daily programming, wheeled residents to the dining hall for live music, and kept track of sensory activities. I got to know a lot of seniors on a very emotionally intimate level, and it was hard to say goodbye. I never grew accustomed to residents passing away.

7. Buyer – I worked at the most aggressively hippy-adjacent natural foods store in the Pacific Northwest. As a buyer, I decided which cheeses, teas, and olive oils deserved shelf space. I think it was at this point that I started becoming hyper-organized, keeping track of all the threads involving suppliers, inventory, and expiration dates. Two years of sourcing a dozen brands of raw almond butter helped me decide to apply for grad school.

8. Falconer’s Assistant – I needed something physically demanding and connected to nature, in order to keep me grounded during grad school. It is too easy to get lost inside your head when writing an MFA thesis. Working with falcons, hawks, eagles, and owls kept me sane, because birds don’t judge you based on academic merit. The Burren Birds of Prey Centre was a godsend.

9. Barista – on some unspoken level it must have been a village tradition to graduate with your master’s degree then immediately work at the local cafe. Like many who came before me, I poured coffee to make ends meet, and I also learned how to make an excellent quiche. If you ever pass by The Larder in Ballyvaughan, please give the owner Shirley a big hug from me, she’s the best.

10. Meta Artist in Residence – I didn’t expect painting to become financially viable for a long time, if ever. But just a few months after graduating, I was invited to a paid artist residency at the company formerly known as Facebook. I painted this mural for their Dublin location, and made a lot of Facebook friends.

11. Hawthorne Valley Farm – after 3 years in Ireland it was time to move back to the US. I did an autumn artist residency in upstate New York, and once again found myself in need of a short term gig to pay rent. For two months I processed several thousand pounds of peppers to be turned into hot sauce. I would come back to the residency dusted from head to toe in a spicy layer of capsaicin.

    

12. Santa’s Helper – I honestly don’t know what to call this one. For one solid month I made a quick buck editing holiday photos at the mall. My favorite was a guy who wanted a photo of Santa holding his pet bearded dragon. The lizard wore a tiny Santa hat.

13. California Academy of Sciences – the first job I found after moving to San Francisco involved an albino alligator, coral reefs, exotic butterflies, and Penguins & Pajamas sleepovers for kids. I worked as many double shifts as possible because the pay was terrible. One manager started calling me “Double or Nothing Melanie.” Lots of memorable coworkers here.

14. Cedars – I worked as an art instructor supporting individuals with developmental disabilities. Together we built an environment centered on creativity, expression, and personal growth. This chapter came to an abrupt, unexpected halt when the pandemic changed the world.

15. Case for Making – this little art shop means more to me than I can fit in a small summary. Originally I was hired to help with order fulfillment, since online sales exploded thanks to Covid. But everyone at CfM wears multiple hats: we all made paint, brainstormed new colors, and eventually expanded to teaching art workshops. After moving to New York, I became the workshop manager, and continue to work as an instructor. Six years in, planning our first retreat.

16. Self employed artist – the one consistent thread throughout all this is that I always made time for art, even if it wasn’t the most financially sustainable path. I wasn’t raised to believe that being an artist was viable. Quite the opposite. I was strongly discouraged from pursuing the subject at all. But whenever I was working all those other jobs, I was still painting, studying, researching, and carving out time to have an art practice whenever possible.

Being a self-employed artist means simultaneously functioning as an accountant, archivist, art handler, bookkeeper, copywriter, customer service rep, event coordinator, fabricator, grant writer, inventory wrangler, janitor, marketing department, project manager, publicist, researcher, shipping coordinator, social media manager, studio technician, website designer, and occasionally, if time permits, an actual artist.

Last month I finished two commissions. I shipped and sold a few paintings, and just got new prints on my website. I do most of this late at night, while my 1.5 year old daughter is sleeping.

Sometimes life feels random. Remember to trust the seeds you’re planting.

Love,
Melanie

PS: here is a photo of the last latte I ever made, just in case I ever need barista work again.

PPS: you made it this far, so here’s Santa with the bearded dragon:

You are receiving this because you either subscribed or I signed you up because I love you. You can read Constellations in the format of your choice: as a newsletter in your inbox, on the webpage, or on the Substack app.

Thanks so much for being here.

♥

When I was little, still young enough to be picked up under the arms, my mom placed me outside one night on our dark front porch, told me not to come home, and locked the door behind me. I cried until she let me back in. I don’t remember why she did this. Maybe I was throwing a tantrum, the way young children do, but I don’t remember that part.

I do remember all the times she threatened to give me up for adoption, or put me in foster care, claiming the only reason she didn’t was because no one would want me. Throughout my childhood she reminded me that without her, I would be an orphan.

In contrast, she could be effusively affectionate at times. Especially when I was “good.” But sometimes “good” and “bad” were things I had no control over. At age eight, when the optometrist prescribed me glasses, my mom flew into a rage and screamed that I had ruined my body.

So, on some internal level I came to understand love as conditional. My worth fluctuated and my existence was either a burden or a gift, depending on the day.

In most regards I consider myself extremely lucky. I never went hungry and always had a roof over my head. I developed an imaginative and rich inner world to escape into. And I had clean clothes to wear and piano lessons, all thanks to mom. She was a single parent in a foreign country, thousands of miles away from her own family, doing everything by herself.

Because I felt that love had to be earned, and because I observed the only other member of the household working nonstop, I developed a relentless and all-consuming, self-punishing work ethic. I’d take on projects at the expense of my sleep, my health, and my sanity.

The upside is that all the work I’ve done has taken me to some interesting places over the years. I’ve worked with dementia patients who were dying. I moved to another country where I didn’t know anyone. I’ve done a wide variety of things to pay rent, which includes (but is not limited to) shoveling horse manure, pickling thousands of peppers, painting murals, and teaching color theory to the C-suite of Gap Inc.

Sometimes life has felt like a rambling amalgamation of completely random, disparate elements, and it’s been hard to determine if there’s ever going to be a bigger picture or if this is it. A collection of bits and pieces.

Read more

February was full to the brim. Teaching, learning, work, winter illnesses. And then it snowed again. Maybe you heard? A blizzard left us with 2 feet of snow.

A voluminous blanket of freshly fallen snow is one of my most favorite things on earth. Yet there are too many people living here for the snow to stay delightful for long. Eight million inhabitants (and their pets) are quick to ravage everything in their path. It only takes a New York minute for the snow to deteriorate into garbage igloos, frozen urine, and poopsicles. Then it starts to melt, like a thawing archeological dig, revealing the grossest artifacts you’ve ever seen.

But for one glorious day it is like a fairytale.

Recently this newsletter received an unexpected influx of new subscribers. Hi! Thank you for being here. I suspect it has something to do with painting, so perhaps you have no idea how random and deeply personal these posts can get.

If you are new here, let’s just clear a few things up now before it gets awkward.

I am pro-choice, feminist, and secular. I am the daughter of immigrants. I voted for Obama twice. I’m not a violent person, but will gladly punch a nazi in the face. I am deathly allergic to bullshit, so with everything going on it is a miracle I am alive today.

Full transparency is the best social filter, isn’t it? This publication is part candor, part process, part slice of life. Art projects are woven in, and art is inseparable from lived experience.

Oh, and I’m also a mom. I’ve been a parent for a little over a year now, which is less time than I spent earning my master’s degree, which is crazy to think about. It’s all new to me still, so sometimes I reflect upon that recent tectonic shift in my life here.

Having a child has unearthed many of my own childhood memories. Maybe this is why I’ve been thinking about superpowers a lot these last few months. Don’t all kids dream of having at least one superpower? As I’ve gotten older, the desire for a supernatural skill has changed a bit, and I find each yearning very revealing of the stage of life that I’m in.

Superpowers I wish I had:

• Age 5: telepathy + the ability to communicate with animals.

• Age 20: omnilingualism — aka the ability to fluently understand, speak, read, and write any language.

• Age 37: the power to bend time.

If I could choose to have any superpower today, it would be to slow down time, add time, or create time. What new parent wouldn’t love to have an extra hour of sleep, or more time to do the ten thousand things that need to get done every day? My daughter had an ear infection this month, and I was blown away by how much time it took just to administer her medications, on top of everything else.

Having a baby has also renewed my interest in telepathy, because for the first year of life she had the vocabulary of a small bear.

How are the superpowers we long for indicative of what we’re trying to build in our lives?

As a 5-year-old, my desire to communicate with animals was a broader sign that I was attempting to understand the earth and our fellow inhabitants. This is actually something I carried into adulthood, having worked at animal shelters and later as a falconer’s assistant with Burren Birds of Prey. I may not have gained the ability to telepathically speak with animals, but I do have a better understanding and a deeper respect for them now.

In my 20s I traveled and grew more interested in people, hence the desire for omnilingualism. I have no natural knack for languages, not like my cousin Alex who is a legitimate polyglot. Alex speaks a dozen languages fluently and is learning a few more. I did not get this gene. But in that decade I did end up making many new international friends, I learned how to say “thank you” in 20 different languages, and found that gratitude is the most important thing to be able to universally express.

So in this new chapter of life, what is my desire for more time trying to teach me?

Our desires for a superpower tend to illuminate the places where we feel limited, and therefore the direction we’re stretching toward.

I frequently find myself exasperated at the clock, sometimes feeling as though I don’t have enough time to do anything beyond what is needed to survive. Time is the ultimate luxury. It is precisely for this reason I added three extra time-consuming things to my schedule in February. I needed to learn how to stretch my time, and my capacity for appreciating it.

Things I made more time for this month:

• Meditation. After reading The Art of Happiness by the Dalai Lama, I realized that whenever I feel like I don’t have time to meditate, that’s when I need it most.

• Painted every day for at least 10 minutes.

• Took classes with my favorite children’s book illustrator, .

I am usually in the teacher’s seat, so it was great to be a student again. Below is a drawing I made during Carson’s class (which I highly recommend) using her Transmundane Character prompt: “Has freckles, wearing a skirt with a beautiful pattern, covered in fur.” I wasn’t nearly as imaginative as the other participants. I’ve been reading too many Richard Scarry books to Lumi, and just drew the first thing that came to mind.

Nobody asked for this, but I also tasked myself with painting for at least 10 minutes every day for 30 days. I have always been terrible at sticking to things like this and at first it felt very why-did-I-take-this-on, but I am almost at the end now and it truly did expand my sense of time. It made the days feel longer and less harried somehow.

This shift restored a sense of agency. And agency changes our experience of time. Being more intentional helped to change my perception of time by anchoring me in presence. I didn’t add more hours to the day, but deliberately choosing to slow down made each day feel more spacious.

Here’s 25 days of painting in no particular order:

I’m beginning to believe that if we tune into the magic we long for, it can give us blueprints for the life we want to build. We just have to pay attention.

If you could choose a superpower, what would it be?

What abilities do you wish you had? And what powers have you gained along the way that are part of the magic you bring to the world now? Here are some of mine.

3 superpowers I have now:

• I can draw a silly cat on demand. I developed this superpower recently, as my daughter has been learning how to talk. Whenever we play with her crayons (daily), she requests (relentlessly) that I draw a cat. Amazing what we can learn to do under pressure.

• I can squeal like a dolphin. Bizarre party trick, kids love it. Maybe I can talk to animals after all?

• I make good chocolate chip cookies. They are enjoyed in every language.

Drop me a line, and tell me which superpowers you wish you possessed, as well as the ones you’ve already got. I love hearing from you.

Thanks for reading.

Love,
Melanie

You are receiving this because you either subscribed or I signed you up because I love you. You can read Constellations in the format of your choice: as a newsletter in your inbox, on the webpage, or on the Substack app.

It’s a labor of love to bring this publication to life, so if you enjoy it, please consider upgrading to a paid subscription. You’ll have my sincerest gratitude and the delight of knowing you’re supporting my work as an artist.

♥

I started writing this a week ago, when an impending winter storm of supposedly epic proportions was forecasted to blanket much of the eastern United States in snowfall. I was relieved to finally be home after many stints of being in transit. The last 6 months involved traveling to Maine, Montauk, San Francisco, Iceland, and Seattle – with a baby who tested our wits more than once.

Being snowed in is a good excuse not to go anywhere. I had plans to cozy up on the sofa with a steaming mug of tea while getting some writing done. I had thought to share a bit of the buoyancy I gained after hosting a couple of my dearest friends for a week, but then two things happened that made staying home feel less like a gift and more like a trap.

“Did you see they killed that man?” I asked Thane when he came home.

I didn’t intend to say it so bluntly, but I couldn’t hold it in. We have a one-year-old, who is walking and talking now. We are learning that she understands a surprising amount of the words she hears. And the more she understands, the more it feels like we need to leave this country.

The murder of Alex Pretti is the most recent atrocity on a long, long, long list of abhorrent things currently happening in the US. I want to stay to make things better. I want to leave to keep my family safe. The irony of even thinking to abandon the place of my citizenship during an “immigration crackdown” does not escape me.

They say empires last roughly 250 years: by that metric, America is at death’s door – can you tell? We’re imploding. That’s what happens when your government loses its last shreds of integrity. Usually I’m a lot more optimistic than this, but it’s only January and it feels like everything is on fire.

If your home is burning do you stay to put it out, or do you flee?

The day the winter storm hit, we learned that Thane’s family’s construction company suffered a catastrophic fire. Thankfully no one was hurt, but still, it’s painful to see the photos. There’s this public post that’s been circulating that I don’t like to look at, yet it has resurfaced over and over again this week, and it shows the sheer magnitude of the blaze.

Is it fair to say that something feels devastating even when no lives were lost?

Thane’s father Curt poured his life into the family business, which was started by Thane’s grandfather Roger in 1962; 64 years ago. Thane has fond memories of playing Crossfire in the attic as a child (please watch this Crossfire commercial to be transported back to the early 1990’s. As one commenter put it: “There's no reason for that commercial to go as hard as it did.”) As a teen, he spent summers building houses for Lund Construction before moving to New York.

It cannot be easy to see decades of memories, blood, sweat, and tears, go up in flames.

Then there’s the logistical side of it: the exhaustion of dealing with a toxic, chemical disaster. From the Minot Daily News, “There were a large number of trucks, payloaders, skid steers and other vehicles in the shop which the business uses for snow removal services … they were inside for maintenance and fully fueled with 500 gallons of diesel.”

Temperatures were -20°F that night. Can you imagine what pouring several hundred gallons of water on an inferno in subzero weather is like? All that water either turns into vapor or ice, which is now frozen over a charred and melted mess.

Maybe it’s a stretch to feel like this fire and its weird timing is somehow a mirror for the country at large. But hear me out: things feel precarious. You don’t know what will be taken away from you at any given moment. Maybe everything you ever worked for will suddenly go up in smoke on a cold night in January. Maybe your rights as a citizen will be eroded by an oligarchy. You just never know.

Which has me asking: is there anything that can’t be taken away? Is there anything in this lifetime that you can’t lose on a dime?

Almost everything external can be lost: people, property, health, money, reputation, rights.

That leaves the internal: integrity, purpose, meaning, belief, and love.

Perhaps these are the only things that can’t be forcibly removed, only given. You also can’t acquire these qualities without some serious work and effort. You can’t buy integrity. You can’t fake love. You don’t just suddenly develop an internal compass in the face of calamity. These things take time to invest in, and if you’re about to walk through fire, you’ve only got what you banked.

I wrote the following questions down on a piece of paper and will be focusing the rest of the year (and perhaps my lifetime) on trying to answer them:

Good lord this is some heavy shit. I’m almost done.

I don’t have all the answers but I do know that I have always, always believed that another world is possible. I started writing this newsletter 2 years ago, January 2024, with this painting:

Another world, a better world, is always possible. When I say better, I mean one that is kinder, gentler, and more equitable. We’re all searching for a good life, and it doesn’t have to be at the expense of others.

The word “resilience” gets thrown around a lot these days, but it takes a ton of resilience to get to the other side, whether that means staying to put out a fire, or the courage to leave everything behind.

“Nothing that is worth doing can be achieved in our lifetime; therefore we must be saved by hope.” ― Reinhold Niebuhr, The Irony of American History.

This was a lot, the next one will be lighter. Thanks for reading.

Love,
Melanie

You are receiving this because you either subscribed or I signed you up because I love you. You can read Constellations in the format of your choice: as a newsletter in your inbox, on the webpage, or on the Substack app.

It’s a labor of love to bring this publication to life, so if you enjoy it, please consider upgrading to a paid subscription. You’ll have my sincerest gratitude and the delight of knowing you’re supporting my work as an artist.

♥

Greetings from the Pacific Northwest. A place I used to call home.

Originally I had a different draft that was to be “Iceland Again, Part Two” — I was looking forward to sharing the rest of our trip after the magic hat. But the things that transpired since then have pushed the overseas adventure out of my mind for now. Iceland will resurface eventually, when the time is right.

So that leaves me writing this instead, at 3am on December 31st in near total darkness. The only light in the room is coming from my laptop, as my partner and 1 year old sleep a couple feet away. Since we’re currently guests in someone else’s home, I’ll try to keep this short so as not to be an extended source of light pollution.

It’s beautiful here. Yet coming back always fills me with a sense of dread. A deep, pervasive, old unease. The moment we land in Seattle, I feel sick and suddenly forget how to breathe. There is no part of me that wants to get off the plane. This doesn’t happen anywhere else. Only in the last few years, with the help of several therapists and a proficient psychologist, have I identified that this is due to C-PTSD. Maybe you’re thinking “duh, obviously” but when you live with something for a very long time, you might not realize it isn’t normal or right.

Much of my early life was shrouded in darkness. That sounds melodramatic, but there are big gaping black holes in my childhood memories, from times that I would simply shut down out of self preservation. It wasn’t until I moved out at 18 that my memory would start to improve dramatically, and I began to learn that most other people did not experience what I had experienced.

So I’m reminded why I started this newsletter in the first place. On some level, no matter how dark things got, a small part of me always believed that life could be better. I became hyper-intentional about seeking the bright spots in dark times. These could be little things, like petting a soft puppy, or smelling a fresh sprig of rosemary, or watching snowflakes swirling in the glow of a streetlamp. And of course they could be big things too, like the birth of my daughter.

This collection of glimmers became a star-map that I use to help navigate darkness. Over the years, the creation of new constellations makes the map more reliable and expansive. Eventually I came to trust that new stars would appear if I kept going. This is a space to share those things.

2025 was my first full year as a parent. A multitude of new stars burst into life, and of course for every high there were lows as well. We recently celebrated Lumi’s first birthday, which was absolutely wonderful. It’s been a year of exponential growth and brilliant joy. It was also a year of emergency room visits, family members battling cancer, and harsh reminders of mortality.

As we step into 2026, I’m looking for new ways of making a soft place to land. I’m wrapping my inner-child in an imaginary patchwork quilt of all the beautiful things that have gotten me through these last 37 years of life. I hope to pass this quilt-of-the-heart down to my kid one day.

Thanks for taking the time to read this. May you be wrapped in a warm blanket of all the things that bring you closer to your true self.

Happy New Year ♥

Love,
Melanie

PS: as many of you know, I teach painting classes every month. I don’t usually mention my upcoming workshops here, but maybe I should. For the last several years, every January I would teach Intro to Watercolor, however this year I decided that I personally needed something way more chill. My nervous system needs a detox. Maybe yours does too? You can join me for Watercolor Zen on Sunday, January 18th:

Ok, bye for now.

You are receiving this because you either subscribed or I signed you up because I love you. You can read Constellations in the format of your choice: as a newsletter in your inbox, on the webpage, or on the Substack app.

It’s a labor of love to bring this publication to life, so if you enjoy it, please consider upgrading to a paid subscription. You’ll have my sincerest gratitude and the delight of knowing you’re supporting my work as an artist.

♥

Greetings from Kirkjubæjarklaustur. It is a miracle we made it here in one piece.

After navigating the chaos circus that is JFK airport during the longest government shutdown in US history, we said a little prayer to the travel gods and boarded our flight.

The green glow of the aurora borealis followed us until we descended beneath the cloud bank to a full on blizzard. We arrived in Iceland on the morning of October 28th to record-breaking snowfall. It broke the previous record set in 1921 and essentially shut down the capital city of Reykjavík.

Usually I love a good snowpocalypse, but only when I don’t need to go anywhere. It made driving the 200 mile (300 km) journey to our destination rather difficult. Fortunately Thane is from the ice planet Hoth, also known as North Dakota, or we would have ended up in the ditch like the dozens of cars we passed along the way.

Please enjoy this video of an Icelandic horse navigating the snowy terrain more gracefully than a human ever could:

I cannot emphasize enough how insanely lucky we were. It took us over 5 hours to get to our accommodations, the blizzard never let up (it only got worse), the roads were slippery with ice, and visibility was horrendous. We made a stop in Selfoss to get groceries and the store was inundated with people stockpiling food, preparing to be snowed in. Lumi, our 11 month old baby with boundless energy, hates being in the car, so that didn’t help much either.

In all the commotion, I lost my hat. The lost hat is actually pictured above in the first photo, being used to cover Lumi’s eyes as she snoozes on my lap. If you have ever met me in person sometime in the last 2 decades you have most likely seen this hat, whether you remember it or not. I’ve had it for exactly 20 years; it was a gift from my cousin.

There is nothing special about it, except that I am very very fond of it. I’ve brought it on on every single trip I have ever taken as an adult without even realizing it. Somehow in all this time it has never worn out, not even a little bit.

It would be so liberating to be a Buddhist monk and practice the art of non-attachment, but that’s just not the path I walk. So the curse of being someone who gets attached to stuff is that you feel sad when you lose something.

This just happens to be the premise of a popular children's book, I Want My Hat Back by Jon Klassen.

We made it to Kirkjubæjarklaustur counting our lucky stars. Shortly after we arrived, the storm reached its apex and the roads closed behind us and ahead of us. We were safe and warm with plenty of provisions, yet I could not shake the twinge of regret that my hat was back at a Bónus parking lot in Selfoss, which was now inaccessible due to road closures. I imagined that it was getting buried in snow, trampled on by the hoards of Snowmageddon survivalists, and shredded by studded snow tires. Goodbye to my hat forever.

I tried to look on the bright side. We woke up the next morning to a powdery soft playground:

The northern lights made an appearance that night:

Eventually I will probably write an entire essay on why I’m so obsessed with this otherworldly phenomenon, but let’s get back to my hat.

Thane found a Bónus contact form online, which I scoffed at. A “snowball’s chance in hell” as the saying goes, but I filled out the form anyway.

Some fun facts about Bónus: it is the largest chain grocery store in Iceland. The mascot, a pig, went through a rebranding recently to make it look more respectable, but everyone misses the old pig, which looked absolutely smashed. Bónus Poetry, a chapbook of poems inspired by the grocery store, is the best-selling poetry volume in the country’s history.

Here is a screenshot of their reply:

This would never happen in NYC. Never. Not even with Zohran as mayor (happy Mamdani week to all who celebrate). Could you imagine losing anything at a Trader Joe’s parking lot in Brooklyn? God forbid.

The roads finally opened back up, and we made the long drive back to Selfoss to go swimming, and to retrieve my hat. I truly did not believe it until I saw it. The store manager pulled the hat out from a small office, then handed it to me with a smile. How did it stay so clean? It wasn’t even dirty from being outside, and there wasn’t any wear or tear, not even a little bit.

In a majestic land of ponies, auroras, shooting stars, and transcendent light, nothing has so firmly cemented in my mind that this is a place where magic happens than getting my hat back.

Till next time.

Love,
Melanie

You are receiving this because you either subscribed or I signed you up because I love you. You can read Constellations in the format of your choice: as a newsletter in your inbox, on the webpage, or on the Substack app.

It’s a labor of love to bring this publication to life, so if you enjoy it, please consider upgrading to a paid subscription. You’ll have my sincerest gratitude and the delight of knowing you’re supporting my work as an artist.

♥

Dear Friends,

Good lord. I had planned on sending this out two weeks ago, when it was still September. But then Lumi fell ill with stomach flu, and then I caught it too. Caring for a sick infant when you are also sick is a whole new level of exhaustion, and grit.

Most new parents expect sleepless nights and the fact that your life effectively changes forever the moment your child is born. But nothing can truly prepare you for how hard it is to make sure your inconsolable baby is eating enough while you yourself are unable to keep anything down. Gone are the days when being sick meant focusing solely on your own recovery.

Perhaps the hardest part is that she doesn’t have language yet. She recently learned how to say “mama” (rejoice! for language is on the way) but I still can’t explain to her that she will recover, that what she is feeling now won’t last forever, and that her tummy will feel better in time. Time passes much differently when you’re so little.

I’ll keep this short since I’m still on the mend; mostly I wanted to say thanks.

Thank you to all the nice people who played peek-a-boo with my daughter during her first flight. I don’t know any of your names but you were all so kind, and that alone was a humongous relief. I was nervous about flying with her (I don’t expect anyone who has only been alive for 9 months to know how to act on a plane, so I braced myself for the worst.) There were at least 10 of you who took turns smiling at her and returning her waves (she just learned how to wave) for over 6 hours. The result was that she didn’t cry even once. Shoutout to the passenger who told us “your baby is a real party animal!” She is.

Thank you to this neighborhood for holding so many people I’ve loved. This was where my dad used to hum to himself as he waited for the bus. This was where my grandma would make soup for her grandkids. This was where my grandpa would buy 油條 [yóutiáo] for breakfast and share it with us. These people are no longer alive, so the neighborhood itself becomes a container for their memories. It was wonderful to return for a visit, and it still smells like eucalyptus trees and ocean fog.

Thank you to the Case for Making community for being a wellspring of creative energy, and for making me feel so welcomed. I taught two sold out workshops, which wouldn’t have been possible without the wonderful people who showed up. Thank you thank you thank youuu for being there! I can’t believe I’ve been seeing some of your faces online for five years and actually got to hug a few of you in person for the first time.

Thank you CfM team, you are simply the best. Thank you Alexis for building the cauldron where so much magic has been brewed and keeps on evolving. I miss the days of bringing Kokoro (who is a cat) to the shop in a little backpack and she would sit by the window while we worked, and everyone just accepted this like it was normal and awesome. It’s a gift to work alongside people you genuinely admire. This team is filled with talented, funny, caring, curious, creative problem solvers. We should run for president. Except that job is cursed so never mind.

Thank you to the friends who went out of their way to see us. Spencer, Harrison, Mark & Vicki, and Goose, thank you for your generosity and kindness.

Spencer has been a friend since we worked at the California Academy of Sciences in 2018. Aside from both being Asian, we have almost nothing in common. Or rather, our interests have no overlap. Yet we’ve managed to stay friends across time and space. I’ve tried to figure this out, because I don’t really understand it. Ultimately I’ve decided that it boils down to his authenticity.

Spencer is not the type of person to feign interest in something that other people might care about: “I wish I liked nature more.” was his reply to my enthusiasm for the aquarium. Odd, coming from a guy who I met working at an aquarium.

His ability to just be himself without wasting any time people-pleasing makes it easier for everyone around him to just be themselves as well. It brings out the best in people. Or the worst, if you take this lack of superficial social niceties as a threat. So in a way it’s also a helpful filter.

Anyway, I don’t need Spencer to share my interests because now I can just live vicariously through my kid. Thane and I are whispering “marine biologist” in her ears a lot these days.

For real though, I do not expect Lumi to eventually love what I love. I’m looking forward to the day she challenges my idea of “fun” and shows me doorways to worlds I’ve never considered entering before. She already does this with her tendency towards extroversion — I would have never considered saying hi to that many people on an airplane.

As the world continues to burn, thanks for reading.

Love,
Melanie

You are receiving this because you either subscribed or I signed you up because I love you. You can read Constellations in the format of your choice: as a newsletter in your inbox, on the webpage, or on the Substack app.

It’s a labor of love to bring this publication to life, so if you enjoy it, please consider upgrading to a paid subscription. You’ll have my sincerest gratitude and the delight of knowing you’re supporting my work as an artist.

♥

Dear Friends,

I am pretty fried at the moment. August was an insane month. I am using my last 2 brain cells to write this at 4am, after a full day of teaching a workshop, bathing a slippery wriggling baby, and packing for an upcoming work trip. I haven’t slept through the night in over a year (when I was pregnant either my bladder or the baby kicking would wake me up, and sleep has just gone downhill from there.) There might be typos because I am too tired to proofread. But these days a typo feels like a strange badge of honor because at least then you know this wasn’t written by ChatGPT or some other AI robot that nobody asked for.

There was so much going on this month that I considered changing the way I write these, but for now I’ll narrow it down to 3 things: The Met, Montauk, and Paul McCartney.

The Met

We started the month with a visit from our friend Peter, who wanted to check out The Metropolitan Museum of Art. I hadn’t been since before Lumi was born. The fun thing about friends from out of town is they get you on board to do stuff besides your laundry, and they remind you that there are some nice things about living in a massive city.

The Met is huge and it’s impossible to see everything in a single day. Going to a museum with a baby is a completely different experience than going on my own. I found myself drawn to the quieter, less crowded areas, and my eyes drifted to a piece I had never noticed before: a relatively small, muted painting of a winter scene by Monet.

I had never noticed it before because it sits not far from Monet’s more eye-catching, vibrant Water Lilies. I love the quiet energy of this unassuming painting. Or maybe I just love the reminder that winter is on its way because NYC has felt like an oven for most of the summer. I’m ready for the seasons to change.

Montauk

While it was 90 degrees in Manhattan the week we went to The Met, it was a perfect 73° in Montauk. Thane had a project for work that brought us out there, I had never been before. Montauk is located on the easternmost tip of Long Island and is surrounded by water on 3 sides. It only took a few hours to drive there and I couldn’t believe I was still in New York. People were happy and not stressed. The air smelled clean. The ocean sparkled. It felt like a foreign country. I think I was actually a little upset at how much more pleasant it was there than it was at home.

While Thane was working, Lumi and I sat on the grass and listened to cicadas humming in the trees. One cicada dropped down right on top of Lumi’s head and I had to act fast to keep her from stuffing it in her mouth. I will take eating bugs over sitting next to someone’s vape cloud at an overcrowded park any day.

While we were sitting in the dappled light of this tranquil, coastal town that could not possibly exist just 100 miles outside of NYC, Thane was having a surreal experience of his own.

Paul McCartney

Thane got to hug Sir Paul McCartney of The Beatles. He also got to hear Paul play the piano! Apparently he is “really good.”

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I ended my last newsletter in June with something flowery about luck being the only thing that keeps us afloat. So I will begin this post by reaffirming that I stand by this flower.

I was extremely saddened to hear that one of Thane’s colleagues, Jesse Durost, passed away this week. I never met Jesse myself, but Thane only ever had positive things to say about him, and it was obvious this guy was so deeply loved by his community that strangers who didn’t even know him felt that love reverberate through the airwaves. I followed his battle with cancer for the past year, and cried at every single update, both the good and the bad.

In Thane’s words, “If you just looked at Jesse you knew he was an artist, you didn’t even have to ask.” Jesse was super healthy and fit, biked everywhere and helped everyone. He was only 47 and leaves behind his wife and young son. Please consider donating to his family’s GoFundMe if you can, and if you’re not in a position to donate, please consider sharing the link with others.

I followed Jesse’s story haunted by the fact that luck is the only difference between us. A person can make all the clean, healthy choices in life, be surrounded by all the love in the world, and still end up in a hospital bed prematurely. It is completely unfair.

So with that in mind, I turned 37 this July.

We drove to Maine for my birthday. There were a million reasons not to – a long drive with a baby who hates being in the car is not ideal, we weren’t sure if we could afford to travel this summer, I was still planning on working remotely so we had to leave appallingly early in the morning, the list goes on.

Ultimately, Thane said something that cemented my decision to go: “You only get one summer with your baby.” It’s true, you really only get one of each season with a baby until they’re not a baby anymore. Next summer she’ll be a toddler, walking and talking.

It was Lumi’s first time outside of New York. We dipped her feet in Harpswell Sound and she enjoyed the time outdoors immensely.

Life is precious and miraculous and ephemeral, and being aware of this can sometimes feel like a big responsibility. What does it mean to “live well” and how do you balance living in the present moment while still planning for the future?

I've been working full time since Lumi turned 3 months old. I thought about bringing my paints on this trip, but then made an intentional choice to let this place inspire me without feeling the need to be "productive." Sometimes you just need to go somewhere to stretch out your soul.

Of course the moment we arrived I turned to Thane and said, “Damn. I should have brought my paints.”

This whole place looks like a watercolor painting.

I’ve spent half my life chasing this color in various iterations across thousands of miles. If scientists study my brain one day, they will find this color in spades. Earlier this year when Case for Making was creating the new Ultra Blends line, I was hellbent on mixing what would eventually become CfM Tide Pool.

In retrospect I am glad I left the paints at home. I felt more present and grounded in the moment. I sincerely believe that if you are awake and alive to the things that light you up, they will become part of the fabric of your being. I’m at peace knowing that the things that inspire me will find their way into my art eventually. It hasn’t been easy putting my creative projects and pursuits on the back burner since my daughter has become my number one priority. But she’s only little for a short time, and if I’m lucky, I’ll have the rest of my life to paint.

During the trip to Maine, I got to reconnect with a friend from grad school. We met in Ireland, and both of us are painters. It was our first time seeing each other again since we both had kids, and the hug that I received from her isn’t something I’ll soon forget. Maybe it’s just my interpretation, but it felt as though a lot of unsaid things went into that hug, from both sides.

Sometimes – not always but sometimes – drawing and painting become ways to attempt to capture a thing or a feeling, and freeze it in time. Like how photography is for some people. Things I wish I could hold onto forever, but it’s like trying to keep water cupped in your hands. A sunset, a baby, a flower. Life as we know it. A glimpse of where the light shines before it’s time to go home.

Thanks for reading.

Love,
Melanie

You are receiving this because you either subscribed or I signed you up because I love you. You can read Constellations in the format of your choice: as a newsletter in your inbox, on the webpage, or on the Substack app.

It’s a labor of love to bring this publication to life, so if you enjoy it, please consider upgrading to a paid subscription. You’ll have my sincerest gratitude and the delight of knowing you’re supporting my work as an artist.

♥

Who else is overwhelmed by the suffering, conflict, and insanity that is happening in the world right now?

Read more

Dear Friends,

Today is Mother’s Day in the United States. I’ve been ambivalent about this commercialized celebration of motherhood since elementary school. Since my own relationship with my mother has never been sunshine and rainbows, I experience a heightened sensitivity to the myriad of less-than-flowery feelings that Mother’s Day can bring up for some people.

This is my first Mother’s Day since becoming a mother myself. I’ve wondered if this would change the way I experience it; I contemplated how or if I would want to celebrate. Now that the day is upon us, I’ve come to the conclusion that I do not want flowers, and that Mother’s Day feels like a performative gesture meant to gaslight on a national level.

It’s one of the most commercially successful holidays in the US, with billions spent on florists, cards, gifts, dining, and other expenditures. Consumer spending on Mother’s Day is expected to reach $34.1 billion this year alone.

How can a culture so willing to capitalize on our celebration offer so little support?

The United States is the only high-income country that does not have guaranteed paid parental leave. We continue to have the highest maternal mortality rate of any developed nation, and we have more school shootings than all other nations combined.

We as a society have failed our mothers.

So while brunch and roses might be the traditional way to go, perhaps we should be spending the day re-examining why mothers are expected to create life in an environment that does not support it. Why our healthcare system is a national disgrace. Why we are living in a nation where bulletproof backpacks exist, and why we are more willing to profit off a mother’s love than ban assault rifles.

Things I want more than flowers:

1. Universal paid family leave: federally mandated paid leave for all parents for at least one year.

2. Universal healthcare: including maternity, postpartum, and pediatric care.

3. Reproductive rights: motherhood should be a choice.

4. Accessible mental health services: including routine screenings for postpartum depression and anxiety.

5. Affordable childcare & pre-k: government-funded childcare programs.

6. Affordable housing: safe, stable, and affordable housing options.

7. Gun reform: ban assault weapons now.

8. Cultural shift toward valuing care work: recognizing caregiving as essential labor that holds economic and social value.

9. Climate change policies: so that our children have clean air to breathe and a livable future.

Other countries have succeeded in all of the above and more, so why haven’t we? How can we say that our nation values motherhood when others are light-years ahead of us in terms of building infrastructure that reflects those values?

If we truly cared about mothers, we would be creating an ecosystem where they could actually succeed at nurturing rather than fight for survival. Instead, our government is exploring some weird pronatalist bullshit, like bestowing a “National Medal of Motherhood” to mothers with six or more children; an idea that is disturbingly unhelpful, and has roots in Nazi Germany. They’re also considering a $5,000 cash bonus for every child born, which is less than what I paid in health insurance and hospital bills while I was pregnant with Lumi.

Speaking of Lumi, she is pure magic. I love being her mom, and I want to celebrate being her mother. I wish I could believe this celebration of motherhood existed on a cultural and systemic level as well.

Here are some recent sketches of Lumi to add a bit of joy and levity to an otherwise bummer post:

I’ll end this by professing that I actually love flowers. I enjoy giving and receiving them. But on Mother’s Day, until real changes are made in the way we support and affirm the work of mothers, I urge you to consider that you might be bringing a bouquet to a house on fire.

I hope that in this lifetime we can plant the seeds for a more sustainable future, something with the potential to grow and yield blooms long after we’re gone.

Love,
Melanie

You are receiving this because you either subscribed or I signed you up because I love you. You can read Constellations in the format of your choice: as a newsletter in your inbox, on the webpage, or on the Substack app.

It’s a labor of love to bring this publication to life, so if you enjoy it, please consider upgrading to a paid subscription. You’ll have my sincerest gratitude and the delight of knowing you’re supporting my work as an artist.

♥

Thane took this photo of me at the New York Botanical Gardens yesterday, and I like this photo very much, but didn’t know what to do with it, so I am putting it here:

Some of you might remember a few months ago we started renting a space that we intend to turn into an art studio, and a place to potentially host workshops. Here is that space when we first moved in:

It was packed, floor to ceiling, with stuff. Between working our full-time day jobs and trying to spend as much time as possible with Lumi, our progress on the space has been slow. In the last 3 months we tidied up, painted the walls, and added a couch that folds out into a comfy bed for guests:

It has a kitchen and bathroom (not pictured) and opens up to our back garden. It isn’t an art studio yet, and I haven’t made much down there (unless you count a quick sketch of Lumi) but I still want to turn it into a space for nurturing creative energy, so it’s still in mid-metamorphosis.

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It finally happened – the eagle eggs have hatched. Three consecutive winters of watching the Big Bear Valley Eagles, and pop, here they are, fluffy eaglets looking like sentient dandelions.

I’ve been watching these birds since 2023, which is the year my dad died. The eggs failed to hatch the first two years of observing the nest, so you can imagine how much I had hoped they would hatch this year while simultaneously not wanting to get my hopes up. All the circumstances finally aligned so that these babies could emerge, and they made their first appearance on March 4th, 2025.

March 4th, 2023 happens to be the last time I saw my dad alive. This past weekend marked the 2nd anniversary of his death. This is going to seem silly but the last time I wrote about my dad, I also wrote about a bird then too (an owl, in that instance). An easy explanation is that I simply like birds, but a more nuanced interpretation would be that my father’s spirit was flighty and untethered, so much so that it was to his detriment.

We waved goodbye after this photo was taken and I flew back home, unaware I would never see him again. I was foolishly optimistic that I might be able to visit him once more in a few months or even a year. He died a couple weeks later. My dad had a habit of calling me at odd hours, not realizing that the time difference made it so that he often phoned while I was asleep around 4am. Shortly before his death, I remember seeing a missed call from him and made a mental note to call him back later. It turns out that I missed his last ever phone call, and we would never again have a two-way conversation. I suspect this will haunt me for the rest of my life.

So that’s just one reason March is a loaded month for me. March reminds me of the stark irreversibility of death. Conversely, March also yields all the trappings of new life: flowers, eggs, and the first signs of spring.

March also celebrates St. Patrick’s Day, which meant absolutely nothing to me prior to 2014 but has since become a flamboyant reminder of the three years I spent living in Ireland. I miss Ireland very much and hope to return there with my daughter one day, who, incidentally, would probably not exist without Ireland.

This photo was taken in the tiny Irish village I was residing in, a few weeks before I met Thane. The base of the rainbow is approximately where my flat was located. Thane was living in New York at the time and would be traveling to Ballyvaughan for an artist residency. I had just completed my MFA and stayed in the village to make some extra cash working as a barista before moving to Dublin.

I knew pretty much instantly when I met Thane that he was someone I wanted to share a future with, but at the time I didn’t know whether or not we would even see each other again. It hasn’t been without enormous challenges, but here we are almost 9 years later with Lumi.

During those years in Ireland I saw more rainbows than anywhere else I’d ever been. The more I saw them, the more they began to take hold in my psyche as portals or magic doorways to a fairer world that was ever so slightly out of reach. They became symbols for delight, longing, ephemerality, and the thrill of synchronicity.

Synchronicity is when everything lines up perfectly to create something special, like how a rainbow has to have a precise balance of light and water in order to appear.

The crazy thing about rainbows is that they reveal colors that are always there but are usually locked away – a rainbow is formed when sunlight interacts with raindrops, undergoing refraction and reflection, dispersing the light into its constituent colors, acting as a natural, magical conduit of scattered light that forms a beautiful gradient. Those colors exist within the sunlight in perpetuity, but it takes a specific alignment of circumstances in order to see a rainbow.

I view much of the rest of life like this, for better or for worse. Thane and I met in Ireland under very specific circumstances which, years later, resulted in the birth of a person that is particularly special to us. My dad, living thousands of miles away, combined with poor timing and a lifetime of questionable choices, resulted in one unforgettably sad missed call.

Whenever I paint rainbows now, I think of them as “archways” of potential, or as “magic conduits.” All acts of creation are manifestations of potential to some degree. When baking, the potential for bread is always there in the flour, water, and yeast. Within a lump of clay exists the potential for a mug, or a song in a violin. It just takes a specific combination of time, energy, and attention in order to bring these things into fruition. Just like sunlight hitting water droplets in precisely the right way, the potential is always there, and when you create something, you become the magical conduit through which these things appear.

Time for painting, writing, or anything unrelated to caretaking, is slim these days, but I’m trying my best. Sometimes it happens while holding a wriggling baby. Most of the time it happens while she’s napping or when someone else is available to hold her. And it’s always a difficult choice between getting more sleep or exercising the “self actualization” part of Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs.

Lumi is four months old now, and I’m feeling sad that my dad never got a chance to meet her. He would have been over the moon to have a grandchild. But life is a cycle, death is only one part of it, spring is here and so is an abundance of new growth. It’s time to focus on small stuff with our small person, like flowers and tummy time and the seeds we want to plant in our garden this year.

It hasn’t been easy keeping this going while I learn how to be a parent, my brain feels like it is melting most days, so thank you very much for reading, and for supporting this publication. It means a lot.

Happy spring.

Love,
Melanie

You are receiving this because you either subscribed or I signed you up because I love you. You can read Constellations in the format of your choice: as a newsletter in your inbox, on the webpage, or on the Substack app.

This publication is free and I aim to keep it that way. It’s a labor of love to bring this to life, so if you enjoy it, please consider upgrading to a paid subscription. You’ll have my sincerest gratitude and the delight of knowing you’re supporting my work as an artist.

♥

As of today, Lumi is officially 100 days old! The first one hundred days of infancy is an important milestone in some cultures. In Taiwan, many people celebrate 百日宴 (Bǎi Rì Yàn) to signify that the baby has survived the most vulnerable chapter of life, and is now ready to thrive. It’s also considered a significant turning point for maternal health; 100 days postpartum the mother has endured the fourth trimester and is now more resilient.

I’m still not 100% recovered, but resilience is coming back to me slowly, and the most miraculous thing happened earlier this week: Lumi has learned how to laugh.

At three months old, Lumi and I had our first laugh-off. I would throw back my head and laugh, then she would laugh, then I would laugh, then it was her turn again. Laughter — real, genuine laughter — has to be one of the most marvelous things human beings are capable of.

Apparently our species doesn’t need language, or sight, or even the ability to hear, to experience laughter. Just joy! Babies who are born blind and deaf still learn how to laugh around the same time as sighted and hearing infants (around 3-4 months), which suggests that laughter is an innate human trait, rather than a social behavior learned through visual or auditory cues. The expression of joy is written in our DNA and hardwired into our molecules. It is only later in life that we layer context over everything.

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The other day I wrote a check that got rejected for being “too old” because I forgot the year is now 2025.

I started this publication in January 2024 before my daughter was even conceived, and wow, a lot has changed since then. The person I was one year ago feels like a person from another lifetime. That person had time to eat a proper meal and take showers.

Caring for a newborn has been the ultimate test of time, energy, and endurance, so it’s a blessing that Thane is holding our baby right now to give me a moment to write this (thank you Thane, you are the real MVP). To all the people out there with multiple kids or are single parents, you amaze me. I have a friend who just had twins and I am flabbergasted that she even finds the time to text me back (Diana, if you are reading this, you are amazing).

Little milestones on my mind:

• my baby is 8 weeks old today

• this newsletter is 1 year old this month

• applied to my first artist grant since becoming a mom

• renting a place that will become an art studio and workshop space

• tomorrow I’ll start teaching workshops again for the first time since Lumi was born

Although I wont be going back to work full time until the end of February, I’ve been easing back in by introducing virtual workshops into my schedule again. This year marks 5 years of teaching with Case for Making (a direct result of the pandemic — hard to believe that COVID began 5 years ago) and it’s been a decade since writing my master’s thesis in Ireland. I remember cold, soggy, sleepless nights wondering whether or not an MFA would serve me well (or at all) in the future.

Tomorrow, January 18th, I’m teaching Watercolor Brushwork Basics, followed by Mark Making: Ruth Asawa on Saturday, January 25th, and Mark Making: Sheila Hicks' Soft Shapes on February 22nd. I am nervous! I have never been this chronically sleep deprived before! I am wading back into work as a new mom, which is uncharted territory for me.

I spent New Year’s Eve applying to the Artists & Mother’s Grant, my first application to anything since Lumi was born. It’s a $25,000 grant for artists who identify as mothers living in NYC with children under the age of 3. Even if my application isn’t chosen, just the act of applying felt like a milestone, because it was time and energy intensive to write the application essays when time and energy are so insanely precious, and because it’s too easy to become my own obstacle by saying things like “I don’t have a chance” or “they won’t pick me” or “I’m too tired to write this” or any other number of defeatisms.

Putting together the materials for this grant was a reminder that I’ve been interested in themes of parenthood, motherhood, childhood, and family, long before I had ever considered having children of my own.

Applying to things, even if rejection is the outcome, always ends up being somewhat helpful because it requires me to intentionally reflect on the path I’m trying to carve in this life.

People are prone to announcing their wins and seldom share their failures, but the reality is I’ve gotten way more rejections than selections when it comes to applying for opportunities. I keep a color-coded spreadsheet of every single grant, residency, exhibition, and artist program I’ve ever applied for, and I have about a 64% rejection rate. That’s a majority! But the 36% acceptance rate has taken me to some incredible places and has allowed me to do some wonderful things with amazing people from all over the world.

So, as Thane gently reminded me while I cried my way through attempting to feed my screaming-hungry daughter and meet the grant deadline at the same time, “you miss 100% of the shots you don’t take.”

Despite the challenges of first-time parenthood, Lumi has been the light of my life when so much has felt intensely dark in the world. It seems like everyone I know is going through something big and heavy right now. My friends and family have been experiencing major health issues, or have undergone serious medical procedures. My aunt and uncle’s entire neighborhood burned down in the LA fires last week. And with the inauguration looming just around the corner, it can be hard to feel hopeful about the future.

Five years ago when the pandemic turned the world upside down, I started teaching online workshops, which helped to build a sense of community during a very isolating time. This year, starting next month, Thane and I will be renting a space that we’re planning on turning into an art studio, which will hopefully become a place where we can hold small in-person gatherings and foster joy in our little corner of the world. It feels like a huge financial risk and sometimes I wonder if I’m losing my mind by making this gamble right now, but… you miss 100% of the shots you don’t take.

Excited to share progress on the space once we have a moment to start fixing it up, if our little girl will only take a nap longer than 10 minutes.

Love,
Melanie

You are receiving this because you either subscribed or I signed you up because I love you. You can read Constellations in the format of your choice: as a newsletter in your inbox, on the webpage, or on the Substack app.

This publication is free and I aim to keep it that way. It’s a labor of love to bring this to life, so if you enjoy it, please consider upgrading to a paid subscription. You’ll have my sincerest gratitude and the delight of knowing you’re supporting my work as an artist.

♥

Lumi Lund Lan arrived on November 21, 2024. Today marks one month with this tiny new human, who is also a very hungry caterpillar, who is also a wee bear cub, who is also a ravenous little bean. She weighed 7 pounds at birth (what her doctor described as a very “sensible” weight) and has gained 2 whole pounds in 4 weeks. That doesn’t sound like a lot on paper but when I measure out 2 pounds of uncooked rice, it does seem like a substantial amount of growth in a short amount of time.

Every new parent will say this, but the first weeks are truly a blur. My body is still healing and my brain feels as sharp as a bowl of mashed potatoes.

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It’s been a little over a week since the election, and I am not surprised. Disappointed and deeply disturbed, yes, but I’ve seen too much of both domestic and global trends in recent years to have expected otherwise.

Yet I hoped. I had so hoped for a leader that would, at the very least, display even the thinnest veneer of decency. Alas. The president-elect and his ship of fools are blatant schoolyard bullies. The pendulum has fully swung towards a less coherent version of Biff Tannen from Back to the Future.

I haven’t been sure of how much to allow myself to feel legitimately upset about this, versus letting go and focusing only on what I can control (which is not much at all) because this is all happening at a very strange and pivotal time in my life.

I am currently 9 months pregnant, and my baby is due any day now.

Taking a moment here to acknowledge that this kind of announcement can be tremendously painful for anyone that has ever experienced infertility or loss. I can only imagine, and I am sending you all my love. I’m going to spend the next few paragraphs describing what this experience has been like for me, so just know to take some space for yourself if it’s a difficult subject.

It isn’t easy to be a portal for another human being to enter the world.

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