"Looking for all the world like a Sunday Painter"

—Quote from David Hockney: A Bigger Picture

The analog movement is surging alongside our doom scrolling, and neither are new. The news cycles repeat and losses accumulate, we scroll and trick ourselves that tapping is action.

While those of us who have been nurturing off-screen and analog practices for awhile might be scratching our head around the idea of something that is simply a part of life becoming a trending movement, for others it might have awoken a latent interest—and I’d like to welcome you all to the cozy side!

….we don’t need to be pessimistic about this sudden urge to go analog. it’s there because it’s something we love, before consumerism ever takes hold of it. we can just do our best to resist the capitalist schemes that will try to sell you an analog life. but the truth is, you can’t buy it—you live it.

—“the tension between an analog lifestyle and consumerism”, Inner Alchemy

It’s easy to feel we have to be all or nothing when it comes to digital or analog—or to believe we can only be considered an artist if we spend hours each day devoted to it without breaks (insert your particular brand of craft and artistry here here)—but I’ve come to realize creativity itself is the ineffable stuff that I need to negotiate/encounter/expend regularly. Many an artist or writer (or perhaps the ones giving advice to these vocations) will tell you that you must practice daily to be taken seriously. I am a multi-hyphenate, a dabbler, a curious person hungry to learn and try—and I couldn’t make time in a day for all the things that would benefit from prescribed daily practice. That type of practice feels more like pressure or performance.

Yet in times (most times!) when life is busy or hard or overwhelming, it simply feels like there isn’t room or space or reason to claim space with an open sketchbook and pile of supplies. Or it can feel daunting. My creativity needs to find form in some small way at steady intervals—but it doesn’t have to always result in having created something I can point to our post.

And even when my creative practice takes different shapes and forms, I know what an art practice can offer. I was struck by this class description for Meanwhile Art by Tansy Hargan:

Meanwhile Art, as a concept, is a reaction to the all-consuming emphasis on productivity and achievement that has come to underscore 21st century education, employment, and even life. Doomscrolling has replaced hobbies, while hobbies have become competitive, expensive, burdensome, and stressful. Sometimes, being told what to do and just trusting the process is all the therapy you need.

Returning to my simple stack of notebooks & sketchbooks available for perusal has felt comforting to me, offering small glimmers of hope, moments of grounding in this season of personal and collective grief.

A commonplace notebook & five-year journal

I’ve noticed myself scrolling more alongside sorting through my emotions (and sometimes to escape them). But I’ve found one simple way to make my scrolling less passive and let it exist alongside my physical reading. I’ve started a commonplace notebook, inspired by Jillian Hess; and while it can be common to collect around a theme or specific reading, I’ve let mine be a catchall. I include any quotes I come across that offer something to me—whether it’s a book club reading, something someone said in a documentary or even a TV drama, or an Instagram story I chose to screenshot and remember, consumed more intentionally when documented.

Even my Substack notes become a holding place before they make it into my notebook. On a trip to Asheville last fall, I picked up a 5-year journal, which occasionally holds collage scraps, sometimes a jot of the day, and others the quote that stuck the most from whatever I logged in my commonplace notebook that day.

Having a place to put these feels more active, and revisiting helps me continue thoughts and ideas that might arise, drawing connections I might not have made before.

Small arrangements, book stacks everywhere

I’ve written here about books as companions and right now that’s true for all of my sketchbooks and art supplies. My desk laden with nooks and crannies and a jewelry armoire converted to a taboret allow me the company of my most cherished things, help me remember the part of myself I haven’t returned to fully just yet.

All you need is to love what you love and seek what you seek, and make little arrangements about it.

—from “This Page is a Portal,” May 2025

And in this way, I can be reminded that an artist just is, and it’s not always tied to the doing. And we are all artists if we want to be—

Each of us is an artist. An artist is merely someone with good listening skills who accesses the creative energy of the universe.

—from Simple Abundance by Sarah Ban Breathnach

So my “art” or practice this past winter has simply been stacking books in my view that keep good company. The box of collage bits sifted through. Old sketchbooks revisited. A beautiful notebook with lines collected from book club notes, email newsletters and posts, library books, words and shiny bits I happen upon. They accumulate and seem to portend and signal, they are a path through.

To letting the eye, hand, and heart be our tether—

Nikkita

P.S. You can turn your favorite Substack articles into a printable newspaper; a perfect companion to your commonplace journal! TRY IT!