look at all the art and cultural detritus you love, or whatever most compells you (even if you dislike it, maybe especially so!). see if there are poses, objects, creatures, ideas etc that keep popping up. these are your prompts!!
𓅽 to use my own expierence as an example:
i kept finding human-bird hybrids everywhere in the stuff i return to. angels, harpies, Sirin & Alkonost, etc clearly something about the union of beast/bird with (often femme) humanity to create something either deceptive and dangerous or divine and distant made me excited! so that became my prompt. it made me start having questions i could only answer through making art: how many ways can i depict a human-bird hybrid? what details transform it from an angel into a siren, or perhaps into something all together new and different? etc
this leads me to:
𓅽 explore mythology, fairy and folktales! i personally don't buy into the jungian shit AT ALL (and don't even get me started on joseph campell, booo) but! there's a reason these stories and their imagery have stuck around! they're endlessly fascinating and adaptable, and they make for a great first step to take in creating something that speaks to you and so many others across time and space
Jan 28, 2025
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study the folklore and myth of your actual local region. live your daily life under the logic of fairytales. communicate as heavily as possible in proverbs and riddles. humans are a storytelling creature and there is a reason these archetypes and motifs appear to humans across times/cultures/places
Feb 13, 2024
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I’m making a zine about it
Waterfalls
Sunsets
Kung fu masters
Flamenco
Disgusting and rude people
People who write songs with complex structures
Stories of how people met
Faces, what they show and what they hide
Light and color
The present, what we're living now
Infinity, spatially and temporally
Surrealism
Space
Time
Violence
Sects
The human mind, mental disorders
Women
Stars, the infinitely big, the infinitely small, but it's scary
Animals
Very big books
That I could never read them all
Mythology, where it came from, how it started, the fact that it was passed down orally
The sea, the ocean
Murder stories
The maritime world, its shapes, fishing nets
Coincidences
Mathematical probabilities
Philosophy
Reflections
Felines
Laws of physics
Love and human relationships
Hands
Thoughts
Dreams
Group effects, crowds
Fire
Dec 5, 2024
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alright, this is not like anything i’ve posted before, but with it being Easter and all, it’s on my mind!
i’ve had a complicated relationship with religion for the majority of my life. i was raised in the bible belt, so i found myself in a church pew, singing hymns and listening to a southern old man preach for an hour almost every sunday morning from the time i was a toddler.
that being said, i wrestled with the idea of God quite a bit - i saw and experienced the hypocrisy and hurt within the church - i think i almost tried to get rid of Him; if being with Him meant i was grouped in with these people, i needed to get away. however, i then realized he would not leave me. he was knocking at my door; he’d always been there, and he always would be. he didn’t shame, scold, or abandon me like i expected because of the people that surrounded me. in my most painful moments, i found myself crying out to him - i decided to finally go, “sure, let’s see what you’ve got”. i believe that to be one of the best things i’ve ever done for myself. time and time again, i’ve started to worry about how a certain situation might go, gone “ok, you take this one”, and it has worked out more beautifully than it ever would’ve had i tried to handle it on my own. even better are the times that something has landed in my lap that i could’ve never imagined would. sometimes, i go back and look at the little moments in my life that have gotten me to where i am now, and i think, “wow, God was there.”
and you know, maybe it is all coincidence and all of these are just the little wonders of life, but i find it quite amazing and comforting to believe that there is a being of the highest power (whatever or whoever that may be for you) that loves you and genuinely wants the best for you. i think believing in something is simply a human trait; it’s a healthy thing for us to do. sometimes you need to hand your anxieties over to the universe. sometimes you see the sun hit something in just the right way, hear a certain song, or notice how perfectly the human body is built to hug or hold hands, and you’re smacked in the face with the thought that there must be a creator. our souls should not have to feel that they are alone and bound to this earth and that’s it. it gives us something to strive to be like and live for.
having the freedom to believe in what we want to is such a beautiful thing, whether you choose to have faith in something or not. i think this is something i could go on about for much longer, so i’m going to try and stop it here. there is so much wonder and whimsy in believing in something, and i think it’s worth exploring. i’m not even sure if there’s an actual point to all of this, but that’s it. that’s the rec!
Apr 20, 2025
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Mar 12, 2025
Feb 8, 2025
Lately I've been spending too much time scouring every corner of eBay I can for the cheapest and most delightful soviet era porcelain figurines available
I didn't even realize it until diving head first into this rabbit hole, but I have had soviet era porcelain figurines my whole life (a bunny and a bull for those curious), so I guess I was always destined to develop a fondness for the form, and eventually dig a little deeper into it.
There is something so incredibly charming and also incredibly interesting about these porcelain pieces! These little guys!
There's a lot of history to dig into that I've barely scratched the surface of AT ALL, but I'm fascinated by how porcelain reflected the common sentiments* of the times, the economic conditions, the artistic movements and ideas of the day, and also the ability (or lack thereof) of people to stay in one place and hold onto something so "useless" and easily broken.
I have very, very few things from any of my ancestors. Figurines like these make me think about the way history and art are passed down to us, forgotten, broken, left behind, sold in thrift stores and online, if they survive at all.
Figurine collections are kind of a barometer of safety and stability, or at least how dedicated to the illusion of it you might be.
They also make me think about how useful "useless" things can be. How even art that is purely decorative can be thought-provoking (by for example valorizing "folks"), or just make you happy (via being very cute! Or expert use of color and form!).
Grannies collect this shit for many good reasons and I'm starting to catch on.
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* Notably the $$$ collectors type ones are the ethnographic figurines, something I NEED to read an academic paper about.
Especially, because Ive noticed some of these figurines depicting "ethnic types" are inaccurate copies of earlier prints, which themselves should be placed under immense scrutiny! This is all extra interesting in the context of the porcelain industry transitioning from imperial rule to the soviet era. The ways of talking about ethnicity changed, (in addition obviously to y'know, everything!) but the products produced largely remained the same. Lots to think about!!!
Jan 31, 2025