This is another drawing in the Gratitude Blooming cards that was drawn after the original 100 day project. I remember noticing this plant growing in my dad’s plot at the Oakland community garden and it inspired me to find a photograph when I got home to draw from.

As I was drawing it, I kept thinking about chamomile tea and it’s reputation for being soothing and calming to drink and that thought led me to the word PATIENCE, I think because patience almost feels like a secret weapon that can calm an anxious mind. And patience to me is really about noticing the role that time plays in our lives.

I’ve always been fascinated by the concept of time and I think as an artist, you build a special relationship to it. In order to draw, you have to be super-present, which sometimes feels like slowing down time. 

And then, when you do create something, it’s like time captures an idea or feeling at a specific moment, but that feeling may have been lingering around for a long time before it was made into a tangible thing in the world...so again, it feels like a slowing down, or perhaps a speeding up of time by stretching it out and placing it into a given moment.

And I’m still amazed that many of these drawings in the Gratitude Blooming deck were drawn in 2015 - that’s over five years ago! And sometimes I feel like they are just starting to be seen and noticed now.

I feel that patience is a skill that requires you to build some kind of relationship with time - and when you are able to do it, it truly does feel like a practice that not only can calm an anxious mind, but can also help you gather the energy you need, stretched out over time, to get really big things done.