Call me Laisai

Baby those dried herbs need to sit in that jar with high proof alcohol for at LEAST a month!

That’s why before the use of calendars ppl use to prepare their tinctures either on the new moon or full moon. A a full moon cycle is usually 28 days or so. And they would give the moon names so it’s easier to remember when/what month said tincture was bottled.

This is also why herbal medicine is prepare in small batches. You have to take your time preparing your bottles. Making sure everything is clean so you don’t end up with mold. Diluting your grain alcohol. Heckkk knowing when to pick your herbs for max potency! Drying your herbs! That takes a lot of time too!

Inspired by my recent love of the Raven Thrower (it looks like a corvid that you chuck at things!)

Also obligatory reminder that it’s the final week on my Bluminarmour fundraiser. If you want to see me test dumb stuff in proper historical armour please consider pitching in and/or sharing!

I say this as someone who sells pottery, and many people who see my art assume I am using art as an outlet to “express myself.”

I am not.

I use art to challenge myself. A lot of what I do is the equivalent of doing a hard sudoko or a half marathon, answering the question of “can I do this?”

I use art to question things and explore ideas. Finding physical synthesis between concepts and working out a design to its end state.

I use art to make money. I make some things just because I suspect they’ll sell well, and I keep making them when they do.

This idea that an artist is “putting themselves out there” every time they create is not only stupid, but harmful, and it kills critique and analysis.

Yes every creative work is influenced by its creator, but the most preliminary step of analysis is to define the purpose of a work of art (functional, narrative, entertainment, persuasive, decorative, ceremonial, etc.) and a vanishingly small percentage of that is self-expression. Even then, it’s generally tied to the self’s relationship with something else—perception, society, etc.

It’s very tiresome to have people assume they know you because they like (or dislike) your art, to make assumptions about who you are and how you approach the world. It’s nothing new— people called the Impressionists insane and the Fauvists degenerate. And now people are expected to hand out their identities and traumas to prove they have the right to explore certain subjects.