‘You have to pick the places you don't walk away from.’ ― Joan Didion
Here we are, at the end of another year: 2023.
It seems like yesterday when my partner and I were packing our lives in London to come to live and work (for a short while) here in Auckland, leaving behind all of our furniture and boxes full of books that remain stored in three different European countries waiting for our return.
2023 has been a different year. An exciting one. A year of adventures, new friends and places, lots of hikes, and black-sand beaches.
When I post these lines, I will be in Abel Tasman, on the South Island, probably enjoying a glass of cold white wine (it’s Summer in this hemisphere) and enjoying the gorgeous views of the Moana and the Maungas drawing this beautiful landscape. There’s a slight chance it might be raining. This is the way we are going to finish the year and start the next one: with a beautiful road trip around some of the most iconic places in Aotearoa New Zealand. With another adventure.
The What I’m Reading in December post marks the end of the year, and the opportunity to review the books that have influenced me the most in the past 12 months plus the ones I have enjoyed reading.
These are the best books I’ve read this year and a quote from each of them around creativity or sketching I want to carry with me to the New Year:
Big Magic by Elizabeth Gilbert (January)
‘You are allowed to be here (…) you are allowed to have a voice and vision of your own.’
One Year Drawn by Pete Bossley (March)
‘I found that the sketches became more than a way of recording the details of the world. They began to search for something more. They began to suggest an essence rather than the detail of a subject - to try to discover different and even new ways of expressing such an essence.’Â
Creativity Inc. by Ed Catmull and Amy Wallace (March)
‘In creative endeavors, we must face the unknown.’
A Whack on the Side of the Head by Roger VonOech (April)
‘Life is ambiguous; there are many right answers — all depending on what you are looking for. But if you think there’s only one right answer, then you’ll stop looking as soon as you find one.’
Ways of Drawing. Artists’ Perspectives and Practices by Julian Bell, Julia Balchin, Claudia Tobin (August)
‘Drawing is the purest form of art. It is the primary, the start line. For me, it is a means to explain things that cannot be explained with words. (…) I see it, by drawing I am investigating, compiling evidence. It is my own correlation of statistics, a layering of all I see, think and experience.’ — Ishbel Myerscough
The Creative Act by Rick Rubin (September)
‘The imagination has no limits.
The physical world does.
The work exists in both.’
Art & Fear by Ted Orland and David Bayles (September)
‘In large measure becoming an artist consists of learning to accept yourself (…).’
Life As Told by a Sapiens to a Neanderthal (Spanish version) by Juan José Millás and Juan Luis Arsuaga (November).
‘Nosotros, en cambio, como el resto de los primates, nos representamos el mundo en forma de imágenes. Literalmente, imaginamos. (Literalmente, imaginamos. ¡Qué bueno! Tomo nota.)’
Literally, we imagine.
.
Happy New Year!
And happy reading! 📚✨
Ana
📚 What I’m reading in December 2023:
Hockney-Van Gogh: The Joy of Nature by Hans den Hartog Jager
Tribe of Mentors by Tim Ferris.