Studio Notes · Aug 2026
Hello all,
The light is changing, and the back-to-school energy is beginning to permeate almost every aspect of life. My semester teaching architecture at Penn has started, and meeting the new students is, as always, reenergizing. I’m also looking forward to settling back into a more regular rhythm at the studio.
Here is August’s Studio Notes—a small marker of the end of some things and the beginning of others.
As always, my heartfelt thanks to you all for following along. Hoşçakalın! 🧿
Devotions No. 62 at the Da Vinci Art Alliance exhibition Precious Protection. Each Devotion begins with the same outline motif and develops into a unique pattern through variations in mark-making and tactile imperfections. (Thank you so much for the photo, Tracey!)
ON MY MIND
Patterns.
Recently in a conversation about careers — especially for parents juggling childcare alongside career aspirations — a dear family friend, further along in her life stages, recommended a book to me: The 100-Year Life by Lynda Gratton. The book argues that with today's longevity, the old three-part life (education / career / retirement) no longer applies. More of us are now building lives with multiple phases, working well past 65, juggling several paths in parallel. Gratton likens this to weaving multiple "threads" across decades, offering a new vision for meaningful work and a life well-lived. Instead of the traditional "career ladder," she offers the notion of a "career pattern" — a framework for each of us to build our own unique designs. What an exciting and liberating idea!
An array of new oil pastel colors mixed in with older favorites.
WITH MY HANDS
Color Wheel ~ Grid.
Part self-soothing, part research — color samples are underway, after a long while away from the studio. Working with oil pastels seems to have loosened something in me around the tight color palette I've kept with ceramic glazes so far. I'm curious now to pair, layer, and mix colors more freely.
Seeing the small bit of investment on my desk, my dear studio mate, Riley, jokes that I should switch to a cheaper brand of oil pastels. That would be smart, I know. But Sennelier has such a good feel to it that I can't give it up.
Similar swatches are underway with glazes too — it's exciting to see how one medium can stir new movement in another. And all of these color studies are laying the groundwork for new drawings — a first-phase exploration for ceramic work, and maybe other media too. Stay tuned.
An antique gold-metal embroidery from the Aegean region of Türkiye that I think of as my mother’s latest gift to me.
FROM THE HEART
Beautiful Things.
My mother passed away three months ago. (Hers was nowhere near a 100-year life.) In the months before her death, and the weeks since, I've been sorting through the inner spaces of grief alongside rooms full of the beautiful things she left behind. My mother didn't let a single corner of any room go untouched. Some of the objects she made herself; many others she acquired, arranged lovingly, and tended over the years. I now have the bittersweet pleasure of inheriting them — most still in Türkiye, a few brought back to my Philadelphia home.
At the closing reception for Da Vinci Art Alliance's Precious Protection show, I got to say a few words about my drawing and the Devotion series more broadly. Despite my initial nerves, it turned out to be a lovely event and I must have felt very comfortable, because I even shared with the audience the underlying motivation behind my work: I long to make, and surround myself with, beautiful things.
I know that desire is inherited from my mother. And I want to channel her lack of self-consciousness about it, too. She and I never talked about this directly, but I have a feeling she considered beauty to be enough. Beauty to be everything. 💛
Until next month, hoşçakalın!