Prompt 247. Portrait of the Artist as Painted Lampshade

& Hollynn Huitt on childhood weaknesses as strengths

Hi friend,

I’m writing to you from the orange chemical haze formerly known as Brooklyn, New York, where we’re all praying for an end to the wildfires in Canada and clear skies. We’ve been advised to stay inside for several days now, and I’ve been busying myself with all things interior, getting our home ready for a big photo shoot. (It’s something I’ve dreamt about since I was a kid—more on that soon!)

One of the projects I was most excited about was hand-painting some lampshades. I’ve been gathering photos for inspiration for a while now, and I first tried my hand at it with my beloved friend (and also the most creative human I know) Behida Dolić when she came for a visit last week. We were working with watercolors, painting ethereal portraits involving Jon and me and of course River and the good luck calamansi tree in our kitchen.

We had so much fun, and I honestly got a little obsessed. The next day, I pulled a lampshade from one of the two sconces in my living room and got to work trying a new technique—working with watercolors and masking fluid, a liquid latex you apply to parts of a canvas you don’t want painted. It forms a protective barrier that you paint over, then use a rubber cement eraser to remove it, revealing the untouched canvas—or in this case, the untouched lampshade.

But I was overly excited and went too fast. The masking fluid began dribbling down onto the wrong spots, and then I’d try to wipe it up, which made it seep into the fabric. It was a mess, but I went ahead and painted it—though I was mixing the colors inconsistently of course, not paying attention to ratios between the first and second batches, so the neutral terracotta color I’d been aiming for was coming out in a wide spectrum, from dark peach to light yellow. By then, it was after midnight, and I had an early morning flight for work, so I used a blow dryer to dry it. (First time that thing has seen the light of day in a year and a half!) When I went to remove the masking fluid, I pressed the eraser too hard, and along with the latex, it pulled off some of the paper.

It was all such a mess, and by the end, I was basically in tears, thinking, Why did I do that? I messed everything up. A few days later, my friend Hallie, who has been my go-to for design and decor in our home, came over to help set up for the photo shoot, and I showed her the lampshade and made all kinds of apologies. But to my surprise, she said, “I think it’s beautiful. And these thin places where the paper rubbed off are the best part—look at how they let the light through.”

With her encouragement, I found myself eager to paint the lampshade from the other sconce—and this time, I decided to embrace what didn’t go right. I also took my time. Without worrying about whether it matched the other shade, I painted it in stages all day, applying one gorgeous line of masking fluid, letting it move as it pleased, letting it dry. Then I began adding the watercolors, in the same way: moving slowly, letting go of control.

With each unexpected bloom of color, I thought of my friend Melissa Carroll, who loved watercolors for the happy accidents, for how they forced you to let go of the illusion of control, just like life. I left it to dry overnight, and the next morning, I got up early, and I took my eraser and just very gently rubbed at the masking fluid. Halfway through, I thought I would deliberately press harder, pulling off a layer to create some thin spots. And now they’re hanging in my living room, on either side of my fireplace, perfectly imperfect, and I love them.

When I was younger, people often told me that I was “intense,” something I still hear sometimes. I’ve always taken it as a slight—that I’m too much, that I’m taking up too much space, whether with my passions or my sensitivities. I was talking about this with my mom the other day, after I had a call with a friend whose teenage daughter is in a rough place. I mentioned how challenging I was at that age, and my mom said, “Yes, I worried some. I was scared of your intensity—until you figured out how to direct it.”

What she meant was my artistic pursuits, which I threw myself into with maximum verve and force, from ballet to piano to the double bass—even interior design, funnily enough. My mom reminded me how, when I was in elementary school, I came across a giant fallen branch, and I picked it up and lugged it home and hung it above my bed, where I decorated it with all kinds of ornaments. After that, and with no one’s permission except my own, I painted my bookshelf dark red—poorly, unevenly, without priming it—and then used purple glitter nail polish for accents. Naturally my mom was a little irritated that I had essentially ruined a good piece of furniture, but she also applauded me for my creativity.

And really, when it comes down to it, that creativity and that intensity—these are the things that sustain me. In my hardest moments, they have given me joy and relief and a sense of purpose. It’s no exaggeration to say that they have kept me alive. So rather than feeling shame when the whirlwind takes over, I want to learn when to calibrate it and when to embrace it, and to cherish this part of myself, even when the outcome looks different than what I’d planned.

Now onto today’s prompt, on this very theme—called “The Blackbird Mirage,” from our amazing community manager, Holly Huitt. Holly writes so beautifully, this time about our childhood traits and the sense of wholeness that comes from embracing them.

Off to start a painted lampshade empire,

Suleika

Some items of note—

• Last week, we received an email from the attorney for Calvin Vines, whose question I answered in the latest installment of my advice column Dear Susu, “Shame Shepherds and Grace for Fuck-Ups.” She said that Calvin has been receiving messages from people all over the world. “The letters are giving him life and a window into other people’s lives, their struggles, and their hopes,” she wrote. “He sounds really good—better than ever. Thank you for your part in making that happen.” To everyone who wrote, I’d also like to say thank you.

• Mark your calendars for our next meeting of the Hatch, our virtual creative hour for paid subscribers. It’s happening the first official weekend of summer—that’s Sunday, June 25, from 1-2 pm ET.

L. Prang & Co., Red-winged Blackbird (1874)

Prompt 247. The Blackbird Mirage by Hollynn Huitt

For a week, I mourned the life of the red-winged blackbird lying on the edge of Norton Road. I passed him on my commute to town two times a day (at minimum, sometimes four), and each time I felt that sorrowful squeeze in my throat.

When I was young, my family knew to shout “Look away!” if they spotted a dead animal on the road. I’d close my eyes until we were safely past. When I was learning to drive at age fifteen on the rural roads of South Carolina, I almost drove the car into the ditch trying to avoid a squirrel. My dad admonished me. “You can’t cause an accident avoiding a squirrel.” Oh yes, I can, I thought. And I probably will. 

Back to that poor bird: I couldn’t let it go. It was the first species my son learned to identify, with its distinctive call and the way it balances on top of long, dried stalks of grass, wings flashing red against the sepia-toned landscape of early spring. A line of absurd questions scrolled through my mind each time I passed. How did it get hit? What was it doing so close to the road, flying so low? Should I stop driving a car? Why are humans so terrible?

Then one day, an oncoming truck passed the blackbird just as I approached. The feathers ruffled in the truck’s wake, only I noticed that they were strangely clumped. It almost seemed to beckon to me. That’s when I realized: it was not a red-winged blackbird but a red and black work glove.

The relief I felt! The utter joy! The bird was not dead! It wasn’t even a bird in the first place!

Now, as I drive along, I find my eyes drawn to every little piece of debris. The shape that I was sure was a severed deer’s leg turned out to be just a birch log, delicately bent to resemble a knee joint, with a bone-white center. And that billowing trash bag up ahead? That was—oh, no. A dead porcupine. I tried to avert my eyes but it was too late. That night, in bed, I couldn’t sleep for seeing the quills waving in the wind, the slumped shape of it. 

There are many things I’ve tried to harden myself to as I’ve grown up—for the sake of my kids, for the sake of my sanity in this sometimes heartbreaking world. It may be a little ridiculous to be cast so swiftly into despair by the sight of roadkill, but you know what? I’m proclaiming, right here, right now, that I won’t be changing.

I feel just as strongly as I did as a child. I care just as much. Now, though, I peer through my windshield hoping for gloves. 

Your prompt for the week:

Write about a holdover from your child self. Look closely—it may be something that, up until now, you perceived as a weakness or embarrassment. What is your earliest memory of that trait? How would it feel to embrace it as an adult?

If you’d like, you can post your response in the comments section, in our Facebook group, or on Instagram by tagging @theisolationjournals.

Today’s Contributor—

Hollynn Huitt is a writer and the community manager for Isolation Journals. She holds a BFA in Writing from the Savannah College of Art and Design and an MFA in Fiction from Bennington College. She has stories published in Stone Canoe, Hobart, PANK, and X-R-A-Y. She lives in an old farmhouse in central New York with her family and many animals, and writes about it at her Substack, far away.

For more paid subscriber benefits see—

• On Unsolicited Advice, an installment of Dear Susu where I answer a concerned father’s question: “Should I have stayed silent?”

• Hope as a Creative Force, our notes from the Hatch where we read Flannery O’Connor’s prayer journal and wrote a hope manifesto

• On Striving for Excellence, a video reply of my Studio Visit with the award-winning novelist Imbolo Mbue, where we talked about persevering after rejection, landing an agent after years of persistence (a.k.a. low-level stalking!), and how it’s more important to focus on being excellent than being published