🏡 a house that makes people happy

A frame from an animation I'm working on/how things feel right now.

Hey y'all,

I'm happy to be back after accidentally taking last week off. Two hours into my 4-hour drive to my mom's house for Thanksgiving, my tire exploded. Kaboom. Everything was fine, but I spent the Friday after Thanksgiving at Town Fair Tire in Billerica, Massachusetts instead of writing to you all. 

Welcome to all the new folks! I invited folks to subscribe on Instagram yesterday and the response was much bigger than I anticipated. Good to have y'all here.

Here are three things I'm thinking about this week:

1. A thing I want: Sarah Shay Mirk's Zine of the Month Club

I think I'm gonna get this subscription. It's too cool, and I'm a big fan of Shay Mirk. And I can write it off–research and development, right? I've been dreaming about starting my own zine subscription project. 

I rely heavily on Instagram for sharing my work, making sales, and connecting with clients. It's been a powerful tool for me, but relying on a megacorporation's fickle algorithm feels more and more precarious. Not to mention that I'm creating valuable content for the app for free.

In this next chapter of being a full-time independent artist, I'm inclined towards making real things people can hold. And figuring out a way to monetize my work better. And figuring out how to distribute things in a way that feels good. A monthly zine subscription isn't a high priority for me right now, but stay tuned. Maybe in 2024? 

2. What I'm reading: Vital Little Plans, The Short Works of Jane Jacobs 

I'm working on a comic about being a crossing guard. To support my thinking and writing about observing city life, I turned to Jane Jacobs, a famous urbanist. 

I had already earmarked the page with this quote, and after last week's shooting of three Palestinian students in Burlington, the quote felt heavier:

"All that we have in New York of magnetism, of opportunities to earn a living, of leadership, of the arts, of glamor, of convenience, of power to fulfill and assimilate our immigrants, of ability to repair our wounds and right our evils, depends our great and wonderful criss-cross of relationships. In fact, so primitive a matter as whether our very lives are safe from each other depends on maintaining intricate community networks, for no quantity of policemen can enforce civilization where the informal means of community self-policing fall to pieces."

3. A TikTok I saved to my favorites: this one  that a neuroscientist made about his favorite house in his neighborhood.

"Now I have a new life goal: have a house that makes people happy."

From a comic I'm working on about transformative change work. We need all of the wings for the butterfly to fly, you know?

Thanks for reading!

Christine Tyler Hill is the human behind Tender Warrior Co.