What I'm Working On: two cats and a cape

And an introduction!

I’ve been publishing Lulu’s Walks for 1.5 years, and recently I started to reach a larger audience. If you’re new here, welcome and hi!

This is pretty much the first time my art is being seen by people I don’t know (!!!!). So, I figured I’d share a little bit about what Lulu’s Walks is, and who I am.

Lulu’s Walks is mostly a visual-essay series. I hand-letter all of the text, and the illustrations are done in marker and pen. Almost all of the photos I include have been taken on my Contax T2 — the camera my dad gave me in high school.

The hand lettering for my essay, “Being tuna sad,” and some illustrations I made for “Not the what happened after,” including frames from the animation I made at the end of the essay.

I am also a painter, and one of my posts that ended up resonating with a larger audience on Substack is this painting I made of my grandmother. It now hangs in my cousin’s restaurant in Toronto, called Maven, which is a place that’s largely inspired by and an homage to our Bubby. I visited it earlier this year; if you’re in Toronto, go!

Me and the painting, in my cousin Shauna’s restaurant, Maven.

In addition to my visual essays, I occasionally send out notes about what I’m working on, mainly to share the things that I’m currently inspired by.

Right now, I’m working on a painting of two cats who are hanging out in a house in Pittsburgh (where my dad is from). Mimi Vang Olsen’s pet portraits have been a big inspiration. She has a storefront in the West Village that I frequently visit, though I’ve never been able to go inside. You can see a lot of her paintings through the window though.

My work-in-progress painting

I’m also working on an outfit inspired by morning dew. Right now, I’m hand-beading the organza cape I sewed, to create a spider-web design. I’ve been reading about what dew symbolizes in various religions and mythologies. In the Kabbalah, dew represents a hidden and divine consciousness —one that emerges in a nocturnal or meditative state. Its Hebrew word, “tal,” is related to the word for self-nullification: surrendering ego to a higher power. I’ll share more about this project, and what I’ve been learning as I work on it, later.

My in-progress cape, and the sketch for the full outfit. Once it’s done, I want to wear it to the Metropolitan Opera.

Because I’m introducing myself to new people here, I thought I would also share some of the art and artists that I am always thinking about, and perpetually inspired by: Jim Henson, always (I love this series about him), Charlie Kaufman’s Synecdoche (and this 5-part series about the film, which ironically was never completed), all Stephen Sondheim musicals (this is my favorite cast album of Company), the fashion in Jem and the Holograms (here’s the full series), Jacques Demy’s Donkey Skin (a good collection of clips). I’ll leave it at that for now.

Finally, a special thank you to my paid subscribers. My work is not currently paywalled, but any paid membership is so appreciated. It makes me feel particularly valued for this work.

What and who has been inspiring to you? Artists, songs, paintings, places? I want to learn from you all.

Let’s walk!

-Lulu