Sunday Thoughts (Ep. 22) (Patreon)

Hello Patrons, and happy Sunday! Or happy Labor Day! Or whatever day this letter finds you on!

Its been quite a busy week, and I’m coming close to completely missing an update this week. But I want to keep you all up to date with some of the goings on at Ragonia studios. So here’s a quick update!

Last Friday evening I had the joy of attending a relatively new art event called Art on the Rooftop, along with Zach and my friend Tori. Tori and I were both invited to the event via email completely separately, and we’re happy to go together! Art on the Rooftop was started in July by a local artist, professor, and business owner who wanted to bring together artists of all different kinds in Seattle. A local painter set up a number of her paintings, a few musicians performed, a poet read one of his poems, a few fashion bloggers discussed their philosophy on fashion. All of us varied artists, performers, writers, friends, gathered together in this communal space in an apartment building, shared wine and beer and pretzels and connected. It was truly lovely and inspiring. I hope to at the most show my work their in the future, at the least attend again.

Throughout the week, I continued to try to decide what to make for my first convention. It’s slow going, friends. It’s intimidating trying to make this (what feels like) big decisions. I also think I have fallen in to bad habits when it comes to working from home and being self employed. I think it’s time to reinvigorate some of my original discipline. I.e. working at specific hours, turning off social media, planning thoroughly and creating my own deadlines.

The main image is a sketch I made with Posco markers, trying to conceptualize a possible future portrait series on MONSTER GIRLS. Can you tell I love Halloween? 

Friday was devoted to the Penny Arcade Expo, known as PAX West, a video game convention that meets yearly in Seattle and New York City. I’ve mentioned this before, but my partner Zach is  artist for video games, currently working with indie studio Forward Instinct. We’ve attended this convention every year since we moved to Seattle in 2016 after graduating. In fact, we arrived in Seattle two days before PAX that year. So the convention is a good marker of the amount of time we’ve lived here. And it is crazy.

If I ever doubt that video games are thriving art field and a viable business/career, PAX sets me straight. It’s like an amusement park pin this convention center.

The above photo is the PAX Arena, where hundreds of convention goers gather to watch teams of people play video games.

There are vendors selling games, computer gear, gaming chairs, merch, T-shirts, enamel pins (HUGE right now), dice, posters, art. You can play demos of games before they're released, or play games that have been around for years. There are areas for lounging in beanbag chairs, huge rooms for playing competitively, arcade games, pinball, tabletop games. There are panels and lectures. Zach and I went to this lecture, of course:

Do we look metal?

All over are people wearing graphic tees with their favorite game logos, or dressed in extremely elaborate costumes.

If you don’t know what cosplaying is, look it up. I cosplayed for the first time this year, dressing as Mae Borwoski from Night in the Woods by indie game company Finji. Below you can check out my cosplay at the convention and a screenshot from the game.

All in all this week has me feeling reinvigorated, inspired, motivated, nostalgic, and contemplative. I am excited about fall and my future ahead.

ALSO! I have a sale up in my Etsy for Labor Day! 20% off all Monday! 

🔻 ragonia.etsy.com 🔻

Non-Art Life: I dyed my hair blue. I discovered that Trader Joe’s soyrizo in ramen with kale, broccoli, carrot, onion, cashews, and a homemade miso almond milk and nutritional yeast broth is the most amazing food in the world.

Sorry for the slapadash update this week my friends, I hope you can forgive me! I truly appreciate you all joining me for more than 20 weeks. I’m excited to see where this career goes in the future. Have an amazing Labor Day and a kick ass week! You are so capable! You are strong and amazing!

xoxo

Ragon