Welcome to Iro Iro Thoughts, the written extension of my art-making over at Iro Iro Things. Thank you for being here with me in this tiny sliver of the Internet.
Before anyone knew of me as an “artist” (lol), or a “designer,” before I was “creative,” and prior to being “craftsy,” I was a writer. I think writing was always my first creative love and pursuit, long before I realized making shitty ClipArt greeting cards on Print Shop Deluxe as a kid was actually graphic design.
It feels incomplete for me to pursue a more artistic side of myself without including writing. I think social media makes us feel like if we don’t have something ~totally refreshing~ to say to some vast, hungry audience, then don’t bother. But I think the insignificant things we want to commit to memory are just as important—the things we can’t just neatly sum up in a caption for a tone-mismatched photo or awkwardly voiced-over video. I remember when I would sit down at my computer after school, fire up Xanga, and type out 5 painstaking paragraphs breaking down the context, lead-up, and full post-game recap of when a crush would say, “Hey.” to me in the 7th grade. And maybe it was for the four friends who read it and were mildly entertained, but mostly it was for me.
I kind of miss that Internet.
This, I think, will be more of that.
Thanks again for being here. To quote the lyrical mastermind Jay-Z: “You coulda been anywhere in the world, but you’re here with me.”