"Journal" becomes "The Sandpit"

Oct 7

3 min read

Updated: Oct 16

An exercise in creative exposure therapy — posting the raw, the unedited, and the unfinished.

This corner of my website never became quite what I imagined it could be. Until now. I'm renaming this journal page to The Sandpit — found through a bit of an AI fusion smorgasbord, bouncing between Gemini and Claude to find the right title and vibe. (Interesting to deduce their personalities with the same task) **Edit: Turns out the designer version of this workflow is Weavy/Figma Weave. How did I go make 2 human beings and come back to workforce to find, completely new workflows and design softwares taking over when the previous 20+ years it was Adobe as the powerhouse. Wild.

The name transcends my creative life perfectly. Since I last posted (six years ago!), I entered the hardest, most important job one will ever do: motherhood. I always knew I wanted to be a mom. What I didn't see coming, and I don't think anyone truly can, is how motherhood opens a Pandora's box. A psychological world of inner child healing, breaking generational trauma, confronting vulnerabilities, letting go of unhelpful hypervigilance, and navigating the harsh realities of how the world actually views mothers... and children for that matter.

So, alas, here I am UNcurating a space to brain dump my art (doodles old and new). "Shitposting", as the internet calls it.

And hopefully, AI doesn’t scan it and regurgitate it as AI slop.

Welcome to the Sandpit!

**Visual rebrand to come 😉

I'll kick off with old stuff from my Procreate folders. I want to reflect and self critique my digital sketches, see any themes, commonalities or treatments I was experimenting with. Perhaps some insights will emerge that I can compare with who and where I am now.

And then the next post, I'll dive into my recent commissioned projects.

"Shitposting" a shitshow of a gallery. Okay no, it's not that bad, but it's chaotic (well, hence Sandpit!). I see myself yee and yaw between loose flowing mono lines to textured painterly strokes. I know I was playing and experiemnting with the trends at the time (clean flat vector illustrations), but I'm appreciating the use of vibrant colour blocking against soft neutral grounds, repetitive organic patterns, and playing with scale: putting tiny unexpected creatures here and there (Hello ladybird! Hiya whimsical walrus lad). I didn't quite realise my tendency to retreat to botanical elements as well. Plus, there's always something about electric blue that I end up gravitating towards (even now, as I sit in my cobalt blue blouse typing this - coincidence?). It always just pops without being too jarring even next to delicate pink or vanilla.

The last illustration though totally hits differently now. It holds a lot of nostalgia. Reminds me of Sundays at Pine & Bamboo Garden in my hometown. My parents and I would get there right when it opened, before the church crowd arrived and the wait became impossible. My parents were in the wholesale food business, delivering to Asian restaurants across the midwest so dim sum always felt like an extension of that world. Familiar faces, familiar food and the classic courteous head nods.

Dim sum was never quiet. Sizzling carts, mini bamboo steamers stacked to the ceiling, flagging down the auntie with the black bean chicken claws (IYKYK) before she wheeled past your table. The tally card filling up one crimson stamp at a time placed on the pink table cloths next to the hot tea in chunky handless tea cups.

Egg tarts always came last. My favourite. Not too sweet, warm, flaky, custardy. The punctuation at the end of the meal. It wouldn't be dim sum without egg tarts.

I remember the "Jade" on the tally card was for Jade Garden; a nod to a place in London's Chinatown my husband and I used to like. Sadly, it's gone now. Chinatown London hits different these days after returning back to London. Still searching for a dim sum spot that doesn't make me wince at the bill. There aren't a lot of cart service ones, understandably with less real estate in a historical city like London. To be fair, Austin only had one that I knew of which closed during the pandemic, BUT did have a come back couple years ago. The US coastal big cities are where it's at: I miss you, Boston!

So, this one is for the Chinese diaspora families who know exactly what Sunday morning smells like. The steam, the noise, the carts, the chaos. The egg tarts at the end.