September 11, 2025
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This week’s question comes to us from Gina Trapani:
How do you think of your creative practice? What are the most important parts of it?
Fold socks.
Serious. I love folding socks. Every few weeks, usually on Sunday, I have my morning coffee, I grab my basket and go through my laundry to sort it. As soon as I have washed and dried my socks, I dump them all on the couch and call something to calm down on the TV. (Large designs, bake-off and Project Runway are good sock folding shows.) Then I am folding socks there. First I pull all the striped socks out of the pile, give them a healthy piece, match them, fold them in third parties and make small stacks on the coffee table. Then I continue to the polka dot socks, then the solids by color, etc., etc. Until all socks are folded. At that moment I pause the TV – usually while Kevin breaks the fourth with a grin, as a homeowner says they are going to manage the project themselves – and slowly carry all folded socks to the soklade where they are ranked in very orderly rows so that the folds down, to maximize the amount of visible pattern for easier choice. I also have to notice that I have as many socks as it fits in the sok drawer, and if one of them gives up the mind, I make a mental remark that I can be looking for a new pair if I meet a good one.
What does this have to do with my creative practice? Everything. In any case, because I might have something that is called a ‘creative practice’, which I probably do, the term just let me itch somewhat, which is my own hang-up. But also nothing, which ultimately is everything.
I think the point I try to make is that I don’t really make a strong distinction between things in my life that are part of a creative practice and things in my life that lie outside of a creative practice. Although it also tries very hard not to be one of those annoying people who have opinions about how to make coffee. I mean, I have them. I just don’t feel that I have to exhaust everyone around me by constantly expressing them. Make your coffee how you like it.
By default I am an anxious person. I also suffer from intermittent attacks of depression, which is currently – knock on wood – I use, thank you. But one of the things that happen when I start to depression that slide is that I cannot distinguish between the size and the importance of things. For example, I will succeed in keeping my shit together, while my country becomes a fascist hellhole, but then I will no longer have a detergent and have an emergency call to my therapist. Not because the small things are more important than the big things. I know objectively that they are not! But the chemicals in my brain are great work to convince me that it doesn’t matter. In fact, this is one of the checkpoints that my therapist and I have set up to let me know if I am sliding into depression. Are big things big? Are little things small? Can you see the difference?
So I take care of the little things. Every morning I wake up and was the dishes. I can’t leave the house unless the sink is clean. And every morning, before I leave the house, I stare at that sink and I think to myself: “The sink is clean.” And while I grab a T-shirt from the Ikea Cubbygat, I look at all other T-shirts and realize that they are all folded to the same size and I think: “The T-shirts are fine.” Then I go to the sock drawer, look over all my sock options and choose the couple I want, while I think: “The socks are organized.” Does this mean that my house is all incredibly organized? Far from it it is a maximalistic circus tent decorated by people raised by wolves. But it means that I have set up enough memories for myself, while I go through my morning routine, that when I walk out of the door, I remember that I have taken care of the little things. I recognized them as small things, while I also recognize the importance of small things. At least if I don’t do anything else that day, I have done this.
In this way, when I walk out of the door, to the land of bigger things, I am ready to do them. I am ready to recognize them as bigger things and to tackle them with the care that require bigger things. And I have to fail, which is a normal part of the whole human man, I come home and stare at the Sokla for a while and it reset me a bit.
When I think of having a ‘creative practice’, which is again somewhat itching, I think of all the things I can do every day. Big things and small things. Will writing this newsletter become part of that creative practice? Yes, but also do workshops and occasionally a customer project, and ensure that there is milk in the fridge and the recycling removes. Does it feel great to solve a large design problem? Yes, but it also feels great to re -wirer the speakers or all the plates I listened to last night, or to ensure that the dog has snacks. Is this painting that I am working on, important to me? Yes, but that also applies to the re -painting of the living room. I really enjoyed doing that. Erika and I are in that room every night and I think to myself: “I made a nice place for us to hang around.” It is also a great room for folding socks. My mental health requires that I understand the difference between small things and great things, but it allows me to love both of them. What I do.
This is about the mutual connection of all things. The importance of all things, whether they are great whether they are small. Everything has an effect on everything else. Everything in your life is related to everything else. A perfect peach can lead to five pages well writing. Leaving the house without cleaning the sink can lead to a day of shitty design.
Being a good listener also means listening to your own brain. Even if it fights you.
I’m not good at compartmentalization. A problem that I have at work is usually not solved at work. It is solved during a bike ride. A sentence that I struggle to find will come in my head while I switch off the garbage. So I’m glad I let it all swim inside and come out when it comes out. When I get stuck, I usually solve it by doing something else. Similarly, when I am in the middle of writing and I suddenly remember that the back porch must be fought, I get up and sweep the back porch.
This all makes me a terrible employee, so I stopped trying to be a good employee. It would never happen.
I’ve been doing this newsletter for more than a year. I used to sit down, hit it out and published it. (The typing errors will confirm this.) When I would think about all the things I wish I had added on my bike ride to home. Sometimes I would come home and add those things to the web version, which meant that the people who read the e -mail did not see the latest version. After I had done this too often, I finally realized that I had to build the bike ride to the writing process. So now I start the newsletter on Wednesday afternoon, prepare it almost and then drive home. As I drive, the newsletter starts to swim around my head and set up itself on strange new ways that would just not happen if I stared at a Google Doc. No matter how hard I would try to concentrate. A few weeks ago I had to take three times to hit notes when things came to me. When I get home, I add all the things that came to me during the bike ride. Then I will publish it the next day. (With even more typos!)
So much how it could make me to admit, I think I have a creative practice. Everyone does that. It is how we make our way through the world. Listen to what our brains need from us. Take care of small things and great things, while it appreciates love and attention those little things, great things and in between need things. Which means that our ideas can communicate with the world, and let them race on a hill or make their way through city traffic. Let them take naps. They throw them for your dogs to get and see what they look like when they come back.
Take your ideas for bike rides. Take your problems for a walk. Jump on a train and take your large design problem to the beach, let it breathe in the salty air. Let it get some sun. Let it be part of the world.
We have had too many ideas that try to take over the world – or to disturb. It would be nice to have some who want to be part of it.
🙋 Do you have a question that you need to answer a weird-ass roundabout? Ask it!
📣 The next presentation of W/Confidence Workshop takes place on 25 and 26 September. Interviews for a job? Do you have to talk about your work without getting nervous? Come in here.
📓 If you are an educator or librarian and copies of the design are happy to be a track, save me. We can close a deal. (I will ask you to pay shipping.) The rest of you can Buy it here.
🤖 Are you applying a boy? I have been friends with Chris Pepper for a long time. He is a health care teacher at the San Francisco School District and he is legitimate at it! He and Joanna Schroeder have written a great book with the name Talk to your boys.
🍉 Please donate to the Palestinian Children’s Lighting Fund.
🏳️omb donate to Trans Lifeline.
#fold #socks