Art IS Important + Sunday Sketch

and that was on full display this weekend

If you need a reminder that art is important, art is genuinely helpful, and that art can make a difference might I invite you to watch the Super Bowl 60 Halftime, or as I prefer to call it the Benito Bowl?

Because wow!! Watch it here.

First off this weekend was possibly one of the most fun weekends on social media in a long time. It reminded me of what we all originally loved social media for. Connection.

My feed on pretty much every platform was filled with excitement about the Bad Bunny Halftime. Which honestly it’s been a long time since I feel like we were all collectively excited.

I mean let’s be real, Social Media has been grim, disturbing, and filled with existential dread…

But this weekend was different.

It was filled with excitement, people wanting to learn, people sharing recipes, history, art, fun facts, people going over lyrics and it was just genuinely so nice.

Even if the history we were learning wasn’t good, learning the real history makes for a better future where we are all more informed and can do more to help.

It felt like hope.

And the whole reasoning for this was the Bad Bunny Halftime anticipation. It was neat to not only be excited, but also to see so many others excited about art.

Now that it’s over all I want to do is …. 1. Watch it Again & 2. Read about all of the Symbolism.

Now, I had high hopes going into the show, already knowing the topic of many Bad Bunny songs, and how he has been known to use his platform, and I was not disappointed!

The extra amazing part of it was that you didn’t even need to know Spanish to get the message. The visuals told a story, and that was the message.

The diversity, the representation of the Original Puerto Rican Flag, the overall set for the show, the plants, the 46, the people, the cultures, the Power lines, the lyrics (of course), the immense presence of joy and love and respect for many generations. Plus we can’t forget that ending. The flags for all American Countries, that was just amazing.

Together We Are America.

If you want to take a peek at all of the Storytelling that was done through the Bad Bunny show last night this one was good, and so many other great ones are being highlighted everywhere.

(Its a whole carousel of bits so I’m not sure why its not showing up in the proper sequence but if you tap it it will)

Now leading up to the show I of course we had a mix of Green Day and Bad Bunny on and after the Quesitos were out of the oven there was some scrolling done on Instagram while enjoying a coffee, and I came across a post about numerous Endangered Species that are endemic to Puerto Rico! Which sounds a bit random but its not.

Now in case you don’t know the Sapo Concho is a toad that is used a lot in the DeBÍ TiRAR Más FOToS album visuals bringing awareness to the critically endangered toad. The way Bad Bunny used a songs visuals to bring awareness to a toad Native to Puerto Rico is just so neat, and proof that art can indeed bring awareness. Its literally become a symbol of biodiversity and environmental topics within Puerto Rico.

In light of this others were sharing more endangered species that are native to Puerto Rico and one that I learned about this weekend was the Iguaca, aka the Puerto Rican Amazon, aka the Puerto Rican Parrot.

The colors on their wings stood out to me and just caught my eye so I decided to make it my sketchbook subject for the day.

I’m not super confident with birds, and this guy took a lot of sketching and erasing and restarting, and while it’s still not perfect…. It was fun and certainly out of my comfort zone.

I have never really done an “Under Painting” for anything sketchbook related, but I did for this. I went in with Mildliners and color blocked to give me something to work off. Then I mixed it up with Colored Pencil, and a touch of acrylic marker.

Again it’s not fabulous, but it was fun and I’ll most certainly remember more about this bird because of this page and the research that I did on the Iguaca.

Over the past week I kinda started to just do “mindless” pages in my sketchbook. Not that they didn’t take thinking but just chill repetitive doodle like pages to take a break from the world. The constant information of down right horrible things were really just weighing heavily and I was very meh about what I was creating. Yet I knew I needed to create.

However this weekend has helped remind me how important art is right now. It has the power to say what sometimes words can’t. It can cross language barriers, and it can help connect people. It can create a sense of community, it can give hope, and keep you going.

We need all of that more now than ever.

So please use this as your reminder if you’ve been struggling to see why art matters now. It does. We saw that on a massive scale this weekend.

Sea Ya Soon!

~Sarah

🎵 Currently Listening to : TURiSTA by Bad Bunny

(If you haven’t heard this song and or looked into the translations please go give it a listen or watch the video. If you live in a place that lots of people like to visit this song will resonate with you)