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*The Cut Alphabet project is a personal initiative that pairs my love of typography and paper cut, with whatever the hell I feel like writing about. Each letter stands as a contained work of art, a part of a greater piece, and a jumping off point to discuss the things that have been on my mind of late. It may or may not pertain to art, illustration, philosophy, interpersonal relationships, or the human condition.

Human connection is so fucking important. The human race as it is would not exist without the energetic exchange of ideas, solutions, touch, and challenges that we all enjoy. Then why does being human feel like such an isolating experience at times?

The other night I was at a party at a friends house. A nice party. The kind of party that everyone generally likes. Mid-sized intimate crowd with just the right number of new faces, great food, wine, and a mellow atmosphere. But somehow the equation didn't add up and I found myself feeling extremely exhausted, emotional, and disconnected from everyone around me, and wanting to flee, like. right. away. fast. So... I did. I guiltily made my way out the door in a not-quite-Irish goodbye, gasped for air, calibrated myself against the silence of the night, and thought, "what the fuck, Tory?"

After a few days of reflection I came to the conclusion that the reason I felt the need to flee the party stemmed from a deep sense of social disconnection from the people around me because I had fallen into a small talk rut.

The small talk rut...

This is what happens when you're having a conversation with someone, and, for one reason or another, neither of you can seem to move the conversation past the obligatory small talk stage. Maybe you don't quite know this person well enough to know what is important to them in life and you feel awkward asking. Maybe you are exhausted from work and just want to go home and watch Netflix and you're just putting in face time at a social event to be a good friend. Or maybe you have said every. singe. thing. that could possibly be uttered and you are just simply out of words.

I have yet to see that last example in reality, but it's really fucking boring to think about.

Why do we talk small? .

Everyone has their own communication style and I respect that., and small talk might be nourishing to some, but not to me. As an introvert I have finite reserves of energy dedicated to social interaction and small talk taps them out at double the speed with little return on the investment. Small talk is a utilitarian function of living in a tribal species, a necessary evil that serves the purpose of mentally extending a handshake. While I DO want to know that you made it through your midterm, and that your bathroom renovation is taking longer than you thought, I am essentially ticking those things off of a mental list to make sure those I care about have adequate shelter, food, and comfort before I want to move onto the larger topics. But then I am unsure. Society doesn't necessarily encourage asking hard questions in casual social settings.

How do you see yourself differently today than you did a year ago? When you feel down on yourself, what is your biggest fear? Why do you think women are subjugated across so many cultures? What technological advance are you excited to see in the next 10 years? What has been the biggest change you have made in your life? What is your largest failure? These questions are supposed to be reserved for your absolute closest of friends, your family, and your therapist. But these are the questions that make me feel like another human has seen my beacon in the night and thrown me a life raft as we bumble our way through this life together. These are the conversations that tether me to my species in an intimate understanding of mutual suffering, delight, struggle, and elation. These are the conversations that move us forward in empathy, technology, and art. These are the conversations that get to the core of our shared experience and explode the walls we create for ourselves out of fear of vulnerability.

Talking big.

I would like to strive to have the best quality conversation in my life the same way that I strive for the most fulfilling career, most energizing exercise, nourishing hobbies, healthy relationships, and overall balanced experience. I'm not going to pepper my barista with questions about her favorite bedtime story as a child, but I would like to endeavor to strengthen the connections I have by delving into the larger questions that we often avoid. I'm not one to try to impose my lifestyle choices on those around me, but consider this my open invitation, to anyone, and everyone, whom I may care about deeply, or just know peripherally, to challenge yourself to talk big with me. Ask me those hard questions and I will return the favor. I think we may both get a lot out of it.


Want to know more about the deep underbelly of my subconscious? Check out the nice feature today over at Chicago based organization IPaintMyMind. For the past few years I have been partaking, in one form or another, in a "sober month" at the beginning of the year, usually January (January 1st is usually the easiest day to feel like I never want to drink again). I know it's nothing revolutionary. Many people spend their entire lives sober and for the love of god do those people get A LOT OF SHIT done. Like WHOA. Productivity, thy name is tea, not beer. But for me, someone in their late 20's that didn't really drink much in college, and discovered the joys of booze later in life, it's different, and it's difficult, and it's pretty cool.

Artists like booze.

It's a fact my friends. Some of the most creative minds in history have been tremendous drunkards. Toulouse-Lautrec was famous for his love of absinthe and he hit the bottle (hard) for the sake of creativity, and to cope with his physical disabilities. Van Gogh was also apparently a fan of the green fairy, amongst other things. The number of famous artists that enjoyed mind altering substances to the extreme is really too many to enumerate on, but, I'll name a few just off the top of my head. Jackson Pollock, Billie Holiday, Picasso, Thomas Kinkade, Edgar Allen Poe, Edgar Degas, and Ernest Hemingway all had a fondness for booze, and a penchant for creative innovation (or creative exploitation in the case of Kinkade?). Unfotunately, these folks all took their love of alcohol to extremes and a lot of them ended up broke, dead, or destitute in the end. You never really hear about the famous artists who were moderate drinkers do you? I guess it's not as sensational.

The association between boozing and creativity has also been proven using...you know...science! People who are a little saucy not only come up with more ideas, but better ideas. The reasoning has a lot of sciency jargon but the nutshell version is that your shorter attention span caused by the alcohol, in addition to your lowered inhibitions and "mental flexibility" (I love that term) make you less judgmental of your own ideas and quicker to move onto a new one. That produces a larger quantity of ideas, which in turn produces more quality ideas. So no wonder artists like booze. It's liquid inspiration!

Reasons why temporary sobriety is scary.

I generally enter into my sober month with a mix of abject terror and crazy unrealistic expectations about how many lectures I'll be attending at local museums. The latter is always shattered within days when I realize that, yeah, I'm still just as lazy when I'm sober.

1. Alcohol is a potent social lubricant and a lot of us (particularly those of us that know we tend towards introversion) enjoy it as a way to loosen up in social settings.
2. Alcohol is fun and it makes you feel good.
3. While I don't think I have an unhealthy relationship with alcohol, it makes a cameo in most of my evenings. Sometimes more, sometimes less, but it's almost always present. Us Millennials enjoy our artisan beverages.
4. I have no hesitation about drinking alone, in fact I thoroughly enjoy it, especially when I am doing artwork at night, cleaning the house, or tending to other mundane household chores. I can't remember the last time I did a nice deep room clean without a bottle of wine and an awesome podcast, and the thought of having to deal with annoying chores without the softening caress of wine is...ugh.

Reasons why temporary sobriety is awesome.

1. Embracing that fear of stone cold sobriety (I won't be fun, I won't be social, I can't go out to dinner, etc.) makes you realize how much you underestimate your own capacity for joy and amusement. Tickle wars become super fun again. So does ice cream, hot chocolate, dumb movies, coffee with friends, art galleries, and walks.
2. Alcohol is the devil and it makes you feel like you want to rip out your own eyeballs and shotput them them across the room in order to teach the person that is yapping at you a very graphic lesson. No booze, no hangovers. Waking up in the morning is actually not the worst moment of your life thus far.
3. You can eat whatever you want and you will probably still lose a couple pounds. Alcohol contains a lot of calories and when you cut it out, the inevitable trim down follows. I don't go sober for weight loss, but it's a nice little January perk to see everyone else's resolute ass at the gym while I skip on by with a bear claw and a hot chocolate and still lose five pounds. Unfortunately that smugness evaporates come February.

Some surprising observations about this year's sober "month." (even though it was really only 22 days)

1. My desire to go out and socialize was low, but my anxiety about my introversion disappeared. I tend to beat myself up over not really wanting to hang out with loads of people (I'm really a one on one kinda gal), but I just didn't give a flying fuck this month and I stayed unapologetically in A LOT. When I did go out, it was because I really wanted to see the people I was seeing. I had a lot of great quality hangs over coffee and ice cream that ended early and saw me in bed by 11.
2. NA beer is actually not that bad, and sometimes it's just the ticket.
3. The quality of sleep I get when I am sober is in an entirely different league. I would almost consider staying sober for the blissful, deep, life affirming rest that it affords me.


Sober January ended early for me this year. At a certain point I felt like I had gotten what I needed out of it and that any further obligatory sobriety would just be finishing the race. Well, I'm not one for races. Whenever my boyfriend suggests we run a marathon I reply "why not just run 26 miles on our own?" However I have noticed my attitude towards alcohol shift slightly. Sober January made me acutely aware of how alcohol affects my Zzz's and I have such a deep seated love affair with sleep that I don't think I can look at a drink anymore without taking into account the degrading effect it will have on my night. I now weigh that into my decision to imbibe or not, and how much. Watering down drinks has been a useful way of slowing things down when I want to enjoy a long boozy evening with friends, without killing my sleep. I also regained confidence in my ability so socialize without booze, and realized that when I'm sober, and with people I care about, I'm pretty fucking witty and articulate, but that my aversion to large gatherings, sober or not, will probably never go away, and that's totally okay.


Check out some phone cases over here. I decided to take on a bit of a personal artistic challenge this year. I'm not usually one to participate in artistic challenges or self imposed deadlined projects. I don't have anything against them, or the people that do them (I absolutely believe that quantity produces quality). It's more of a self preservation thing. I don't participate in artistic challenges out of fear that I don't have the follow through to complete them, and to be honest I don't want to feel disappointed in myself.

In fact, the amount of energy I expend in avoiding personal disappointment is staggering, as I'm sure it is for a lot of us. I'm not what you would call a pessimistic person, on the contrary, I would say that I am ruthlessly upbeat. However, the thought of failure, of disappointing myself and those around me, often leads me to turn down opportunities, and shy away from challenges that, at the very least, could be invaluable learning opportunities. I have dropped the ball on potential projects, failed to follow through on opportunities, and excused myself from participating in situations that challenge me as an artist, and as a person, all out of fear of disappointment.

Seriously. Fuck. That. Shit.

In an effort to embrace failure, fear, and disappointment of all shades, I have decided to challenge myself to complete a project I have been wanting to do for a while. Throughout the year I will be creating a killer hand cut paper alphabet. I'm setting no deadlines. I'm making no promises, to you, or to myself, that it will be amazing, or groundbreaking, or the best work I have ever done. All I pledge is to do the damn thing, and write about it here.

A is for Aaarrrggghhh...

My first letter ended up being an exercise in disappointment right off the bat. When you are working with cut paper, there is no ctrl+z, and you have to just go with the mistakes you make (and make them look intentional!). Well, I made a lot of mistakes on this attempt and ended up taking away MUCH more paper than I intended. It was sort of like a high school self administered haircut. You know it's a bad idea but you JUST CAN'T STOP YOURSELF FROM CUTTING!

It's not what I set out to create, but that's okay, and in an unintentional way, some of the mistakes I made actually made it more interesting. Most importantly, I remembered how much I LOVE cutting paper. How delicate and meditative the process is. How the parameters set by the medium require a different way of thinking about lines, curves, and image. And how the final result, even if it's a little disappointing, still is soooo. fucking. awesome.


Illustration is a business that a surprisingly large amount of people know relatively little about. Maybe it's the ever blurring lines between graphic design, illustration, and fine art, or maybe it's just that people really can't wrap their heads around the fact that illustration is a legitimate, paying, and growing, industry. Regardless of the cause, there are a few places where people generally get it wrong when it comes to illustrators. Allow me to expand on some of my favorites. 1. Illustrators are amazing representational artists.

Yes, illustrators are artistic, talented individuals who put a lot of time into honing their craft. But the truth is they're not all the best representational artists and can't all channel their inner Michelangelo at will. That's not to say that there aren't some extremely practiced, technically perfect, representational illustrators out there, but the majority of illustrators aren't going to spend a whole lot of time getting the lighting on that apple JUST RIGHT unless it's part of the job description. More than that, they don't want to. Illustration is often about portraying an idea, or a feeling, rather than the accurate representation of an object, and while technical skills can be VERY beneficial to an illustrator, it's not a prerequisite of the job. 2. Everything comes from an illustrator's imagination.

Okay guys, this one is controversial, and I feel like I'm going to blow a lot of people's minds, but it has to be acknowledged. Illustrations don't just fall out of illustrators heads fully formed. MOST ILLUSTRATORS USE REFERENCE IMAGES. Whether it's using a photograph to draw the face of a mouse, or another illustrators work to figure out how they got that amazing textured look, inspiration often comes from other sources. Some people feel cheated when they learn this, and I must admit it's a misconception that a lot of illustrators don't bother to correct because it makes us seem cooler, and supernaturally talented, but when was the last time that ANY professional created a product that didn't use the technology or information already available to them? Using a copyrighted image as a basis for an illustration is a legal gray zone, but is heavily frowned upon (unless the image is being used under Fair Use in a transformative context, such a satire or parody), so most illustrators have go to sources for copyright free images that they use as references for their work. 3. Illustrators are designers.

This one happens all the time and it's just a symptom of two very overlapping industries being confused. It usually goes a little something like this.

"What do you do for a living?"
"I'm an illustrator."
"Oh wow that's great! Hey, I have been needing some work done, would you be interested in a job?"
"Heck yes! What do you need?"
"A powerpoint presentation layout!"
(╯°□°）╯︵ ┻━┻

Illustrators like to make pretty pictures, which doesn't always translate to having a great eye for design, typography, or layout. That being said, the two industries are heavily intertwined and some designers will be illustration savvy, while some illustrators will be great designers (eg. some illustrators love making logos!). Just don't make any assumptions, and if someone says they are an illustrator, chances are they're looking for illustration work, not design work. 4. Illustrators only work by hand/Illustrators only work digitally.

Most illustrators land somewhere in the middle of the analog/digital spectrum, with fewer working only on one side. Depending on the look they are trying to achieve, a lot of illustrators will start a piece using a pencil and paper and then scan it into their computer to finish it off digitally. In the end an illustrator will provide the client with a high resolution or vector file of the finished illustration, while keeping the sketches and process work for themselves.

5. Illustrators can produce art in any style.

Another big one. Asking an illustrator to produce something in a style that is not their own is akin to asking a sushi chef to prepare boeuf bourguignon. They could probably do it, but it's going to take a lot longer because it's not really their thing, and it might come out tasting like crap. Anyone looking for illustration work would best be served by finding an illustrator that already has a body of work in the desired style, or asking their creative friends for a reference.

6. Illustrators are not fine artists.

Illustration is by nature a commercial endeavor. Illustrators sell, license, and use their art as companions to writing, decorations for products, flourishes, or as a part of a larger campaign. That doesn't mean that illustrators are any less of artists. Remove the writing or products and you will find that most illustrations can stand on their own as works of art, and many illustrators also have thriving fine art and gallery careers. Context is king, and illustration is really just art with context. 7. Illustrators draw all day.

Yeah...and Astronauts spend most of their time in space. If Illustrators could spend all day drawing then there would be a lot more illustrators in the world because, honestly, who wouldn't want to do that? The reality is that at least 75% of their day is spent doing other job related activities. Marketing, networking, bookkeeping, writing emails, phone calls, research, debt collection, PR, archiving, web design, writing, social media, organizing, cleaning, etc. Most illustrators have to consciously schedule drawing time because if they didn't, then the list of other things to do would always take precedence. 8. Computers do most of the work.

Advances in technology have lead to an epic surge in products aimed at creatives. Tablets, apps, filters, editing software, stock images, templates and every kind of stylus are just a few of the high tech options illustrators can chose from these days. The truth is that a lot of this stuff just makes life more complicated for your average illustrator and that the MOST useful innovations, apart from editing software, are layers and ctrl+Z. Most Illustrators use tablets in one way or another, but drawing on them is actually harder than drawing on paper, so if ctrl+Z existed on paper then no one would use a tablet. And I'm sorry to say, but fancy gadgets don't automatically make for a good illustrator. Computers have made life a little more convenient for illustrators, but they have absolutely not rendered creative talent and practice moot.

I am so happy to be the featured interview today on the fabulous art blog Jung Katz! I cover art, career, plants, and lend my sage wisdom (ha!) to aspiring artists. Check it out and scroll through their other beautifully curated artist interviews. Tory Van Wey

is a San Francisco based artist, designer, illustrator and creative. When she isn't collaborating with clients to produce richly detailed illustrations, then you might find her gardening, boating with her boyfriend, or at the local watering hole.