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🍏 GATOLETTER 02 / 2025: To vibe & survive is to thrive

    • HELLOoo (＾∇＾)ﾉ

      How did the year start off for you? It's been upsetting to watch all these dark things happening and continue to happen, so I've been focusing on my own things to productively distract myself from all that, also because it makes me feel like there isn't much I can do to change or stop it anyway. Remember that taking care of yourself is the first thing you must do so you can take care of others. I also feel like being active in connecting and supporting your own local community is the best thing we can do right now,... I'm happy to present you with new offerings from Mexican artists (that I just put up today!), I've been moving forward with my plan to invite artists to design stickers for the shop (more on this coming soon) and also, it's been a pleasure for me to work with Rox, who has been my assistant now for 6 months, with whom I'm cooking up some customized bags that we're hoping to have ready for you for March...

    • THINKING OF DAVID LYNCH...

      David Lynch died last month so Ramón (my husband) and I watched Mulholland Drive, which neither of us had watched since it came out. I just remembered I didn’t get it then, and I still didn’t get it now… thankfully there’s Youtube now so i watched an hour long explanation (while I was working) and it that was pretty entertaining. Anyway, I think lynch was right in not wanting to explain his work. I feel that way too when people ask me about a drawing I made and what does it mean and it’s just like, the explanation and meaning is the drawing itself. If I wanted to explain it with words, then I would’ve written an essay... it’s also fun to see how people react to what you do and to try to guess what it is, like they will ask me if it’s a dog and I’ll tell them that it can be whatever they want it to be– It doesn’t matter what I think it is. Once you put something out there, you also lose a part of your spiritual ownership of it. Like what happened to Matt Furie’s pepe the frog. Anyway.. back to lynch, another thing I’m thinking maybe he was right about is that apparently he ate the same thing every day: tuna with feta cheese and tomatoes for lunch and chicken with broccoli and soy sauce for dinner. I don’t know what he had for breakfast but probably coffee and cigarrettes (haha). To me it sounds sad and boring to live like that, but what he said was that having that solid structure allowed him to get creative and explore the deep mysteries in life. Like how they say Einstein had 5 identical suits so he could wear the same thing every day and not lose any time or mental energy deciding his clothing. I don’t think I could do either of those things but i’ve definitely been constructing a stable structure in my life so I can be functional and don’t breakdown again but also just to thrive and enjoy as much as I can... So I think Lynch was right about this stuff... we all gotta find some grounding to be able to fly. It feels really symbolic that he died during the LA fires, given that fire was a prevalent theme in his work... and it never seemed to represent anything good for him. Do you like his movies? I love the moods he set, his musical choices, the way he shows the dark side of humanity without banality... he leaves us with an inspiring breadth of work. I feel like making a comic is like making the lowest budget movie ever. I love that about them…

    • KEEPING UP WITH GOOD HABITS ✧｡･(⁠⁠-ω⁠- ⁠⁠)

      I've kept up with my planner, and it's been an activity that I've been enjoying a lot! I'm not sure it's making me more organized (Notion has been more useful for that!), but the planner definitely makes me feel more accomplished : ) It's great to visualize what I've been doing, and it's relaxing to do in itself... I confess I used to have a scarcity mentality about my sticker collection and had so many I never used, but now that I get so many stickers for the shop I feel like this is has been the perfect activity to force me to just use them!


      This is has been part of the new "good habits" I'm trying to cultivate... along with not to check the internet first thing in the morning (which I mostly fail at) and to drink water every time I crave sugar or just feel like I need something but I don't know what. I also recently started feeling the urge to change my Xiaomi phone (which has been holding strong for 2+ years and has no issue whatsoever other than being a little slow) but just because consumerism, I was like, I need a new one! But instead of caving in to that, I cleaned its case and scraped off all the stickers to put some new ones on it and let me tell you... that totally scraped off my craving as well. There's really something nice about giving maintenance to the things you have instead of replacing them. I recommend that as much as organizing to be aware of what you have and use it more!

    • ₍^ >ヮ<^₎ WEB GAMES!

      On my last newsletter, I asked if anyone could help me complete my web based dress-up game and I received a response from Kate Bagenzo, who so kindly helped me make my fantasy a reality! Working with her was great and I totally recommend her if you're looking for a programmer, she's super nice and efficient... Thank you, Kate >o<


      Now you can play my dress up game here!!!


      I also decided to dust off my own coding skills and made this silly kissing booth for the GATOSHOP's monthly special of February... very sweet, very Valentine's... check it out at our SPECIAL section!

    • (⁠ノ⁠^⁠ω^⁠)⁠ノ RECOMMENDED LINKS


      ★ My father has started a Substack! He's worked as a professional photographer for decades and has now started this project of going through his archive of photos he's taken all around Mexico throughout the years to make limited edition artist prints of them. In his Substack he shares these photos and talks a bit about where and when he took them... it's pretty cool and it's free to subscribe!


      ★ Other substacks I've been enjoying are Paolo Puck (process behind his cool costumes and armour), Neoglyphic Media (about alternative comics and self-publishing), Pleasant Realms (suggestions for sort of weird, relaxing Youtube videos)

      ★ More and more artists seem to be leaving Instagram and Twitter, and I specially liked this post from Jesse Moynihan on this topic. As some of you may know already, I'm a big supporter of people having their own websites (I have a bunch of resources for this listed at the bottom of my links page) but what saddens me is that many artists like Jesse are just opting to move to other platforms that are now paid, instead of free for the public, and still uncustomizable in their format and design (like Substack and Patreon). Artists should get paid for their work, but I wish these platforms would allow for more freedom and personalization given that there's payment involved... I don't know, I really do long for that old internet of blogs and people posting thoughtful content for fun, and not because they felt pressured to "stay relevant" and "have an online presence"...


      (⁠･⁠ω⁠･⁠)⁠つ⁠ WHAT'S NEW & WHAT'S COMING...