On creative inheritance

Sneak peek Tuesday: Vol. 4

Hello there! And welcome to Dandelion Seeds, an illustrated newsletter that is hand-painted and hand-lettered, from my desk to yours.

In honor of Father’s Day this past Sunday, I’ve got a special sneak peek to share with you this week, from the newest illustrated essay I’ve been working on (keep an eye out for it next week!).

But first, I wanted to take a moment and say hello to everyone who has found their way to this little corner of Substack recently 😊

A few days ago, I got an email from Substack, letting me know that Dandelion Seeds was one of six publications they had selected to feature on Discover last week. And on Saturday morning, I found out that my illustrated essay about soccer, which I shared here last Tuesday, had also been featured on Substack Reads.

It’s been the kind of week where I feel like I need a stronger way to express my gratitude than simply saying “thank you” — both to Substack, for the honor of these features, and to everyone who’s chosen to spend time with this newsletter, including the nearly 700 new people who have signed up in the past week.

But still I will say it…thank you so much, friends. It is the biggest joy to share my stories and art with you each week, and I’m so glad you’re here.

And now…for that sneak peek!

In the essay I shared last week, “The country where fútbol comes first,” I loved taking a deep dive into Uruguay’s passion for soccer, and the storied connection the country has with the World Cup.

The new illustrated essay I’ll be sharing here next week explores the significance of a different sport: softball — as well as a softball league I just so happened to stumble across in Montevideo a few months ago.

Each of the teams in the league has its own logo, and because I love any project that involves hand-lettering, I jumped at the chance to paint a couple of the logos for the new essay:

As it was just Father’s Day on Sunday, I thought it might also be fun to share with you that there’s a very good reason I love hand-lettering.

While my journey as an artist has been mostly a self-taught one, my father Rob is a trained artist. He studied at the Art Institute of Pittsburgh, where he specialized in commercial lettering — creating newspaper ads by hand in the final days before computers and graphic design programs.

Before I was born, he also worked as a muralist, and he was often hired to paint scenic backdrops for TV shows in our hometown.

My first art lessons in life all came from my dad.

There were lessons in shading, of which my dad is a particular expert, and there were lessons in lettering, of course. As I would sketch out school posters with markers, he taught me to always start by writing the middle letter of a word or phrase in the center of the page, to make sure the entire phrase would fit in a balanced way.

When I began to work as a freelance artist myself, his advice became even more important. A few years ago, I flew to Singapore to create several murals for Uber, and I would FaceTime my dad from there almost nightly, updating him on my progress and getting his feedback on what changes to make the next day.

“Don’t forget to take a step back every now and then,” he would say. “You’re the only person who will see that wall from one foot away.”

Since becoming a mom myself last year, I’ve thought a lot about what we pass on to our children. And of all that my dad has passed on to me — from his love of the ocean, to a fierce competitive streak — I’m especially grateful to be following in his footsteps now as an artist, all the way down to his love for lettering.

Here’s to creative inheritance — to the things we’ve received, and the things we ourselves will pass on.

With love,
Candace

My dad with Elena Rose and me, on her first Halloween 🎃