A Full Life

Hi there! Once again, I’m popping into your inbox to apologize for a completely unplanned hiatus from writing (cue the Bernie Sanders meme). Truth be told, drawing has consumed my life for what feels like the last month. When the wildfires hit LA, I, like many others, felt completely helpless sitting and mainlining news updates from my screens inside my safe home, over one thousand miles away.

So, I decided to take my favorite advice and remedy some anxiety with action — so I volunteered to make free drawings for victims of the LA wildfires.

I only had a few residents take me up on my offer, but it was a uniquely unnerving and pressure-inducing experience to draw homes that no longer exist. I always ask for reference photos and most of them only had photos from Zillow because they never thought they’d need a straight-on photo of their house; they’d always be able to take one! Drawings that normally took me 10 hours max suddenly turned into 20-30 hour ordeals, but all in all, I’m really proud of the way they came out.

All that to say, I’m wrapping up my final drawing and prepping for a gallery show next month (knocking on wood while I type that one) and decided now would be a good time to emerge from my art nook and put some pen-to-digital-paper — aka, type.

Backcountry Chronicles

Ski season, you’ve been so unbelievably good to me. Between the 17+ inches dumped on Crested Butte the day that I got there to the 15+ inches in Telluride awaiting when I arrived in the San Juans, Mother Nature has absolutely spoiled me this year. If I karmically get the most ass-quality snow for the entire 2026 season, it’ll be entirely worth it.

And honestly? What’s been so good about it is how much time I’ve been able to spend off the grid. Whenever I’m in the backcountry, I’m typically out of cell-service; and when I’m skiing at a resort, service is either sparse, or I just don’t want to be bothered with texts when there’s so much life to live. There’s always, always, always an inverse correlation between how much time you spend on your phone and how long the weekend feels.

If you know me, you know I’ll happily shell out an exorbitant amount of money on coffee. I’m a firm believer that coffee is best consumed 1) with friends while gabbing your heart out and 2) in a mountain town (bonus points if you can pull off both at the same time).

And with all that time in the mountains, I’ve been able to spend a ton of time in mountain town coffee shops. There’s no better way to plug into a mountain town, in my opinion, than to plop into a coffee shop and stay put for 4-5 hours. The baristas always have good insight (see: gossip) into the town and the people watching is my favorite ever, bar none.

So with that, here’s some of my favorite articles I’ve read in coffee shops lately — or some articles to read in-between people watching on your next mountain town coffee shop visit.

Boy, oh boy. My favorite artist ever did some rare press ahead of her book release and it just might be my favorite thing I’ve read in the last month. Sometimes it feels like there’s so much secrecy surrounding the art industry (How much is standard to charge for a drawing? For a print? How often should you work with galleries? What’s the regular curation process for galleries? The list goes on and on and on), so I adore it when artists open it up and tell-all about their process.

Okay, fine. I’ll talk about skiing again. This Fifty+ article on the rise of backcountry skiing struck me for a lot of reasons, but the main one being: Cody Townsend is someone who has every right to be a snob when it comes to the state of the backcountry. And yet, here he is, arguing against the typical scapegoats. Sure, it’s easy to dunk on ski influencers (hi, I’m guilty of this one, too); though it’s not always the most productive. This is one of the first times I’ve seen actionable ideas in the same breath as a complaint. Shoutout Cody, the freakin’ GOAT.

You ever read an article that feels like straight up soul food amidst the absolute fuckery that is our current media landscape? Same. This article was that for me. One of my favorite quotes: aging is not your body betraying you, it’s value neutral evidence that you’re still alive.

Another article about aging in the ~age~ of the beauty industry; inject it straight into my veins. Lately, I’ve been toying with the idea that, like it or not, your youth (and subsequent beauty) is a form of currency in our society — whether my borderline-raging-feminist brain likes it or not. This interview addressed that very idea so poignantly and eloquently. The question we all need to chew on is who do we want to be once we lose that “currency”?

Ooooooh baby. There’s a new Ski The East video series: Working For The Weekend. This inaugural video features Ben Leoni, who I plugged in maybe the third-ever edition of this newsletter. If you’re new here, Ben’s an attorney who spoke on the Out Of Collective podcast about the housing crisis in ski towns and the zoning laws that perpetuate that crisis. I emailed Ben with a few questions after I finished the article and he not only responded, but responded within 15 minutes with a book recommendation, two more podcasts, and three scholarly articles to check out. People rule. Anyways, check him out ripping it up in this video.

As someone who keeps a pulse on trends and consumer insights for her full time job, something I think about a lot is how trends seem to be, well, trending. Everyone on the internet wants to label the latest subculture, when in actuality, what they’re identifying is more like a niche; a regular part of the ebb and flow of culture. This Main Character Energy article dug into that exact idea and dissected it better than I ever could.

Last but certainly not least: one of my favorite authors made a Substack! Of course, he’s coming out of the gate hot with some phenomenal advice. Read on.

Artiste Break

Here’s one of the homes I was lucky enough to draw after the LA wildfires. This one’s in Pasadena and just might be the most picturesque and stereotypical California beauty I’ve ever seen. The grass alone took me nearly two hours for this one.

To Go Snacks

Just one snack to share today.

I said what I said. Go outside!!!

- McCall 🌻

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