I’ve had precisely one guest come back on Draw Me Anything three times…
…and tomorrow, by golly, she’s doing it again. Jessie Kanelos Weiner’s a Chicago kid who moved to Paris seventeen years ago, taught herself how to use watercolour, wrote a book about it (Thinking in Watercolour -which I’ve recommended to you before and will keep recommending until one of us carks it), and now also runs La Vie en Watercolor / Jessie Kanelos Weiner, a newsletter with thousands of subscribers who like learning that their washes going rogue is “philosophy.” (I know this because I’m one of them.)
Last time she was on the show, we established that her parents were youth pastors, which is the most direct pipeline into stand-up comedy that nobody talks about, and that she once drank a gin and tonic with hand soap in it before a set at the Laugh Factory… Her upper lip stuck to her gums.
I was in Paris last month and we finally caught up in person. Turns out, she’s just as calm in real life as she is on a livestream, which is deeply unfair to those of us who run on panic and caffeine.
So tomorrow we’re talking about artist retreats. Jessie runs one in Paris every year, and I want to know what actually happens on these things. Do we paint? Do we cry? Is there a point where a retired dentist from Ohio has a breakthrough about chiaroscuro and everyone has to pretend not to notice? I have so many questions.
We’ll touch on the challenges of performing stand-up comedy in Paris as an english-speaker (something I got to do with thanks to her this year) - and what it’s like STARTING comedy in a different country where English isn’t the first language.
Aaaand finally, we’ll likely veer into how she runs her Substack from a Paris apartment with a teency child who uses her good Fabriano paper for “explosions,” what her process looks like when nobody’s watching, and watercolour generally, the medium that refuses to obey and which I am still, eighteen months after she first told me to stop clenching, trying to control…
I’ll be drawing, she’ll be painting (probs), and you’ll be watching two people with different levels of patience try to make something good in an hour.
Tuesday, 12:15pm Eastern, 6:15pm in Paris.
Add it to your calendar in the app and come heckle.
‘til next time!
Your pal,
PS. Look, if this actually did something for your brain, please consider restacking this and sharing it with your people. It’s the only way the word spreads.
