updates. I guess.

Well, 2020 has been... quite the year. I can't believe we rang in the New Year back in Washington. That trip feels like a decade ago, and simultaneously like a few weeks ago.

"cheers to 2020, babe!" - a billion years ago

When I lived in South Florida over a decade ago, the thing that struck me the most was the strange, stagnant sense of time. Up until then I had only lived in places with four distinct seasons, and time was marked by the change in weather as well as the stereotypical seasonal-based holidays. It felt good to move through the year with purpose, to switch out my wardrobe every three months, to look forward to seasonal events that marked the circular year like perfect little slices of cake. But in South Florida where the hot, humid weather is very much the same year-round, it didn’t feel like things had changed, that I had matured - even though sometimes I think I did the most growing over the course of those 1.5 years. In some ways I felt like a hamster in a wheel, time moving through me instead of me moving through time.

Likewise, 2020 has brought a strange lack of forward motion back into my life. Our existence here in Melbourne is usually marked by seasonal city events, weather changes and a fairly robust travel/visitor schedule (mostly coordinated by my mother, who can't stand the thought of going more than a few months without seeing her grandchildren). 

Obviously, with two young children, our life does move forward through their milestones and changes. Logan especially has grown quite a bit, but it's only obvious to me when I see old photos or videos of him at the beginning of the pandemic. He now runs around the apartment yelling about blue cars and apples and "gah-goo" which is apparently his word for milk. He and Arden mostly fight, but sometimes play together (usually as a procrastination technique right before bedtime) and I'm forever grateful that they have each other during this strange, isolating time. 

At the start of the pandemic, I remarked about how crazy it was that everyone in the world was fighting the same battle. Months later, it's still the same deal... except that certain parts of the world have been using very... different techniques to fight this battle, and now there's a drastic difference in how it's affecting everyone around the planet. Various lockdowns are coming and going in waves around the world. Different countries have different standards and rules for social distancing, masking and personal gatherings. It's been interesting to see the narrative shift throughout the year, as well as the differences in strategy and even in the vocabulary used to reference similar things ("shelter in place," "lockdown," "pod," "bubble," etc.). 

Despite a seemingly mild first wave earlier this year, Melbourne was the site of Australia's most serious cases of community transmission in the middle of the year. As a result, we were put under one of the strictest lockdowns in the world for around two months - while the rest of Australia largely went about actually returning to normal, which was a strange situation to be in (and very frustrating for Victorians who had family and friends in other States, going about daily life as usual). We're just emerging from this lockdown, which many are calling a success as we've had zero new reported cases for almost one month. However, Covid is now cropping up in small outbreaks in other Australian states, a reminder that this thing spreads quickly and quietly, no matter how careful everyone thinks they are.

a group of police and ADF, regularly patrolling the neighbourhood to make sure we're all masking/social distancing

Even though it's been a really hard time for so many people here, I'm very grateful that our government has been taking this seriously and acting quickly to stop things from escalating. We haven't had to make hard and awkward choices about refraining from seeing people the way many of our American friends have had to do - the government has made those choices for us (even though at the moment, many of the States are reimplementing lockdown measures... just in time for the winter holiday season?).

We had been planning on two big trips this year - a visit to Bali in July that we had just booked flights for at the beginning of the year, and also a trip back to the States in October to see our families again, and to take the kids to Disneyland for the first time. Obviously everything was cancelled. It feels a bit like living in a parallel universe - flipping through the calendar, passing the ghosts of postponed trips and events, imagining memories and photos and videos that will never be. I've mentioned before that our cancelled plans are more of an inconvenience for us, and it's not like we've had to cancel large social events such as weddings - we are grateful. But it's still strange and disappointing, and I know our families are missing out on seeing the kids in their various new stages. We're even more grateful that we were able to pull off our holiday visit a year ago, so at least everyone in the family got to meet baby Logan. We FaceTime with family often, which isn't the same - but it's a much more convenient way to keep in touch than letters delivered by courier pigeon.

FaceTime with my parents always includes a music session at the piano. Here we're singing "the horn on the bus goes 'beep beep beep!'"

To help cheer us up this past winter, we made a small family tradition that Arden named "Little Christmas" - or what other people might call "Christmas in July." For the week of July 25th, we celebrated a random week of Christmas - light holiday decorating, making yummy festive treats, dressing in our holiday outfits, enjoying Christmas movies and music, and exchanging some small presents on the morning of the 25th (the kids got small presents, while the adults wrapped up Useful things like kitchen utensils). Hopefully next winter won't be quite as lonely and isolated, but I think we'll continue to make this a fun little winter tradition in our family for the years to come.

We do have some crazy, wonderful, huge news: Ben, Arden and I are now officially Australian citizens! We had our citizenship ceremony back in June, held via video conference. I wrote a separate blog post about it with more information (and back-dated it so it looks like we actually did something this year...).

Also, more exciting news! We finally moved apartments after being in our little two-bedroom place for almost seven years. Prior to 2020, living in a small space didn't matter so much. Every weekday had something on the agenda, whether it be a class, a playground activity or one of the many free child-friendly events around the city. We would spend the weekends walking along the river, getting brunch and snacks and dinner throughout the day, rarely spending an entire day inside the apartment. Obviously, this year changed all of that... and after spending months holed up in our apartment, suddenly it just made more sense to move to a three-bedroom. We're currently in a beautiful apartment not too far from our previous one (I can literally see our old building from where I sit on the couch), with a gorgeous view and more space to spread out. Even though the city is slowly reopening and we no longer have limits on how much time we spend outside, I think in general we'll still be staying home a lot more - so we might as well live in a place that's more comfortable.

our old apartment: day 1 and day 2532

Anyway. That's about all for now... here's a random collection of photos from this year for you to enjoy!

Ben's work-from-home situation.

my first virtual race: the Run for the Kids 14k! 

we woke up like this.

we're lucky to live in a beautiful neighbourhood

bubbles.

Star Wars Day: another beloved family holiday

puddles.

rainy days are the new sunny days: ideal for social distancing.

Arden has been getting really into drawing and painting this year

our old apartment had a long balcony where the kids were able to run back and forth 

my little mooncakes celebrating the Mid-Autumn Festival

Logan's first time walking outside on different surfaces.

one of Ben's big LEGO purchases this year

another 2020 investment: the Oodie, the Snuggie's cozy Australian cousin 

a massive perk to all this stay-at-home business: spending more time together.

celebrating Arden's 5th birthday!

the view from our new apartment! this would be the perfect location to view the New Year's Eve fireworks. except of course this year they've been cancelled.

Thanks for keeping up with us! We hope everyone has been coping as best as they can with the challenges of this year. Hang in there, everyone.

CK

Australian citizens!

In the midst of a very strange and surreal year, we have some crazy, wonderful, huge news: Ben, Arden and I have joined Logan to become Australian citizens!

We had our official citizenship ceremony in June, safely held via a short video conference. It would have been delightful to dress up and attend a fancy in-person event, and we did have the option of postponing the ceremony for whenever in-person activities resume (at this rate, maybe 2025?). But honestly, a video ceremony was a lovely and convenient option, especially with little children who would have been difficult to entertain at a fancy event.

Because of all the proposed changes to Australian visas and paths to citizenship in 2017, we didn't actually realise that we were eligible for citizenship... until the end of 2018. I was at dinner with Ben and his coworkers, some of whom were also American expats with Permanent Residency, and they were discussing their applications for citizenship.

"It's sooo tedious, but it's actually not as much work as the application for Permanent Residency," one of them was saying. 

"How long have you been a PR?" I asked, picking at my gestational diabetes-friendly salad.

"Just over a year."

"I thought you couldn't apply for citizenship until you've been a PR for four years..."

"They haven't actually made that change yet, it's still only a year--"

"WAIT WHAAAAT we've been PRs for over a year..!!"

I'd like to say we immediately went home and got cracking on our application. But we procrastinated a bit (aka I gave birth to Logan and we all got distracted) and didn't actually apply until the beginning of 2019. After that, it was just a waiting game (it can take anywhere from a few months to years for applications to be processed).

A few months later, we both got e-mails with the date and time of our scheduled interview and test in late November... which happened to be the day before we flew to the States for our most recent trip. (Thank goodness it wasn't the day after!) We both passed our separate interviews and aced our tests (a 20-question multiple choice test, formulated to test both English proficiency and the ability to regurgitate Australian facts). Because citizenship applications can't be finalised when people are out of the country (Ben had mentioned to his officer that we'd be gone for six weeks), they pushed our file to the front of the line and granted us our citizenship that very day, which is pretty rare. The only thing left for us to do was attend our ceremony, which we got to do seven months later.

This is an enormous privilege, one that we won't take for granted. Even though getting our permanent residency was expensive and challenging, and applying for citizenship was a lot of work as well, I think we had it pretty easy compared to many others. Quite a few of my former classmates from uni, also here on temporary visas, have been unable to secure subsequent visas or a path to citizenship and have had to leave the country - so I won't take our journey to citizenship for granted.

While we're grateful for the opportunity to stay in Australia forever (and most importantly, for our children to have more options when they grow up), our hearts are still with our loved ones and our old communities back in the States. Stay safe, everyone - and hopefully we'll be able to see some of you in the near future.

-your friendly Australian neighbours, the Kortlevers!

Candice goes back to work! (sort of.)

"Okay Candice, you're not a new mom anymore - time to get back to work!" said nobody at all to me.

But still. I kind of wanted to explore the possibility of going back to work, without having to give up my role as primary caretaker for the kids. It helped that baby Logan was much more easygoing than baby Arden, and I actually got breaks throughout the day (even just being able to put Logan in front of some toys for a minute was a luxury I didn't get with Arden until she was a bit older).

Anyway. Sometime around last fall, I started brainstorming ways I could transform one of my creative hobbies into something with potential to grow into a side job.

I dabble in a bunch of artistic areas, and therefore my skills are a bit mediocre. I write and record songs (if I had to pick one thing to do for the rest of my life, it would be this). I make videos, vlogs and montages, which I also write and record the music for. I sometimes write copy and articles for magazines and other publications. And I occasionally draw and paint whimsical and weird stuff. Education-wise, I have college degrees in general music and journalism. And absolutely no credentials for visual art.

So naturally, I decided to make visual art my current primary side-gig.

To be honest, visual art was always something that intrigued me, but for some strange reason I never seriously studied it. My last formal art class was in middle school, but from high school on I was steered towards the world of music, and all related extracurriculars (piano lessons, piano competitions, choir, more choir, musicals, orchestra, more orchestra and I really should have joined jazz band but I stupidly didn't why why why). I don't regret my studies of white patriarchal music, but I do regret not making room for other ventures during my adolescent years, especially visual art.

Flash forward to my post-college years in Fort Lauderdale and Seattle, where I dabbled in sketches and whimsical creations. Every time I showed something to a friend or posted a project on social media, people would either say, "what the heck is that?" or "that would look great on a t-shirt."

Flark = "Flying Shark" - pretty sure this was given to Ben as a "2-month dating anniversary" present. which should tell you what kind of mental state I was in.

inspired by moving day at the old Sunset House

In the 2010's I went through a quarterlife crisis in which I bought a huge pile of canvases and acrylic paints and decided to paint something for family members and friends and my boyfriend's family members and my boyfriend's friends (I also had a boyfriend in case I didn't mention that). Among many random things, I painted the Scooby-Doo van and a menorah made of cupcakes and a baseball field and an ugly Christmas sweater and I wasn't good at painting AT ALL, but I loved how acrylic canvases were sturdier than my former medium of sharpies and used dinner napkins.

mirror image running shoes. I have no idea what I used behind the paintings to prop them up but the more I look at it the scarier it seems so don't look at it too much okay

this cultural appropriation holiday tree took a while, but it looks cool

I forget what holiday I painted this for

I wasn't kidding about the ugly Christmas sweater... (I hope you guys still have it.)

...or the cupcake menorah...

...or the Scooby Doo van.

all the places I've lived (before Melbourne, obvi)

For our wedding, I also did a series of drawings I lovingly titled "Wedding-Con" - portraits of Ben and I dressed up as our favourite pop culture characters. I took photos of them and used the classy kodak prints as table number signs at our reception, much to my mother's delight.

Ben and Candice as Gambit and Rogue

Ben and Candice as Spider-Man and Venom, who was almost female in the comics (!!)

When we moved to Australia, I recoiled at the high prices of greeting cards (obviously I hadn't yet discovered the $2 card section at the grocery store) and decided to make my own personalised birthday/holiday cards for family using watercolours and sharpies, to which people would always say upon receiving them, "you should sell these" or "that would look great on a t-shirt."

this is my specialty/default - random stuff inside shapes, usually hearts.

sometimes numbers too.

more cultural appropriation holiday decor!

they don't sell Thanksgiving cards in Australia for some reason

not even Australian-themed ones.

I appreciated the compliments/suggestions of mass produced art, but at the same time... the idea of mass-production always stumped me. How did a drawing on a sheet of paper end up on a t-shirt? Did people scan their drawings and paintings and order them from a print shop? Take photos of them? Send them to a digital artist to render digitally? Nobody could really give me an answer. And also, part of my gimmick was personalization: people liked my stuff because it was usually a surprise present for someone that incorporated part of their personality or interests. I loved taking the time to create things specifically for people, but my designs aren't necessarily for mass appeal.

a more recent project: a birthday present for Ben that now sits in his empty office where nobody has set foot in months.

When I finally decided on making visual art my primary business, I had no idea where to start. Initially, I planned to paint acrylics and watercolours again and post them for sale individually, possibly on Etsy. I started making stencils of things so I could paint them several times: heart shaped designs filled with icons of cities I'd lived in. I began slowly working on them. But then...

It wasn't a viable setup. In our small apartment, I couldn't keep a proper art space - I needed a designated area where I could leave canvases out to dry, my paint supplies set out, and also where my curious kids wouldn't accidentally ruin anything.

my Melbourne heart stencil and a few "mass-produced" acrylic projects, on the stovetop and kitchen counter.

I used the same stencil for this watercolour

I also needed longer chunks of time because it took so long to set things up. Sometimes I would try using Logan's naptimes to work, but by the time I set up my workstation (the kitchen counter) and got ready to dive in, he'd already be awake, or close to it. And paint is a time-sensitive thing - it's not always easy to quickly stop mid-stroke and later pick up where you left off, because sometimes paint dries too quickly, or you need a minute for watercolours to get just the right consistency. Or something (like I said, I've never actually studied art!).

Finally I did some research and discovered the world of digital drawing. I had no idea that drawing tablets existed, and that this was how billions of people were designing t-shirts and such. I first tried downloading and playing around with a program called GIMP (a free alternative to Photoshop), then I shopped online for lower-end drawing tablets... but I caved and bought a new(er) iPad, an Apple Pencil, and an app called Procreate. And suddenly, mass-produced art was finally within reach.

So far, this is a great setup. I can work with interruptions, mistakes can be undone quickly and cleanly, I can work from anywhere (although portability doesn't really matter these days, does it?), and everything I create is easily uploaded onto merchandise sites. Digital art has some really cool advantages, such as using different layers for sketching and mapping out designs (no more eraser marks!), a wide array of virtual brushes, easy ways to make clean and symmetrical lines, and the ability to copy and paste between projects.

being a "working mom." kind of.

Digital art isn't the perfect medium for me. Many artists can make amazing works of art with Procreate and the Apple pencil (just look up #procreate on Instagram and see for yourself), so I know these tools are capable of incredible artwork. But I'm still fairly new at this, and I feel like my digital art lacks the soul of any of my watercolours or acrylics. Also, nothing beats the feel of real, physical mediums - water swirling with watercolour and bleeding imperfectly into itself, mixing acrylics to make the moodiest shade of olive green, painstakingly using the edge of a square brush to try creating a clean edge. Our world is becoming more digital everyday, but there's a magic in the analog and physical realms that can't be replicated in binary.

So far my business strategy has been to use print-on-demand websites (TeePublic and Redbubble). The sale margin is fantastically low (I get maybe a few dollars per purchase - or in the case of smaller items, a few cents!), but these companies cover every detail from printing, shipping, customer service, returns, and exchanges (basically, the stuff I don't have the time or space to deal with right now). Customers can choose from a wide variety of merchandise (mugs, a variety of shirts, baby onesies, bath mats, journals, tote bags, pins, magnets - I think they're making face masks too!). And from what I hear, the exchange policy is really good. A friend ordered a t-shirt one size too small and they received a larger size for free (and got to keep both shirts!), another noticed a printing error, and also received a replacement shirt at no cost. Also these websites have headquarters in both the US and Australia, so all of our families and friends can order within their own country without having to pay astronomical shipping costs.

stickers of my "Seattle Love" design

stickers of my "Melbourne Love" design

Currently, my designs have featured the aforementioned heart-shaped city icons, a few fun holiday designs, some of my old creations in digital form (the Flark and the happy-furniture drawings are both available), and I'm currently working on reviving an old series: a mashup of Chinese zodiac animals and the western astrology signs, which has absolutely no commercial appeal... but I'm determined to make those 144 drawings and nobody can stop me!

a mug featuring my "holiday heart" design

I've sold a few shirts (mostly sympathy orders from family and friends - thanks guys!), a few stickers, and during our most recent USA visit I ordered some of my own merch to give out as holiday presents and host gifts.

a tote bag featuring my "West Michigan love" design

these cards turned out really great!

My new hobby has ticked off a few boxes for me: a pathway to earn a tiny bit of extra money (and also in a more passive way, as I still need to be around 100% for the kids - especially since Arden no longer attends childcare, thankyou Covid), a fun new artistic/creative outlet that doesn't get catastrophically interrupted by the kids, and most importantly: an answer to "that would look great on a t-shirt. Have you thought about making them?"

I have. And you can buy one here or here!

some weirdo modelling my "Melbourne Love" design on a hoodie

CK