iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Julia Hayden @julenesque.bsky.social · 9h

At what point does ChikFilA decide to fire their ad agency?

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Julia Hayden @julenesque.bsky.social · 01/10/2026

Just in time for prime gifting season: Go check out my friend Natalie's shop!

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Julia Hayden @julenesque.bsky.social · 01/10/2026

I have begun to unpile my studio & restore it to a functional workspace. So far, I have had 3 "good" ideas that were actual good ideas, 5 "good" ideas that were terrible, no-good, or otherwise bad ideas, & 1 "bad" idea that was truly terrible. The office supervisor has broken out industrial side-eye

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Julia Hayden @julenesque.bsky.social · 30/09/2026

Another portal, another morass of terrible UI decisions. OnFocus should not trigger error messaging; 3 different pathways to pay a bill in 3 different locations with 3 different UIs each missing basic functionality is ux malpractice; remote errors are wrongly translated and scare users.

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Julia Hayden @julenesque.bsky.social · 29/09/2026

This plump little bird (in watercolor pencils) has eschewed the original pretzel for a cheese puff, the snack of champions. #OliveArtClub

Watercolor pencil drawing of a foraging bird, probably punch drunk on Cheetos

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Julia Hayden @julenesque.bsky.social · 24/09/2026

Nothing like daytime tv to make me feel like a curmudgeon muttering about kids (or rather, the middle-aged) needing to get off my lawn.

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Julia Hayden @julenesque.bsky.social · 22/09/2026

White text on a light green background is never a good idea if you want something to be usable, readable, productive, helpful, or seen. Making it 8pt isn't helping matters, either. I am forced to assume the packaging designer here is either 12, completely untrained, or AI.

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Julia Hayden @julenesque.bsky.social · 21/09/2026

Still on the Neo IIs for this week’s #OliveArtClub. Trying to cure myself of expecting better layering over blends (but I still keep trying and getting frustrated). I still feel like I should like these more than I do.

A squat tomato drawn in red and brown and green.

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Julia Hayden @julenesque.bsky.social · 21/09/2026

Of the many many dumb debates I am going to opt out of today, the top 2 are: *Is Illustration Art?*and *Is [Specific Thai Restaurant] good?*

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Julia Hayden @julenesque.bsky.social · 17/09/2026

Vaguely threatening texts/mail/calls about my voting being in the public record (and can be looked up) and that I should vote this year are icky, annoying, and non-effective, and I've gotten variations of this for decades. Hamhandedly trying to use peer pressure is dumb. Why waste money on this?

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Julia Hayden @julenesque.bsky.social · 16/09/2026

For this week’s #OliveArtClub: Watercolors & Neocolors II (still figuring these out!) in my sketchbook that rippled more than usual. This time I only stopped 1.5 minutes too late. Progress!

A picture of a round Green-grey-yellow vase (pottery)

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Julia Hayden @julenesque.bsky.social · 16/09/2026

Oh! This is wonderful - a croc, a whistle, mayan blue. I, of course, went to see if anyone was making a modern paint version of Maya blue, and am skeptical about the true-to-blueness of what I found. That said, a book came out last year about the color, and it's #1 on my readling list now.

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Julia Hayden @julenesque.bsky.social · 08/09/2026

A glorious tigger melon for this week’s #OliveArtClub, done in c. 1980s Pentel markers. The bigger drawing was first and all was going well until I tried to add some darker tones at the top. I then tried a smaller version, next, with slightly better shading & less satisfying patterning.

A drawing of orange and yellow melons with tigeresque stripey patterning.

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Julia Hayden @julenesque.bsky.social · 04/09/2026

My last post was in reference to this latest episode in "As Chapel Hill Turns," where the sky gets bluer before the next storm slowly rolls in and finds every hole in the roof.

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Julia Hayden @julenesque.bsky.social · 04/09/2026

I fully expect to get a fundraising call from UNC soon for a masked fund that will end up being used for PR/Crisis Mgmnt. (Also got calls after Fake Classes and Silent Sam for this purpose). They never call me for anything academic or libraryesque. Ever. It's like they have no data on me at all.

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Julia Hayden @julenesque.bsky.social · 03/09/2026

For me, Cassandra Wilson was one of those people whose albums were an automatic buy. You were going to hear something good, something interesting, something moving, something wonderful. My introduction to her - Blue Light 'Til Dawn - is one of the foundational albums of my life.

apnews.com

Cassandra Wilson, the two-time Grammy Award-winning jazz singer, has died

Cassandra Wilson, the two-time Grammy-winning jazz singer, has died. She was 70. Her manager said she died in her native Jackson, Mississippi, surrounded by family and friends.

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Julia Hayden @julenesque.bsky.social · 01/09/2026

This week’s #OliveArtClub is also an opportunity to try out Neocolors II - it took me a while to find my stride and start to figure out how to work with them. (I know, I know, I’m late to the cool kids party.)

Sketches of a zinnia, parts of a zinnia, and seeing what Neocolor IIs could do

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Julia Hayden @julenesque.bsky.social · 01/09/2026

Still wondering how McGuire decided the businessdudes on Holiday Drive were more worthy of championing than the businessdudes on River Road. It probably came down to who gave him the most money and having done no actual research on his own into the problem/potential solutions, but he does clunk on.

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Julia Hayden @julenesque.bsky.social · 31/08/2026

I swore this year that I would not buy new art supplies - I was pretty confident that - between my own hoard, inherited stashes, my excellent local creative reuse, estate and yard sales, I wouldn't need to. I made it to August before I cracked in the face of a good sale. So far, I regret nothing!

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Julia Hayden @julenesque.bsky.social · 25/08/2026

This is the best thing I've read about Dolly today. Don't Rock the Inbox is one of the few subscriptions I have that I never complain about, and don't question the cost.

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Julia Hayden @julenesque.bsky.social · 25/08/2026

This is currently my favorite Dolly song. We should all be lucky (and ambitious and work hard) enough to make 1/100th of the positive impact she made on the world.

youtube.com

Dolly Parton - The Grass Is Blue - The Grass Is Blue

YouTube video by Music

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Julia Hayden @julenesque.bsky.social · 25/08/2026

Little wizards of artcraft! A closeup of the packaging for your entertainment

Closeup of vintage lino cutters packaging

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Julia Hayden @julenesque.bsky.social · 25/08/2026

I found some 1950s lino cutters (love the packaging) in my grandmothers stash, so I made this week’s #OliveArtClub with them. The black one (block ink) is the very first print. The brown paint print is from the 2nd round. The orangey brown is stamp ink. The multicolor is paint over a print.

4 prints from a rubber block arranged with the centers aligned to the middle. A little box for the different cutter blades is at the top because it has a 40sesque design

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Julia Hayden @julenesque.bsky.social · 17/08/2026

I am genuinely horrified that they are making drones for schools that can shoot people.

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Julia Hayden @julenesque.bsky.social · 17/08/2026

This week’s #OliveArtClub is a glorious eggplant. I went for some aged acrylic paints for this one, and should have done the background first!

Painting of an purple eggplant on a blue background

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Julia Hayden @julenesque.bsky.social · 17/08/2026

The best way to wish someone a happy birthday is to send them an email that they have a new message in their medical portal (that makes my mom set a new password each time she logs in) phrased in a way that makes it seem highly urgent they log in.

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Julia Hayden @julenesque.bsky.social · 10/08/2026

This week’s #OliveArtsClub meant I could pull out the orange pencils! This was particularly nice since I’ve been doing lake studies this morning.

A lumpy pumpkin done in watercolor pencils

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Julia Hayden @julenesque.bsky.social · 04/08/2026

I did three versions of this week’s #OliveArtClub challenge, and this is the best of the lot. In related news, the oil color pencils are getting donated to my local creative reuse, and the painted version will likely get painted over into new life as a goofy worm.

The in-house critic looks away sadly. As an expert in both paws and art, Bella the cat agrees this is the best of the three attempts.

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Julia Hayden @julenesque.bsky.social · 02/08/2026

I have a wide variety of colored pencils inherited from my grandmother, my father, my father's grad students, "helpful friends", and my own whimsical purchases. Of them all, I hate the old school Eberhard Fabers the most. Uninformative, underpigmented, thin, reluctant to color. Bad pencils, bad!

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Julia Hayden @julenesque.bsky.social · 31/07/2026

I have done a bunch of small organizational things that I hope will bear big fruit in the future. Papayas, not grapes. Cantelopes, not kumquats. Pineapples, not disappointingly tiny fruits claiming to be specimen lemons.

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Julia Hayden @julenesque.bsky.social · 31/07/2026

So there's going to be a sign outside the Smithsonian warning of incorrect info ... I can only assume they are challenging the so-called fact that John Adams was the 2nd President. I mean: come on. He wasn't even from Virginia! He defended British Soldiers! Didn't fight in F&I war! Not electable!

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Julia Hayden @julenesque.bsky.social · 29/07/2026

There comes a point when you need to stop painting. I was 6 minutes too late or too early. This is more floral than squashy. Acrylic. #OliveArtClub

This a painting of a theoretical patty pan squash that barely resembles the subject. A profound meh.

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Julia Hayden @julenesque.bsky.social · 26/07/2026

I am throwing out elderly paint that is more solid than viscous today, and I feel bad that I could not save it after a good decade in a Virginia Barn and assorted other indignities. I am usually pretty good at reconstituting paint, and finding a use for it in some way, no matter how goofy or fine.

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Julia Hayden @julenesque.bsky.social · 25/07/2026

There's nothing like a refrigerator revealing itself to be a complete and utter lemon to inspire one to ruthlessly cull through one's freezer and condiment collections.

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Julia Hayden @julenesque.bsky.social · 23/07/2026

I was done adulting for the week before my four year old refrigerator failed overnight. I could get it fixed, but the parts used would be as defective as the ones currently on there. Also, I got irrationally mad after I slammed a bag of ice onto the floor to break it up, & the bag split. Big Mad!

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Julia Hayden @julenesque.bsky.social · 22/07/2026

If I were to tune into a national evening news broadcast, why would I choose one that wants to tell me "stories" and tries to avoid the word "news" entirely? I have other better resources for stories. I want to know what is actually happening in the world in a non-skewed way.

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Julia Hayden @julenesque.bsky.social · 22/07/2026

Almost all of my studio furniture/cabinet is on sliders or casters, and it is the best thing ever. Need to move something four feet away from an exposed pipe? Just lean casually. Think it'd be more useful to create a tower of shelves? Try it! Then move it again after your foolishness is writ large.

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Julia Hayden @julenesque.bsky.social · 21/07/2026

For this week’s #OliveArtClub, a quick and dirty sharpie number on scrap paper. My studio is currently piled up in a heap of creativity in advance of the pipes to the radiators being replaced. I just stick my hand in and whatever I pull out: Art!

An ink bottle drawn in sharpies on a pink background. It looks a little tipsy (literally!)

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Reposted by Julia Hayden

Trung Le Nguyen @trungles.com · 16/07/2026

For your convenience, the Pride and Prejudice live-posting super-thread 📚

A drawing of Elizabeth Bennet, a lovely young woman with her long hair tied up nearly under a ribbon and wearing what is most likely a neo-classically inspired dress, looking pensive, two letters in her hand. Meanwhile Darcy, a handsome but stern-looking fellow, looks longingly at her. Also there is me, a little gremlin in big round glasses, skulking about in the background and hoping that they kiss.

The accompanying text reads “Trung reads Pride and Prejudice for the first time, somehow.”

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Reposted by Julia Hayden

Dr. Jeroen W.P. Wijnendaele @drdragases.bsky.social · 16/07/2026

I am once again begging Hollywood to stop using the Greek alphabet for an Ancient World movie, if they can't afford to even throw a couple of quid at anyone with an inkling of the language. Unless they really think audiences are dying to see THS THDPSSSSPS

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Julia Hayden @julenesque.bsky.social · 14/07/2026

Dragonfruit in watercolor pencils.

A drawing/painting of a passion fruit sliced in half

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Julia Hayden @julenesque.bsky.social · 14/07/2026

We have peer reviewed a recent evaluation of a local ice cream chain and find it 100% accurate. No notes.

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Julia Hayden @julenesque.bsky.social · 13/07/2026

My cat is in the cat carrier and it is the worst thing. Ever. In all recorded history. She is currently wailing all the lamentations.

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Julia Hayden @julenesque.bsky.social · 09/07/2026

I went to turn off Instagram's (automatically enabled) Let AI do Whatever it Wants to your Content settings. For me, those settings are available in the instagram App on my phone, but are not available from the website when visited by a desktop browser. super-annoying.

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Julia Hayden @julenesque.bsky.social · 09/07/2026

I dropped my printer yesterday. For the third time in the last five years, it slid right out and onto the floor as I was doing something stupid (moving the thing it sits on). I cannot bring myself to see if it still prints because there's no good reason why it should. I clearly have used up my luck.

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Julia Hayden @julenesque.bsky.social · 08/07/2026

I have been working on a paper ale bowl, and am down to the last few steps before it is done. For each of these steps, I have smugly said "This is the hardest layer. I'm glad I'm getting it done before the others. It should be easy from here out." Hahahahaha!

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