shani 🌱 (sf)

wrote this a month ago & 15 people liked it & that was enough to make me happy & put it out of mind. this weekend someone at substack found it & featured it & I went from around 100 subscribers to almost 4k over a few days. surreal.

the replies compelled me to go outside & immediately i saw a man with a cat standing on his shoulders & a ridiculously hot guy reading on the steps & nearly got hit by a citibike & waited in line for an hr for dinner & walked to the river and looked at pink wisps in the sky

for me, painting was never the point. it was an excuse to look at something closely, to feel my mind settle, to be more patient ai art seems like a shortcut or a threat, but it really isn't it doesn't change the fact that i still need to put in effort to get the brain i want

at plum village (buddhist monastery) in the south of france my friend picked me up from the train station with a box of fresh plums. i almost cancelled this trip bc of work & that scares me, how willing i was to sacrifice goodness and plum trees to look at my laptop

Solo founders are underestimated. We’re changing that. In May we launched the Solo Founders Program (<1% acceptance rate) for six founders to build together in SF. 60 days in: millions raised, 35k GitHub stars, rapid growth. Join us: Fall 2025 applications close soon.

my paintings got accepted in an exhibit at a gallery in sf !!! it’s my first time applying for an open call & i’m so excited

in long distance, we had a routine of learning & teaching one thing to each other every week he chose the topic & i did a deep dive & we have a v long call with images & graphics explaining the findings he chose “weird animal mating rituals”

when i love a book, like really really love, it’s absorbed into my heart like water in a sponge & i can wring it out over a piece of paper & it becomes a painting

went to canada to “renew passport” (see friends & eat summer fruits & find tiny maple leaves on the ground)

looking for new housing in sf in the next 1-2 months! if ur looking for a roommate or know anyone who is, pls let me know (college roommates review👇)

man that was a lot of bricks

was so looking forward to this trip to nyc but so far, i've had a hard time leaving the apt looking for ur creative & adventurous & spirited ideas on how to spend the next week

love people watching on public transit what if the love you wait your whole life for takes 72 years to arrive? how would you pass the time? so you can meet them with a pouch full of stories like river stones, smooth paperweights for the mind?

it was a good day to be outside

this was my first time painting a fund launch party & it was not what i expected it was a renaissance party combined with a warehouse rave at some point i look up & a blue school bus full of poetry is parking inside the warehouse & no one seems fazed?? @1517fund

I got to meet @sha_zng, an incredible bay area artist, during my month living at @JoinEdgeCity . Loving her latest project: she tunes into the world around her thru people's stories and illustrates the convo live with watercolors. Thanks for the fun chat, and spotlight! 💚