All above images belong to Miso.

I had been aware of Miso's work for a while, but last year -- after somehow finding my work getting more and more caught up and associated with fashion/fashion illustration -- I stumbled across Miso's blog and my art-making-thoughts-and-feelings-reservations-and-anxieties all kind of clamoured together and then fell silent.

It was an 'aha' moment: This is what it's about.

Because, around the time that I rediscovered Miso's work, I was really struggling with ideas about the vacuous, shallow nature of (a lot of) the fashion industry, and the fact that my work was becoming increasingly involved with that side of things. In fact, I was starting to see fashion illustration and related work as one of the only pathways to making illustration a career -- which has a definite ring of soul-selling to it.

But anyway, seeing Miso's work -- from her beautiful street art and her homemade tattoos (always consciously delivered, friends only), to her poetic light-leaky polaroids and precise papercuts -- and the way her entire life and practice seems to be an extension of art, creation and beauty, made me think a lot about the paths I was taking. About taking a conscious approach to things, about creating beauty in lots of small things, and then eventually large things. About embodying your art, having it imbued in everything you do.

So, I'm not really done thinking about all that yet, but in the meantime, I'm just enjoying following an artist whose expression seems entirely pure and unfettered.

Check out more of Miso's work here.