Making a List
Wishing you brightness and good health in the year ahead...
As I move through the holiday blahs, I am wondering what I could say to you in this final post of 2021. What might be meaningful or useful, or really anythingful at this point in this year? I’m not sure I have many redemptive lessons to share. Nor do I have a pithy making-lemonade situation to describe. Instead, I just want to send you and your studio heaps of blessings. Wherever you find yourself as 2021 wraps up, in whatever state of mind, however the creativity is flowing (or not), I send you an extra dose of gentleness and brightness and I wish you good health and buckets of money and a community of beloveds to embrace you, always. You’re still here, and that’s really something, really worth pausing to acknowledge. Also: I’m glad you’re here.
In lieu of my normal weekly writing, I’m sending along a few things that brought light into my 2021, in the hopes that they also spark something for you.
In Houston for a few days this fall, I had the luxury of spending time with Jennifer Ling Datchuk’s exhibition at the Houston Center for Contemporary Craft, curated by Kathryn Hall. From the press release: “Using Asian motifs that are common in blue-and-white porcelain, coupled with the design and material language of domestic objects and feminine beauty products, Jennifer Ling Datchuk elevates stories of silent sisterhood and feminist perspectives while exposing systematic inequities that continue to stifle women’s progress.” The show is full of brilliant and beautiful work, smart and strident political critique. It’s satisfying on every level. It’s open until January 8th, for my Houston folks.
One of my favorite novels this year is a first novel, by writer Nathaniel Ian Miller, who also farms in rural Vermont (after a previous life as a journalist in New Mexico). His book, The Memoirs of Stockholm Sven imagines the life of Sven Ormson, a character based on a real arctic recluse who lived in a small hut he built in the 1920s in one of the world’s most difficult environments. It’s a book about friendships made from the deepest solitude—friendships with some incredible canine characters, with oneself, with books, with a few kindred spirits who also get lost in the wilderness. It’s a perfect winter read for our second pandemic winter.
Last year, I joined an online writing community, in the hopes that it would help me organize my writing days. It’s been an absolutely transformative space for me, for so many reasons. Founded by Quincy Flowers and Steffani Jemison (two personal heroes), at Louis Place is a writing community that is nonhierarchical, interdisciplinary, intergenerational, and prioritizes Black voices and revolutionary dreams. Many of the writers there are also visual artists, and they are currently opening up registration for the spring. If you’re looking for a community to support your writing, maybe consider taking a look at this one.
I’ve never been much of a podcast person until this extended period of isolation really set in. Now, podcast hosts feel like friends. I’m obsessed with You’re Wrong About, a podcast by Sarah Marshall and Michael Hobbes, which revisits news stories from recent history—think Tonya Harding, the O.J. Simpson trial, the Exxon Valdez spill, Y2K—and considers why the media portrayed them in the way they did. The show looks at issues of race, class, moral panic, and how they inform public sentiment in these cases. It’s well-researched and funny. Simultaneously, Michael Hobbes has been running a podcast with Aubrey Gordon called Maintenance Phase, which debunks wellness trends, particularly around body shame and fat stigma, and I could listen to Aubrey’s laugh for weeks. Thoughtful and sensitive, this show has helped me rethink what wellness means and why. Lastly, the mini-series Dolly Parton’s America, by Jad Abumrad (who you might know from Radiolab) is a total joy. Looking closely at the different facets of Dolly Parton’s fandom, music history, and politics, the podcast also thinks about why she has particular resonance internationally. I think you’ll like it.
One of the best things about pandemic living is how many events that were formerly only available to people in places like New York moved online. In particular, the Cooper Union’s Intra-Disciplinary Lecture Series has been full of brilliant speakers this year, including Natalie Diaz, Naufus Ramírez-Figueroa, Grada Kilomba, Mariame Kaba, Christine Sun Kim… I hope that they retain this online platform for future iterations. Organized by Leslie Hewitt and Omar Berrada, the lecture series is free and open. Its online archive of talks (including a video of Greg Tate!) is worth checking out, too.
I’m sure I’ve mentioned to you how thoughtful the curation of this year’s Texas Biennial was, by Ryan N. Dennis and Evan Garza. I wrote a whole thing about it, which you can find, here. Two sites remain open for just a bit longer, both in San Antonio: Ruby City’s Studio space, which includes work by Sondra Perry, Jamal Cyrus, Melvin Edwards, and Mich Stevenson, Ann Johnson, and Ariel René Jackson and the McNay, which includes the Filipinx Artists of Houston, Adriana Corral, and Joo Young Choi, among others.
One of my favorite witchy ladies is Rebecca Schoenecker, a formerly Chicago-based tarot reader, artist, musician, and clairvoyant who is—in a wild coincidence—married to an artist who taught me video art in rural Georgia in the early 2000s. Anyway, Rebecca has just created a 60-card oracle deck called Shadowspeak, which invites reflection on shadow energies. She writes, “The destructive, leaden energies we carry give way to deeper understanding and luminescence.” The deck is gorgeous and the accompanying book is full of thoughtful observations for thinking about the darknesses we carry.
I’ve been working with an arts-based accountant in a Money Bootcamp for creatives that has helped me tremendously in organizing my financial life: over the course of that program, I came across Ryan Roi, a financial advisor for people in the arts. He offers one-on-one sessions, small group workshops, and a free newsletter, all dedicated to offering ideas for your financial well-being, particularly if you are freelance and experience the ebb-and-flow of freelance financial life, which can be tremendously challenging and, at its worst, filled with shame and panic. I find Ryan’s advice to be practical and optimistic, and I highly recommend him.
As I write this list, I realize how many other exhibitions, objects, books, lectures, hikes, animals, songs, jewelry-makers, ceramicists, bakers, post office employees, writers, organizers, landscapes, plants, and astrologers have brought joyful creative work into my life: I’m so grateful for these sparks. And I am so proud of my friends and colleagues who have made moments of meaningful encounter this year, of all years.
With warmth & gratitude for your presence in my life and my writing, I wish you and yours a better and brighter year ahead,
Laura