Work Notes 

THIS WEEKEND : SUNDAY JULY 19 : D A Y  Q U I L T : A 4 hour class to create an improvisational quilt live on zoom (recorded) Payment plans and scholarships available 

PROMPTS : Subscribe to my analog newsletter that includes a letter and ten writing prompts. Subscribe by the end of July to receive August's issue on Edges

Dear Reader,

The journey of being alive continues. Thank you for such thoughtful responses to my newsletters the past few weeks, writing from the bottom of the well. Things feel a little sturdier today which I am grateful for. Where does this steadiness come from? I am not totally sure. Maybe time with my parents, a short trip to Wisconsin with my dad and my aunts, more intentional time with Katy, asking for help at every turn of the page.

If you’re new here, welcome. I have written every Monday since 2017 and at this time the newsletter is free on the first Monday of the month and written for paid subscribers on the other Mondays. It is $5/month to read personal essays on queerness, living rurally, staying alive, quilting, writing, and more. Think of it as a live journal with a lot of intricate life details written by an adult instead of a teen that lands in your email inbox and not on an app. From Xanga to now I’ve been writing publicly on the internet for over twenty years.

This upcoming Sunday I am teaching D A Y Q U I L T - my first one day online quilting class in six years. I have only ever taught quilting this way when I was testing A Quilt is Something Human (my four week quilting class) back in 2020. Class is $95 with payment plans, scholarships, and free tuition for BIPOC students. Read all about it here.

As I prepare for class this weekend I am thinking about how we piece everything together, especially an art practice and a creative business. What are the differences, what are the similarities, how do they all go together? What is the patchwork of needing to make money and also creating just for the sake of creating?

Yesterday on my drive home from downstate to the northwoods I listened to Fiona Apple* the whole way. I find that when I feel nuts it helps to put on someone just as nuts as me. Exploring the depths of my decision making through the back roads as I also thought about how I would design class and design my week and design my life.

What I came up with isn’t perfect but it’s a wonky start, a drift into obscurity (a state of being unknown).