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You can just be an artist. You don’t have to be a content creator, an influencer, you don’t have to make an ad or accept products for money*. For the artists reading this newsletter who everyday have their social media feed showing them hundreds of people they have never heard of making viral videos where they teach you things and sell you things and create fast fast fast paced imagery, you don’t have to do that too. You can just make your art.
I have been having an experience on the Internet lately where I am like - wow, I am really not tech savvy. I think at one point I was perhaps on pace with digital trends or even ahead of the curve. I mean Personal Practice in 2015 pre Tik Tok seems like I was on to something. Have Company podcast in 2014 I was really making waves. But today, I am inept at the reels, the little videos, the shareable graphics, the memes, the content creation of it all.
This is because I am not a content creator. Or maybe it’s because I got too sad the last six months to keep up. Or the more I consume the less I can even consider creating “digital content”. I want to fully believe in a world where I can still have my career and not have to bend to what other people are doing because I think I should. I want to continue to show others that you can craft an income, a hobby, a passion project, a business, an art career, without any social media or social capital or twitter or a footprint that feels out of alignment with your values.
Halsey recently came out talking about how her label wouldn’t let her release a song because they didn’t think it would be Tik Tok viral enough. This makes me feel so sad. The constant thoughts while we create of - will this reach the masses while we are creating will both block our process and keep our art from the people who need it. To disrupt this divine channeled experience from god is the worst thing we can do to ourselves and to those we may be of service of.
Your art will reach who it is supposed to reach. Your art may be digital, memes, reels as art. There is no question to me that this is a creative practice in itself, an extension of the other art forms. To force it though, this is no way to be an artist.
I want to write for what I sense we need, for what I sense I need. I want to share my work in the same forms I always have. Not in a format that feels shareable. I do not want to ever make a meme. I don’t want to take the Harry Styles song and link it to floating words to tell you why to make quilts. I want to listen to Harry Styles while I quilt and think about making out with him and borrowing his clothes.
I want to keep making art, keep teaching quilt and dance and art classes, no funnels no ads no weird graphics that stretch me beyond my natural capacity. This can be true, I have witnessed it as so. And I know that with each growing digital shift, the quality of my work will be what sustains me.
May your art be in integrity with your desires and wishes. May the way you share it be simple and true. May you be struck by the muse, may you share with great abandon.
This Sunday June 26 at 7pm EST I am cohosting THE BIG GAY SEWING CIRCLE with Zak Foster in the digital orbit of the zoom room
It is free and we hope you join us
Jamila Reddy is teaching self-care for people who feel sad and tired a lot which is the greatest title any workshop has ever had - SATURDAY 6/25 at 1pm EST
Here I am on the QUILT BUZZ podcast it is a fun listen
Ending Gemini Season with Gemini sounds
The sensation in your chest when you go from liking someone to really liking someone
Yes it is true it is here it is in the world WHO IS WELLNESS FOR : An Examination of Wellness Culture by Fariha Róisín
There are so few friends in the world I have like Fariha. Or there are none because no two are the same but wow. What a gift, my life was never the same after her. I even got to write a blurb for this book and it appears on the back cover. I hope you buy this book. Because it will completely transform you.
I would love to share my whole extended blurb with you here because it feels important to me.
In Who is Wellness For Fariha brings us on a journey through her own messy path to healing, reminding us that there is no such thing as an easy way around the pain, but we must walk through the fire one step at a time. This work and unpacking of wellness, the idea of being well, Róisín traces back to her own childhood - giving us a raw and vulnerable peak into the systems of her own body so that we may get to know our own. This is the magic of her story telling. As a novelist and a poet we see the way she shapes space and time - and in her first work of non fiction we are gifted this same picture painting of words, but this time with a radical invitation to choose ourselves when we want to abandon ourselves the most.
Drawing upon many modalities of healing, Fariha provides a framework for both someone just beginning their path to wellness, those who have tried everything and are tired of trying, and those who have established modes of care that work for them but are ready to dig deeper. Her voice throughout is one of gentleness, but of no apologies. Of direct care for the collective, but with a deep understanding of the way she walks through the world as an individual - and how Róisín ’s path might look different than ours - but her tireless work and research leads us to be able to look within and say - what can I apply to myself? How can I pivot towards myself, despite what I was or was not given as a child.
This book captures history, magic, mystery, and gives us a starting point of curiosity for who the wellness industrial complex leaves out. Fariha provides us a framework, for turning towards the parts that feel almost unbearable to look at, and to do it in great service to each other. Reading this book leaves me with more understanding of who not just wellness spaces, but all spaces leave out, specifically as a white reader. I am confronted with my own comfort in spaces and again, through Fariha’s generosity, walk away with tangible tasks and ways to walk through the world with more resources for myself and others.
We all know the well often and repeated phrase - healing isn’t linear. And as a person with chronic pain this sometimes makes me feel even worse, like when I have a win I cannot trust it. This book shows me even when I cannot trust my own body, I can trust that I am on the journey alongside my fellows. I am not alone in seeking wellness for myself, and arduous at times, most of the time, we go onward, together.
6. You can now pre-order Mimi Zhu’s book Be Not Afraid of Love
7. Juneteenth Blessings
8. Kayla Powers art opening at Cedar North : Friday July 1 6-8pm
9. Tomás Matos on Las Culturistas AND IN FIRE ISLAND which is so fucking good and cute and funny - listen and laugh your ass off. Possibly Matt Roger’s greatest I don’t think so honey EVER
10. When half your roll of film is weird because the lens cap didn’t open all the way but you accept it because life is a mystery, everyone must stand alone
*Shout out to all my readers who do do this, and consider this part of their creative practice. I love, respect, and admire you.
A portion of June’s paid subscriptions goes towards Up North Pride
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