studio:
I’ve recently become intrigued by the concept of “summering,” the seasonal ritual undertaken by the wealthy where they spend the warmer months on an extended vacation, usually somewhere like an island or a lake or a country in western Europe. I first heard the term at the big age of 26 (not coming from a family that “summers,” apparently) when I was working as a teaching assistant at an upper-middle-class elementary school in Austin, Texas, and some of the students were discussing their upcoming trips. What interests me most about this seasonal migration is the freedom of movement it implies. Whenever June rolls around, you can just be somewhere else, provided you have the resources.

For most of us, summer 2026 brought the now usual gifts: fires, floods, food you can’t eat. You’d never know it, though, looking through the online presences of recent LAC grads and reality TV influencers. They have their somewhere else. Freedom of movement granted by various levels of privilege is one determinant of a community’s resilience to environmental change. “Summering,” then, can be viewed through the lens of the ever-widening gulf between socioeconomic classes as one example of how climate disaster disproportionately affects poor people.

As the Earth’s summers get longer, hotter, and more chaotic due to climate change, I wonder where the rich will set up their temporary retreats. Maybe they’ll now be gone from April to November; maybe they’ll gobble up the new coastlines that appear with fluctuating sea levels. Maybe that’s why they’re so hell-bent on getting to Mars.

This year I tried to go swimming at my community pool as much as possible, I got my hands on a set of oil pastels, and I worked hard to expand my palette, which ended up featuring yellow pretty heavily. Naples yellow, yellow ochre, cadmium yellow, lemon yellow. Yellow as the color of old pages, smokers’ walls, jaundice, goldenrod, flax, and margarita mix.

exhibitions, etc

• current group show: Little Death 2026 Print Swap Exhibition at 82Parris, Portland, ME | September 4 - 25

• upcoming group show: What the Land Remembers at the Center For Environmental Transformation, Camden, NJ | October 3 - November 20 | opening: October 3, 12 - 4 pm at CFET

• featured retail artist: I’m honored to be selected as one of Little Death Art’s fall 2026 retail artists—browse on their webshop or at one of their upcoming pop-up events

• online shop update: I added a few original paintings to my online shop, and I probably won’t be bringing back the Mary Oliver bootleg sticker for a while (sorry)

Substrate:

Substrate 09 is now available to read, download, and distribute at substratezine.cargo.site. Print copies won’t be added to the shop for a while, as I unexpectedly lost my teaching job (yay district budget cuts) and am prioritizing rent over printer ink for now. Que sera.

Thank you to this issue’s contributors: allison anne, Antoni Tylkowski, Darya Foroohar, Elliott Sharpe, Emily Pizano, Escalator73, Felisha Wild, Jeb Katsiopis, jenny lloyd, Lulu Brush, Marley Massey, Nonbeaunary, okaypainter, SEER, Tamizh Ponni VP, tideinplace, WALLACHILD

After this issue, Substrate is on hiatus until 2027 and will return as a twice-yearly publication. I want to give this project the attention and care it deserves when I have more capacity to do so.