doing something over time is hard
Little Sister, Agnes Martin, 1962
Doing something over time is hard. Anyone who lives knows this. It’s unclear why making breakfast some days is this monumental task that can be pushed around until the body demands to be fed.
Writing is also like this, it requires patience, determination, and presence that if I am being honest is not always there.
And this is my favorite kind of practice. It is devotional, rhythmic, redundant even. It pounds it’s way out over time.
I have been thinking so much recently about belonging and the ways it is always becoming rather than staying fixed. For many years I have been a working artist, I make things. Drawings, photographs, experiences, sculptures, books, meals. I return to making because it calls me home. It lets me unravel and become and become again However one of my least favorite questions is to describe what it is I do. The question goes like this, “oh you are an artist, what do you do?” You know it happens at the community meeting or the pool after swim lessons.
Sometimes I say something about research and cultural institutions, social practice, or that I was trained as a painter.
But really I want to say something back…like how do you make the world? What do you do to imagine and become and reflect on change? How and when do you feel alive with possibility?
When I make things and I make things all day long, I think, feel, and dream into this place. Right now I make spreadsheets, timelines, materials lists and these are the places that I bring this feeling of possibility. I make them knowing that they are real/unreal/impossible/and everything.
This is belonging. This is making. This is noticing. Sometimes when they touch they might be the same thing.
And for today as the light slips around the leaves and I open too many tabs to correlate I remember to recognize myself in this and hope that for you too
Being and Breathing is the right kind of cadence to come back to yourself! Come to Being and Breathing in October! Can’t wait to see you there!
More classes are coming soon! I am working hard on them over here and can’t wait to share more soon.
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