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Arts and Ecology 2019 Events
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Writer + Visual Artist

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I got commissioned by @agapearl to work on a poster for #freedomcities on #JustTransitions and #abolition. So grateful to listen in on such important conversations and contribute my work to forwarding @mia.mingus’ insight and liberation for all people✨ Repost @agapearl “Join us tomorrow, 4/23, as we continue the conversation, learning how communities are creating new economy structures like co-ops and community land trusts as experiments for how we can be in right relationship with one another. We will discuss how directly impacted folks are taking their labor out of the prison industrial complex, all while creating mechanisms to reclaim and self-govern stolen wealth. To register: Bit.ly/EconWebinar + link in bio. this is an original piece of art by @gisellebuchanan, in response to a conversation we curated on #abolition and #JustTransition, and I am so honored to have collaborated with them on it! If you take a look at Giselle’s art, it reminds us that personal transformation is possible in each of us RIGHT NOW and this feels foundational for creating a new status quo where we take care of each other. Because if I don’t believe in my *own* ability to transform, I may not believe in yours, either. This powerful quote they illustrated by @mia.mingus makes me think of one of @adriennemareebrown‘s #EmergentStrategy principles. Fractals remind us that we need to create liberated building blocks between you and me first, so that we can stack these and create the homes, neighborhoods, cities and societies that finally allow us to feel whole and well.”
My new zine is finally finished🌿🌻💜 you can get your copy at the link in my bio. 30 pages of full color paper collage illustrations (a few with some digital edits) and poems. The people on my mailing list got first dibs so some new items on the site are sold out til I can refill. There are still some zines left. You can use the code HAPPYBIRTHDAY at checkout for 15% off today til Monday. I also put the Love Letter to Self zine on the site as an Ebook for people who have never read my work and want an inexpensive entry way before purchasing a physical copy of future zines. So much love to all of you!
Today is April 20th, the beginning of Taurus season, a national holiday, a pink moon and my birthday. I'm growing and changing every day. I'm saying yes to myself even when everything I see is unrecognizable. I'm learning to love my bare bones so that the adornments, when they come, are treasured but unnecessary. I don't look or feel as glowy as these photos suggest all the time but they are reminders that I have and deserve to~~~ so happy birthday to me 🌸💐☄✨🌿🌙🎨🎉🌟💜
Here’s a cactus print I made a few years back since a few of you were really enthusiastic about me sharing the textiles☺️💜🌿. I’ve been in a massive creative flow and so I’ve locked in on that for a while. I’m feeling really excited and free, but also quiet and introspective. Maybe because it’s Spring. I’ve just been wanting to get organized, shed and dream. Is it just me? I have so much beauty to share and some of it is coming here soon. . 🌿 . I started a newsletter for people who really enjoy what I create. I want to be more specific about the ways I’m sharing and prioritize those people first instead of always shouting into the void (though the void can be entertaining). If you feel a deep resonance with my offerings, you can sign up for my monthly love letter in my bio. There will be lots of art, music, books, and plants involved (but of course that’s obvious, because it’s me cmon). It will be very beautiful and intentional, like everything I create. . 🌿 . I hope everyone is feeling good and putting their bare feet in some dirt/grass from time to time. Love to you all.
(Please do not share this). Excerpt from my forthcoming poetry zine filled with colorful collaged illustrations and writings from this year and last. I really enjoy working with the medium of printed material to tell stories. I feel like I can create a whole world that way.
What I’m speaking of shedding is the accumulated voices that bury your true voice, that keep you from knowing what you think, how you feel, and what you believe- specifically when it comes to the creative process. I believe that most people who identify as “blocked creators” are moving through a process of shedding voices that are not theirs. So many of us have a mental basket where we store all the criticism we’ve heard about our work and general worth. Often, that basket is subconscious but it serves as a very real barrier between us and the act of making. The past retrograde put this practice of sorting through my conditioning into turbo drive , but slowly, slowly I am recognizing the conditioning more quickly. Asking myself these questions: Is this what I was taught to believe or is this how I truly feel? Is this my fear speaking or is this my truest self? A lot of us aren’t encouraged to ask. It’s changing the way I create. Making me more consistent. I’m making more now, in a much freer way. Even this act of sharing is a practice of moving past the fearful voice of my inheritance. Sharing myself in this way was super scary before I began, because of what I was taught to believe. Some days I still feel vulnerable and exposed but I hold space for it. I move though. Because this comes from the voice which says I don’t really know what I know. I have no right to share. The voice that says I should dim myself because other people have something ‘better’ to say, and truthfully that isn’t my voice at all. Because the truest part of me knows that I have learned some of my most cherished lessons from unlikely sources. That strangers and children and friends and elders have given me my real education. That we all have something of value to offer to the other, which is what makes true connection so beautiful. Adding my me-shaped piece to the puzzle adds to the collective completion.  I come back into integrity with my creative self when I let go of all the voices I was taught to use as a filter before I step into my own. In doing so, I step into my truest self and she steps into the world.
This month is my birthday and I’m celebrating with a relaunch of my website. I’ve been visioning and working hard every day. Making art I’m proud of. Here’s a sneak peak of what’s to come.
l got my first two pieces of internet hate over the past two weeks lol. Someone didn’t like my lettering and color choices 💁🏾‍♀️and then another person wrote the longest essay- I truly didn’t even understand most of it. As artists, it’s easy to get lost in how people will receive what we are creating. It really doesn’t matter what it is. People will love it or they won’t. That doesn’t matter either. In order to make sure we aren’t led down unmanageable paths, we must learn how to trust our own instincts regardless of what people think. Honing in on your own artistic instinct is the only way you can build a relationship of trust between yourself and the creation process. The people will not be in the room with you each time you happen upon a new thing. A new color palette. A new technique. A poetic form you want to sit in for a while. They might not like it as much as they liked what you did before (or at all). Continuous growth and interior interrogation should be the goal of the creative process. Trying on different hats to hone in on your voice. You must ground yourself in your own choices to develop a relationship of trust between you and your work. These days, I’ve been learning how intuition and resonance live as a physical and visceral feeling in my body. When I hear something that rings as truth for me, I get chills. Goosebumps. My heart wells up. When I read something I wrote or look at something I made and am met with these feelings, this is how I have learned to trust that what I made is good. This is the map I’ve always followed unconsciously and is what I am now working to develop with intention. As I learn, read, see, and feel more, the internal guidance adjusts to what I’ve added to my knowing and my relationship to what I make changes. In this time when we are so easily swayed in one direction or the other, making sure that we are staying true to what fills and flows through us regardless of how other people feel about it is the way that we remain in integrity with our works so that we can continue to make them. Try everything. Be all that you want to be. Learn to listen for the quiet stirring of what resonates as truth for you.
 
 
 
 
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