Dear friends,
I got a tattoo this week from an artist I initially reached out to in 2021. A long time coming but I think I really have ~an artist~ now. We talked nonstop for four hours. I went in expecting to get flash or a silly idea I’d recently thrown out: sardines, a Buffy the Vampire Slayer portrait, Pinocchio. Instead, I showed up and she had drawn out a birdhouse and cardinal which are very much symbols of my Gram and Grampa. It was the day after the solstice, my Gram’s birthday. A lot of little synchronicities like that keep happening. I’m noticing it more and more I think because I am paying more attention.
After struggling to take myself on artist dates, I would say I went on three this week: an appointment at the Keen Collection of outsider art (and they gave me a fancy coffee table art book as a gift), a trip to the Resource Exchange in Philly (secondhand craft supplies) and free tickets to see the BFG at the Arden Theatre with these big puppets. At the Keen Collection I got to see Howard Finster pieces and find new artists I’m excited about. Alex is putting on an art show centered around the movie Moonstruck, and in addition to a song I’ve been wanting to push myself to actually make art. I was taking a lot of notes on what materials artists used — one person used charcoal and spit, another used orange crates. I like the idea of being resourceful in the materials used, how that might inform the art itself.
7 lines from my week:
I’m reminded of my shapes & it is
uncomfortable.
When I move through the house,
even Victorian-ly (doing nothing) my hips
creak.
Horror vacui is Latin, the language of exorcisms,
meaning fear of empty space.
Joni says
I don’t know clouds at all in her later life
alto.
Last night I wept to Bob Dylan, Gram’s birthday.
Feel like I’m knocking on heaven’s door.
I want to write a song that lasts, not only
document each day.
I love
people who know themselves & laugh
about it.
Dad says I come from a line of butchers.
Week 4 of the Artists’s Way tell us not to read for week because it is a “distraction.” It was written 30 years ago, and the way they were talking about it I was like OH you’re talking about social media. So I deleted Instagram for a handful of days just to see. I listened to the news and podcasts more to keep up with what’s happening in Palestine. The major things I noticed were that, first of all, it was easier to trace moments of anxiousness—my attention span gets so messed up from scrolling, sometimes I get a big, bad feeling and have no idea where it came from, and then second of all I’m moving towards trusting my feelings and discernment more. This, to me, primarily comes from the morning pages (those three pages of stream of consciousness every morning) but it also helps to move slower in general, to be off of Instagram, and my mind is not so quickly writing off gut feelings or being trained to question myself. I think it is good and important to ask questions about what we have learned, the information we are sharing, and our belief systems, but I don’t think it is good to always be moving from self-doubt. Historically I have veered too much into self-doubt. I might try deleting Instagram off my phone and only looking on my computer, so I’m still tapped in to what is happening but there’s less mindless scrolling? I’m experimenting with that. But anyways, I mentioned the economic strikes last newsletter, and then this week there was a call to continue strikes on Mondays until Palestine is free. So now it’s just a part of my budget, and I invite you to think about commitments you can make too!
Some art I’m thinking about:
If you can’t tell from my poems I had big moments with Joni Mitchell’s live performance of “Both Sides Now” from Newport Folk Festival and Bob Dylan’s “Knocking on Heaven’s Door”
Been thinking about June McDoom a lot, wrote about her EP With Strings here
The BFG costumes
learning how to sew — working on my mummers costume this week and I’m going to be a horseshoe crab
The art that is Shonda Rhimes’s writing for Grey’s Anatomy
Shlagha sent me this poem and I think it’s amazing, from Sand Journal.
APRÈS-SOLEIL II by Gamze S. Saymaz
Bikini briefs hanging from the bathtub faucet like some tired fruit dripping nectar.
I was talking with my life coach about the medicine of the fool, that tarot card. How it’s more about trusting that you will figure it out, rather than always having to be prepared. That it is about playfulness and curiosity and exploration, rather than urgency and competency. I feel like I’m finally more open to that way of moving through the world. I was telling Alex I’m really proud of how much I’ve worked on myself as a person, and not just career things, since moving to Philly. I haven’t arrived but it is nice to feel more openness, less dread. To be proud of who I am and how I show up to the world.
Sending love from my kitchen table in Maryland,
Sara Mae