In front of me, to my left.
Orange post-it reads: Jabbberwocky & Prisencolinensinainciusol
Pink post-it (top) reads: What is important to you?
Pink post-it (bottom) reads: How does it make you feel?
Stop The World I Wanna Get Off patch by Caroline Kern.
In 2023 I was thinking about the desktop as an archive and wrote a piece for the MACR Papers, The Dotted Line (Desktop Version.)
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This is a thank you for joining me here and making me feel welcome post. I’ve found myself already shifting my thoughts into ideas, thinking about ways to share things. It’s what I needed, what my brain needed. I can’t tell what my rhythm might be in this space yet, and maybe there is no rhythm because… time is so flippin’ slippery these days. But I always have things I want to share, that’s never an issue, and my brain moves fast, and maybe making a post is like scratching an itch. This week, I circled back to an unresolved early pandemic collaborative project I’ve been sitting on, and I realized I could release it into the ether here. THRILLING. I really dislike unfinished projects. It’s possible some of you reading may have even contributed to the chain mail visual poem I called the Virus Word Game. It’s taking longer to put together than expected. Like years longer. But it’s close now and will be coming soon to THE THUMB TACK. For now, here are some things in front of me to keep momentum and ride the endorphins of 100 new subscribers. And in front of me means, literally, in front of me now. Let’s call it, desktop archive adjacent, or the wall version, to my left. Bottom line, I’m all about the do what you can and keep it going mentality these days and with that being said, here is a list made from a photo of my wall with too many links that have the potential to take you somewhere else.
Maybe that somewhere else is just a memory.
Maybe somewhere else is a new idea.
Maybe somewhere else is a reminder to call an old friend.
Top shelf (left to right):
Flocked red deer
Erin Rosenthal print from a 2008 exhibition I hosted at Paper Boat Gallery.
A concoction in a bottle with a Hilma af Klint painting as the label from Janet Kent.
Tiny finger vase from ceramicist Caitlin Rose Sweet.
Copy of a sketch printed in pink ink from Charlotte Partridge’s sketchbook (1912)* *I’m making a note to myself to do an entire post just on this object
Barely viewable ornament from artist and sculptor Serra Victoria Bothwell Fels
Middle shelf:
Moon Cycle: A Little Nature Book is part of a beautiful series by Bill Martin Jr. with watercolors by Colette Portal and hand-lettering by Ray Barber.
Manifiesto Ferviente by Mercedes Villalba - one of my favorite pieces of writing *see excerpt below
Cigarette Superstore- I was so excited to find a postcard of one of my favorite Hudson buildings by Sasha Pearl
Abigail Lloyd and Abigail Lloyd embroidered with tattoos inspired by my own.
A collage made by Joe Roberts from his show we hosted at Sky High Gallery in 2010.
Bottom shelf:
Counting To Infinity deck by Maria Molteni (these are stunning, you should look)
Tag: Proposals on Queer Play and the Ways Forward deck by Nayland Blake
Stack of various 35mm slide boxes from my dad’s photography archive with a slide of me self painted in the nude.
Black & white photo of Louise Odes Neaderland in her studio holding her cat.
Single red plastic 35mm slide box with stickers of flowers I must of put there as a small child, my favorite one says ‘Petal Power’.
Paper mâché roll of painters tape from my friend Rosiaro Gordon
Yellow pin that reads “what’s your sign” designed by my dad’s friend Nick Naminski for him in 1976.
Scrap of hologram paper with Aaron Demuth’s information on the back from an order of artist made envelops I was lucky enough to score.
Me circa mid-1980s sitting in front of an IBM crushing tetris.
Silver hand clip holding an Old Maid card (I collect them, feel free to send them if you ever pick them up at yard sales)
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As promised above, here's an excerpt of a few of my favorite parts of Mercedes Villalba's Manifiesto Ferviente. You can listen to it here in English.
1. enough
These are times of resistance.
Maybe all times are times of resist-ance, but this, right now, feels pressing; the killing and the taking ticking in our ears, deafening. Feels like we should be outside hunting for snakes, biting on knives, kicking on doors. There are times when what has been taken pains us more, when the dead don't sit still.
This is one of those times.
3. rise in fervor
It is in times like this when joy becomes a political matter. We demand the right to survive in our happiness. To thrive in our joy without that getting us killed. So it becomes a matter of care to sustain and nourish that joy whenever it's found. It is not amoral to be happy in times of death. We have the right to be, to defend our life, to make an ethical stand of its resilience.
It is key to defend our joy, and for that we might be forced to craft bubbles. Pockets of air and spaces of exception, even isolated, hidden spaces where to go for nourishment or rest. We should make many such spaces, even if they are temporary. We can craft the weirdest most creative of exceptions inside these pockets, imagine new stories, write new rules. In times like this, we are fighting for our right to the future.
The key is to make these bubbles ferment, rising up in fervor.
5. polikicks
What are the politics of fermentation? They enable bodily and cognitive redistributions of power.
Fermentation teaches us that bubbles are not static, that fervor is exciting and possible and that change is always there. In times of darkness and despair, where the most terrifying subjectivity seems to be the one in power, we cry for our call to be expansive. Learn from those who ferment Mountain Dew, listen to the voices that challenge the limits of your body.
Make them kin. We will make ourselves into rocks, attune ourselves with the minerals that make our nails, with the bug skin that shapes our hair, the old plantness of our ears, the mollusc of our sinus. We will crawl and stay still for as long as we wish, expanding our presence. The more you tighten that lock, the more you police the border, the more force we'll accumulate. We don't mind spilling, for spilling is expanding. We are many. We are powerful in our multitude. Leave us unattended and we will change the fabric of matter.
I hope something here jumped out and spoke to you. If so, I’d be curious what if you are willing to share.
Til’ soon.