March Newsletter

Introduction

We are so back, baby.

Updates from Leo:

Winter has always been hard on me. Growing up in southern California winter meant brisk 60 degree days with two weeks of rain in the middle of December. I never really got used to the winter nights closing in around you at 4pm or the days where the temperature can’t make it to the double digits. This winter it feels like the world is being eroded away. The time changed in November and it’s been dark ever since. I braced myself to feel broken and lost, to want to hibernate into 90s movies and video games until it felt like it was safe and sunny enough to venture outside again. 

In some ways this is true. I can’t bring myself to stay on top of the seemingly bottomless pile of dishes in the sink or the dirty laundry overflowing onto the carpet. I’ve logged countless hours of Stardew Valley and waded through the later seasons of Gilmore Girls, trying to fuzz out the harsh bite of winter and the bitter truth of the reality we live in now. But unlike the past times I've been drop kicked by life and hurdled into the murky waters of depression and stress, I have dove head first into making art.

It is not the political cathartic art that I want to be making. It's not angry or defiantly joyful, it's not a poignant expression of the strange combination of anxiety and normalcy that is "living in unprecedented times," it's just plain stuff that I made. I can make the argument that the stamp I carved of a penguin smoking a cigarette is a commentary on global warming and the destruction unleashed by mankind but it's really just that it looks cool and was relatively easy to carve. Nevertheless it feels as though this has become my lifeline, that I can block out the world for the hour or two it takes me to work on the shading of my spheres in drawing class or figuring out the right amount of ink to use for stamping t-shirts. 

Maybe one day I will find the right words to express what it means to lose the school I work at, my alma mater, my safe corner of the world, and what it means on a larger scale that these little weird liberal college bubbles are being wiped out. Maybe one day I will find the right combination of lines and shapes to express what it feels like to have your mom call you at 8am urging you to move to Canada. But for now I will keep buying pink rubber sheets to carve into, keep fighting to find the right angles of a cube on a 2 dimensional plane, and maybe the graphite stains on my fingertips will be enough to keep me grounded.

Updates from Warwick:

“We’re all just trying to piece a life together.” The man (who was supposed to be interviewing me,  though this was unlike any interview I’d experienced before) across the table from me settled into his chair and looked solemnly at his hands. This was my third job interview in the past week, and second for this particular position. When asked about what my schedule would look like I confessed this would be my second job, so my availability was limited. I of course told him that this job would be my priority and I would put in the effort to make it work. He seemed unphased, stating that most of the staff also worked elsewhere. 

“We’re all just trying to piece a life together.” He’s right, of course. Working in the arts is complex even in the best of circumstances. Sometimes well meaning friends and family will try to speak to me about my career prospects despite knowing nothing about the arts field themselves. Sometimes it feels as though they think I'm unaware of how difficult it is to “make it,” or that I’m downright delusional, but that they’re trying to break this news to me gently. But artists know exactly how hard it is to “make it” in the arts field, far better than they do in fact. We’re all just trying to piece a life together. 

I just quit my first ever full time salaried job. On paper, it was a perfect gig. The pay was… not great, but I got free housing and food and was allowed to have my dog. I was even allowed to use their studio. It was the perfect “you can keep doing art as your hobby!” kind of job. It was also incredibly demoralizing, exhausting, and in some situations, abusive. I was asked to do things that jeopardized both my health and safety and the health and safety of the students I was supposed to be looking out for. And I didn't really create any work.  

For some people, having the stability of an unrelated day job to support their independent arts practice is part of what keeps them sane. Maybe with a better day job I could find that, but I haven’t had good luck thus far. I honestly felt like working part time at st*rbucks while in school was a better situation than my last job. I want to exist in a community of artists, not work in isolation. I’ve been lucky enough to teach and experience meaningful connections here and there since I’ve graduated, but not in the way I’m craving. 

So, I’m trying to figure it out in Boston. I left the small town and moved to the city. I’m teaching part time at a chain studio and am working to find my community. The path I’m on now feels full of promise, even with all its pieces and complications.

Updates from Sophiko:

It would be impossible to share everything that has happened since our last newsletter in a short paragraph. However, it is somewhat possible in a PowerPoint presentation, which is how Leo, Warwick and I caught up after a long spell of silence that busy lives can bring between friends. To spare you the details, though, I’ll just share the highlights:

• My boyfriend and I moved to another country — Georgia! Georgia is where I was born and spent the first eight (and a half) years of my life. The decision to move was incredibly difficult and wonderful for both of us.

• We’ve moved houses three times in the 7 months that we’ve been here and we spent a month renovating the home we are currently living in! 

• We accidentally adopted a street kitten by feeding her once… twice… three times. Yet, we were still surprised when she wouldn’t leave… Her name is Georgie and she is named after a dog. 

• I spent my birthday with my family for the first time in 17 years and I got to celebrate my grandmother’s 90th birthday with her.

• I was right to miss my family, they were worth the move. 

• My culture shock started fading after a cool six months… and I’m still getting used to it. Bryson seems to have adjusted much quicker than I have.      

• Things did not go as planned, almost at all. 

But I’ve been making more things than I ever have in my life. I’m learning and practicing photography constantly, I’m drawing, I’m painting and I’m rehearsing scripts just for fun. Most of it is junk but all of it feels necessary to me.. and so much fun. I’ve spent a long time orienting my life towards achieving something, proving something, building a career and seemingly catching up with everyone else. It seems that as of very recently, I’ve broken through that web. I’m doing the things I love out of love and I’m going at my own pace, which I am lucky to finally have the space to do. I am learning to breathe and listen to myself. And I’m getting stronger every day. The drawings I’m sharing this month are the first set of drawings I did after our move to Georgia. I didn’t know where to begin but I was itching to make something and at the time, I could only afford colored pencils. I was so surprised when I had as much fun as I did with them. Going back to the basics will forever be my ‘hack’ for whenever I’m feeling stuck. 

Artistic Response: Leo on Blythe Baird's "Theories About the Universe"

The first week of March my life fell apart within the span of one hour. I had just been given the news that a surgery I was scheduled for the following week had been denied and, while I was on the phone with my insurance, my decision letter from grad school came in. I had worked on the application for almost 5 months and, whether foolishly or not, I believed with my whole being that I would get in. So much so that I never stressed about the school I worked at closing in the spring because I already knew what I was doing next.

You can always tell when the answer is no, even before you read the letter. When you open your virtual acceptance letter, there’s confetti and the first sentence starts with “congratulations”. When you open your virtual denial letter, there’s only the sterile white paper and the first sentence starting with “thank you.” As if you did them a favor by being someone they could reject or it would somehow soften the blow that the incoming “unfortunately” would bring.

Unable to acknowledge the fact that my future had just been swiftly and unceremoniously cut off, I threw myself into doing everything I could to get my surgery approved. After many angry phone calls and printing multiple forms at my acupuncturists office so that I could sign and send in photos of them from the table, my surgery was approved, two days before the procedure.

Medical leave has been a gift, a time to reconnect to the things I care about and reset before the upcoming inevitably upsetting end of the place I once called home. But I keep skimming over the grief under the surface, not yet ready to dive into the depths of changed plans and the real question that lies underneath it: what the fuck am I doing with my life?

I remembered a poem I once found by Blythe Baird and I have been holding onto it to keep me grounded. Like a smooth river stone, running my hands over its cool surface while I wait for the grief to catch up:

I am trying to see things in perspective.

My dog wants a bite of my peanut butter chocolate chip bagel.

I know she cannot have this, because chocolate makes dogs very sick.

My dog does not understand this.

She pouts and wraps herself around my leg like a scarf and purrs and tries to convince me to give her just a tiny bit.

When I do not give in, she eventually gives up and lays in the corner, under the piano, drooping and sad.

I hope the universe has my best interest in mind like I have my dog’s.

When I want something with my whole being, and the universe withholds it from me, I hope the universe thinks to herself: "Silly girl. She thinks this is what she wants, but she does not understand how it will hurt."

In response to this poem, I drew God’s Chocolate Chip Bagel trying to remind myself that sometimes I am god (as I was in the reference image) and sometimes I am the dog. And although I can’t yet see it, maybe this time, the universe was trying to protect me.

Thanks for Reading, See you next time!

Love,

The Birdhouse Collective