A very Mary Poppins portrait of me at a crossroad taken by @baronvonrupp on our first hike of 2020.
The 2010s were a rollercoaster of a decade.
There was pregnancy, birth, chronic illness, depression.
One whole year of green-card drama, 11 months without my husband, living on my parents farm.
And then the big move across the ocean and across the plains.
I’ve grown more stable along the way and have met beautifully human people whose friendship I cherish and hope to celebrate in the decade to come.
In ten years I went from being a full-time teacher to being a full-time translator, a full-time mom and back to some sort of hybrid I’m still trying to define. Maker, translator, teacher, mom, daughter. Collector of words and scraps. Artist.
Besides making soup with fantastic human beings and collecting magic words from them all, I have been working on two exciting 2020 projects.
One of them is a collaboration with @artsatmsp and the airport’s ESL program.
It involves human interaction, words, folded paper, printmaking, self mapping... all things I love to intertwine and explore.
So thank you @artsatmsp !!
If you have a deep need to say something about the world, about your experience of it, about your struggles, your hopes, about injustices you see...
If you say those things from a place of authenticity...
YOUR VOICE IS RELEVANT.
Whether or not what you « make » is labeled as « artistically irrelevant » by the art world.
Whether or not you had access to art education or even to art supplies in your formative years.
Whether or not you have a « following », an « audience » validating your work.
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Believing in the relevance of your voice while accepting that your work does not need to be labeled « artistically relevant » by an audience won’t eradicate self-doubt, but it is pretty damn empowering.
