Approaching the Edge
Dispatch for days to come
Today, I woke up at a graceful 8AM after my first full night’s sleep in about a week. I am slowly getting started: washed my face, did my morning joint-lubricating movement, made a quarter-pot of coffee, and fetched more oats and figs from the neighborhood verdularía for my daily breakfast (see below). Now I’m sitting down with my bowl of oats, typing these words, Lana’s NFR is playing in the background with the sounds of birds, neighbors, and the street mingling with her mothering voice. Today I’m feeling grateful for the simple life, listening, having the time to write to you.
This is an update post infused with reflections from edge of the end of one chapter and the start of the next. Chapters seem to starting, ending, and crossing over more and more frequently these days.
Ciao CMDX, Hello NYABF
Next Wednesday marks the end of my three month stay in CDMX. This time around has felt different — spending most days alone studying, at the gym, seldom leaving the comfort of Roma Sur. Getting in touch with myself more and more, learning Spanish, learning what this place has to teach me. Despite the solitariness of the past few months, I’ve met some new people here who are becoming friends and deepened a small handful of existing friendships here. As I write this, what comes to mind is the labor of love that goes into cultivating relationships of depth. Talking with my pal Kaelin on the phone a couple days ago, we realized that being a friend could be a full-time job — a dream job, at that.
Next Wednesday evening I get on a red-eye flight to New York City where I’m returning for the New York Art Book Fair. I’m not tabling nor selling any work there; I’m going for connection and inspiration. Recently, so much of my time has been spent studying that I’ve accidentally put my creative practice on pause. Well, studying is a part of it, but I’m itching to get back in touch with making little zines, books, poems, and images. If you’re in New York for the book fair, hit me up : )
Intelligent Terrain ~ Feral Inquiries
After the book fair, I’m heading to Ferme Lanthorn in Wakefield, Québec (a 45-minute drive north of Ottawa) for UKAI Project’s Intelligent Terrain residency. For the past two months, I’ve been in weekly conversation with a small group of artists around ideas of ecological intelligence, environmental art, and forms of publication that mimic evolutionary methods of dissemination (spore dispersal, pollination, seed dispersal, etc...). What I love most about these conversations has been our generative questioning of mainstream environmental artistry — how environmental artist often reproduce the same patterns of anthrocentrism, empiricism, and nature fetishism that they seek to critique. Now, I’m wondering what an “environmental artist” even is, since we all make and do in our respective places.
Over the week at Ferme Lanthorn, I hope to use poetry and different lens-based technology to explore the idea of “edges.” Boundaries, limits, translation, pores, shores, pain, loss, desire — I’m exploring the multiple valences of edge as they exist in the physical environment, among bodies, and between words. I’m asking how edges are a form of intelligence that exists as a system rather than as a discrete unit of reason. I’m using Anne Carson’s concept of the edge in Eros the Bittersweet as a starting point, and hope to also bring in ideas from landscape ecology, comparative literature, and queer theory. This residency marks my first exploration of edges within what I hope will be a long journey ahead.
(Please send me any of your edge-related thoughts and references!)
If you or anyone you know and love are in the area, come join the Intelligent Terrain cohort as we share our work and connect with the local community ~ on Saturday 04 May, 2024 anytime between 4 and 11PM at Place des Artistes de Farrellton. RSVP here : )
Center for Book Arts
After Ferme Lanthorn, I return to New York for a month-long research period at the Center for Book Arts. After the past year’s series of rejections, I landed a dream fellowship at the CBA where I’ll be diving into the centre’s collection of artist’s books, multiples, and print ephemera. My research project will be a continuation of Poetics of Place, specifically looking at how artists use the unique affordances of print objects and books to experiment with representations of landscape. As you many of you know, the idea of place and how it changes us is central to my practice and to the person I am. I’m feeling especially grateful to be able to explore this idea in depth in conversation with the work of artists in the Center’s collection.
Since I’ll be in New York for nearly the whole month of May, I want to take this opportunity to connect with friends and peers and build my relationships in that particular place. If you’re in NYC, let’s hang ~ grab coffee, chill at the park, visit a bookstore, invite me to your studio, introduce me to anyone you think I’d vibe with.
Uncertainty
Right now, uncertainty feels not only important but necessary. I’ve often struggled with the inherently uncertain nature of life, contriving a structure to fit my needs and desires, and then recoiling when things don’t go according to my supposedly well thought out plans. For some reason, this year that need for a structure of foresight and certainty has fallen away. I’m taking things one step at a time. I’m thinking of the chapter “Growing Downward” in Ursula Le Guin’s version of the Tao Te Ching ~
Be broken to be whole. Twist to be straight. Be empty to be full. Wear out to be renewed. Have little and gain much. Have much and get confused.
Still, my intentions are clear. I want to live a good life, one where the conditions are ripe for learning, adventure, relations of depth, and calm.
