January 2021 Edition

Dear Friends, 

The inability to have you over has been difficult, being a community center based on the tactile and collective experience.  Time has proven mutable over the last year, at once frozen in smoke or by ill will, and yet the days again are getting longer and it is January. Like a ship heading home from open waters, the myriad advancements in collaboration have been as birds to the sailor, a sign of land. 

Thank you for your responses to my foliage of feelings prompt.  Leaves are being populated with your well wishes for 2021 and we look forward to leafing out the tree fully and presenting it to the world by the lunar new year. Come by (safely, safely) on or after February 12th to see our collaborative efforts. May it serve as a reminder to strive toward this collective future.

I have wanted to see leaves on this tree since we transplanted it from the Bat Cave, and genuinely thank you for helping me achieve my goal. It is unbelievable that I can have an idea and tell some people who tell some people and all of the sudden we are working through a collaborative art project with over 30 other people.  In the middle of a pandemic nonetheless, and grant funded thanks to the Footprint Foundation. May it inspire you to think big and ask for help. Feel free to reach out to me with ideas.

From our Friends and Regulars

From our Studio Artists

How to Make a Fish //

(I didn't choose the title of this poem. It was auto-chosen when I sent this email for the newsletter. I think it's one of the funniest things I've seen in a long, long time. - James Zeller)

How to Make a Fish:

I always try to make 

something something other

than what it is

When I draw a cloud,

I try to make it a fish

sometimes, I do make it a fish

When something’s broken

I very genuinely try 

to fix something else

When I do this, sometimes,

I break the thing I’m “fixing” 

that wasn’t broken

Then, that’s when I can be found

holding hands with a tree

or in conversation with blackberries