May Newsletter
Greetings from May! As I write this, it's another chilly rainy spring day. It’s the point of the year where I am eagerly awaiting warmth and sun on my skin, and so are the seedlings! So many of our fruit tree blossoms opened up three weeks ago when we had a streak of unusually warm weather. Since then I’ve been watching the temperatures eagerly, hoping it will warm back up enough for our bee buddies to get out and pollinate them. Do I plan the arch of my year around fruit harvests? Yes I do. But it’s May now and everything feels like it’s opening to new possibilities. This is perhaps my favorite month of the year.
Well my monthly newsletter idea has promptly fallen to the wayside as I acknowledge the reality of my somewhat hectic project-filled life. I always imagine a simple organized approach to my week/months in which I have time to sit down and reflect. In truth, I rarely have time for this. I did sit down for some writing in March and all that poured out of me was my broken heart about this culture, our lack of ability to keep each other and our disabled community members safe from COVID and the fascist attacks on Trans and LGBTQIA+ rights.
Just this last week Jordan Neely, who was unhoused and hungry on a NYC train, was choked to death by a white man who claimed to feel uncomfortable with Neely’s presence. The struggle against increasing militarization of police here in the US continues with the Stop Cop City Movement. All over the US, Trans folks and allies are dreaming of and fighting for a world where all of us have the freedom to live our fullest selves without the threat of violence or the loss of healthcare.
I know folks don’t come to my newsletter to read more about the trauma and violence of this country, but I refuse to not talk about it. It’s on my mind and heart daily. I try to have my life and work exist in opposition to the violent forces that harm our friends and families. As such, I will likely keep including significant updates here.
As promised though, below is a few peeks into my studio, the garden and my heart.
Studio Updates
FERTILE FUTURES in Rogers Park!
Since last posting here, I traveled back to Saugatuck to take my show down and was then invited to share my work in a community space I love here in Rogers Park, The P.O. Box Collective! This location was a former USPS P.O. Box location, hence the name. When the Postal Service vacated in 2018, a few community activists and organizers came together to make the space into a community gathering spot for mutual aid, political organizing and creative making. There are a lot of great initiatives that operate out of this space including Food Not Bombs, the Victims of Police Violence Memorial as well as our Seed Library project!
We hosted an Opening + Fundraiser in mid April and I have to admit, it was possibly one of my favorite nights in the neighborhood. We really lucked out with a beautiful warm evening so we were able to set up food + drinks outside along with some screen printing and chairs for folks to sit and hang out. Witnessing so many neighbors just hanging out in the warm spring air really fills my heart with so much joy. Check out some photos from the opening HERE.
Inside, all 12 images from my FERTILE FUTURES body fit perfectly on the wall space. We had a bar serving mixed drinks raising rent money for the space with a featured cocktail that included black raspberry simple syrup from our garden harvest last year. (Any time I get to share black raspberries with friends is a joy for me! I had a table set up with prints, calendars and a few other small items raising money for PO Box, The Rogers Park Free Store and our Seed Library.
Interactive Art
Something that felt pretty new for me was orchestrating several interactive art pieces for this show. These interactive bits included a worm compost bin where I invited folks to write down what they wanted to let go of personally or socially, write it down on a piece of paper and add it to the bin. I also built a community loom! This branched out of my art piece “Keep Practicing the Future” which features a spiderweb in a garden and focuses on the truth that what we practice we become. I wanted to create a spiral loom that looked a bit like a spiderweb and encourage folks to add fabric to it while they ruminate on the question; “How are you practicing the future you want to live in?”. Visitors were then invited to write their answer down on a star and stick it to the wall!
I also had a similar prompt that accompanied my “Collective Flourishing” art piece in which I asked folks to write down their answer to “What does collective flourishing look like? Feel like” and also add their response to the wall.
Lastly, somewhat last minute, I had the idea to do an interactive window mural!! This was a fun new challenge for me as well. Since this body of work really focused on the values that make up the foundations of our culture I wanted to invite folks to consider what values and principles we want our future to be rooted in. I painted a dark mound of dirt with plants growing out and invited visitors to write their response to this prompt within the soil. Responses included; Disability Justice, LAND BACK, Trans + Gender Liberation, Reciprocity, Empathy, Abolition and much more!
Other Studio bits…
I’ve had a few other commissions on my plate in recent months including a drawing for Women's Prison Book Project that was mailed out to incarcerated women for Valentines Day as well as a poster for the campaign to bring awareness to the importance of the Pre-Trial Fairness Act. This poster series was organized by my dear buddy Monica Trinidad! I have a few other jobs I have finished this spring but I will wait for them to be published to share more about them.
Artists for Brandon Johnson
Speaking of Monica, another area of art organizing I contributed to in February and March was the Artist for Brandon Johnson initiative. This was an idea of Monica’s that emerged into a large movement of artists signing a statement of support for Brandon as Chicago’s next mayor and making so much beautiful art to help with outreach and push Brandon over the finish line to defeat fascist racist Paul Vallas and… WE WON!!!! This is a huge deal for our communities because Brandon was a former CPS teacher and came out of movement organizing. While I remain skeptical of the ability of electoral politics to really create change in our communities, this win feels different and was fueled by the Chicago Teachers Union, working families, grassroots organizing, and yes so many artist :)
In an effort to contribute the skills I had to this work, I organized a Brandon Johnson mural painting and outreach in Andersonville in front of my “Life at the Intersections” mural. Old friends and new friends came and helped talk to passers-by, we had a button maker out, + folks helped me paint the mural. It was a really great time and the energy was high! I think I will try to do more collaborative mural painting in future.
Garden Updates
Things are GROWING. The greenhouse is full and beginning to overflow. As I write this I am preparing for our Spring Plant Swap with the Rogers Park Seed Library. This is one of our most popular events. Who doesn't love free plants?! I’ve been really enjoying growing out this Seed Library project with a handful of neighbors turned friends. It’s given me a space to co-create with others, build skills, and share free resources with our community. In early March we shipped out over 180 free seed orders to folks around Chicago!
In addition to all this, Nell and I have started meeting with our garden crew twice a week in our collaborative Yard Share garden. Mostly we are cleaning up from winter and preparing beds for planting. That will be changing quickly though as the weather warms up. The apple tree is currently full of so many blossoms. A blessing indeed!!
Small Joys Fill Me Up!
This is the part in my newsletter where I share gratidute for small blessings around me.
Sunlight pouring through home grown tulips in my sunroom. These lush flowers are a new interest of mine. This is only my second spring growing these friends and now I know I will never stop!
Nell has been stuffing me full of spring greens. They have been putting almost every spring edible weed into a blender for pesto and globbing it on my plate! Sometimes the garlic can be a bit strong but I do love all the greens varieties available to us this time of year.
A bucket of freshly harvested honey in my kitchen filled me up indeed!
In early April, Nell and I walked to the beach to try and watch the full moon rise. We were unable to catch it through the cloudy horizon but what we were greeted with was a stunningly pink cottoncandy sunset! I don’t often get to enjoy sunsets in this urban landscape so when I can get to an open horizon at dusk, it’s usually a treat.
When it gets warm in Chicago, everyone is back out on the streets or at the beach. It’s great running into so many friends and familiar faces again. This neighborhood always feels like a small beach town in the summertime.
All for now!! Lots of Love and Solidarity,
(m)Olly