Greetings!
I went out walking in a storm this week. The wind in Chicago was far too strong for an umbrella and I was getting soaked and cold so I took refuge in the local community center near the beach. The center is set up for children and sports activities. There isn’t a place to sit down so I stood at the front desk and ended up talking to a few other people there, all locals. They had fascinating and colorful stories to tell about Chicago history and the changing face of the city and its neighborhoods.
One woman named Mary seemed to have had a pretty tough life. She was waiting for her adult son with a disability to finish his Special Olympics athletic training. She told me the most surprising thing! She’s 63 years old, has lived in Chicago her entire life, and saw the sun rise on Lake Michigan for the first time two weeks ago. I was gobsmacked! How does that happen in a life? As I type this, I’m sending Mary many more sunrises. I wish that for you too, dear reader.
Displacement and Rebirth
While I have seen many beautiful sunrises and been surrounded by a lot of beauty in my lifetime, I’ve also faced a lot displacement and domestic violence More than once in childhood and also as an adult. The trauma of that creates pathways that can be hard to break free from. People who haven’t had these experiences often don’t get it or even try to. I find people who do try to understand the lived experience of others and seek ways to improve it very inspiring. I’m writing a four-part series about Jane Addams and The Hull-House Museum and the way they served immigrants and others in my Wednesday Deep Dives as a way to fuel my own transformational fire and because it gives me hope.
Hope that my work can have a greater impact on the world, hope that there are others I can do this work with, and hope that I will find a room of my own and a place for my roots to grow deeper into the dark earth.
After another round of displacement this summer, I’m choosing to find peace and forward movement with my artistic practice. Here’s a companion playlist for the rebirth project I’m doing.
Inspirations
It takes courage to sit in the fire of transformation. Courage to create. Courage to walk away from people and places that are harming us or don’t value us. Courage to try again. Last night, I watched a short film about displacement and wrote about it here. I felt it temper my blade.
My current hero is Gisele Pelicot, the French woman who suffered the horror of her husband drugging her and allowing men to rape her over the course of nine years. She fought for the graphic videos of these rapes made by her husband to be shown in court. As reported by the New York Times:
While Ms. Pelicot, 71, had the right to request that the trial take place behind closed doors, she decided to make it public. She said that she did it not for her, but to protect other women. Shame, she said, must change sides — from the victims to the perpetrators.
What a badass! I was recently asked what’s something that you wish you didn’t know? My answer was, “What men are capable of.” I said this based on my own lived experiences and before I heard about this horrifying case. Of course, the phrase, “not all men” will come into the conversation. And the himpathy! Squint a little at the men in your life (or the one in the mirror) and see more clearly.
Consider replacing, “You have to understand that he…” with “How can I help her? “What does she need?” “What am I not seeing?”
We often don’t see what’s happening with women. That’s why representation is so important.
Hearing about how this statue of Millicent Fawcett by Gillian Wearing, which is the only statue of a woman in Parliament Square, was erected as recently as 2018 is deeply inspiring. Infuriating, yes. But also hopeful.
As a lifelong devotee of myth and a relatively recently-minted Feminist, I appreciated reading this article about women artists who are reimagining the myth of Leda and the Swan in our post-#metoo world. I have been reworking myths in my sketchbooks and in my own life for a few years now. This encourages me to keep going. Here’s a pull quote:
“He no longer has any power over her,” Walker wrote in a description of the piece. “Before, he was a beautiful creature, now he is just an ossified specimen.” She explained that the myth has a personal resonance for her: “Leda is me thinking about a past relationship. I made a conscious decision to put myself in the frame. But it’s also about relationships in general—who we are and what we possess and desire.” The work challenges the presumed whiteness in Greek mythology, with Walker, who is Black, placing herself center stage. Instead of portraying the proud white plumage of the swan, its pale bones visualize his decaying state.
It’s vital that we find ways to claim agency in our lives and begin to weave a more colorful tapestry in our world through our storytelling. Last week, I mentioned how few plays are staged by working class playwrights. I happened upon this Guardian article that asked the question: “Where will our working-class playwrights come from, now the arts have been sidelined?” I think it’s more than the arts being sidelined. It’s also about being more discerning about where we put our focus. If we want polyphony, we need to support it with our time, energy, and resources. This newsletter is one of the ways I’m doing my part. I accept donations and provide opportunities for readers to become paid subscribers for the same reason. Art matters.
Last week I talked about remedies for some of the effects of late stage Capitalism and shared a film by director Belgian director Bas Devos. This week, I found another of his films, Ghost Tropic. It speaks of the isolation that so many people are feeling, of the changing face of our built environment, and of the immigrant experience. I love many things about this film, including the lack of foreboding in a film about a woman walking alone in a city at night. What I really adore is that our protagonist is a 58 year-old mother played by the luminous Saadia Bentaïeb. I cannot more highly recommend it. Here’s what the Chicago Reader had to say:
“A compressed epic...says a good deal about life, death, and the state of the globalized world.”
Here’s the trailer. We watched this on Kanopy for free through the library.
Thanks so much for reading! If you love this Friday Bricolage and want to keep it ad-free and free for all to read, become a paid subscriber or gift a paid subscription to someone you think would love it:
All my love,
Kymberlee
PS, Here’s some beauty for you taken from Route 147 on Chicago’s “Magnificent Mile”. This is a new and temporary installation from the Lynn Sage Organization supporting breast cancer research. You can read about it here if you like.
PS, Think someone might dig this newsletter and want to share it? There’s a button for that! Thanks in advance. :)