04/09/2026
This last decade has been one of transitions and loss, and I hadn’t really noticed much of it until now. First I left my career in the Chicago arts community to take on my arts practice full time. This was exciting and full of new challenges, but in today’s changing funding landscape, I feel myself at a disadvantage in some ways, despite the joy and fulfillment I get from this work that has grown into a full-fledged organization of its own.
I also left Chicago shortly thereafter, losing my audience, the cultivated community of collaborators and partners, friends, spaces, and more. And when I landed in Minnesota, we were in the midst of a pandemic whose isolation created a culture in my own home that led to me not forming those same alliances here. It seems like one event shouldn’t make a permanent stamp on a person or their practice for so many years, but one event becomes several and trauma ensues.
I told a friend yesterday that one thing I haven’t lost these last ten years is my honesty. And perhaps I shouldn’t be making these kind of vulnerable statements about my personal life here on the internet, but I don’t know how else to reach you. I have dedicated my life to performing memory, and that work keeps growing now through the work of other artists and collaborators. But I need more of you to participate. I need more of you to care.
Continued in comments…
