03: love is a verb ❤️🩹
dismantling the carceral system in your head (june 2020)
The goal is to make this a space where I share a little bit about what I'm working on, some cool things I've seen other folks working on, and whatever else feels good to share when I send it out. ☀︎ Excited to have you along for this experiment. ♥︎
Iteration #3 of this monthly letter full of feelings.
This issue's theme is: ⌇☾ ⚘ choices ☼ ○・
WOW, IT'S ALREADY JULY (oops)
I totally missed this for June. But isn't that how time works now? In quarantine? Or maybe how it's always been? Days feel like years but months feel like weeks or something. Anyway, time is a construct and I've never been good with deadlines, especially ones I ambiguously place upon myself.
I've been reading All About Love, by Bell Hooks (I am a very slow reader, so I'm only into the second chapter). I had been recommended this book SO MANY times, that at this point it would have been a reckless neglect of some kind of fate to ignore it. It already has me thinking A LOT. She talks about how we don't have a universal definition of love, so we're not all working under the same understanding of what it means to love and express love and be loved. I think about this a lot in how it applies to my friends and family, but also how it applies to the world. Do we even know how to build a loving society?
So I've been sitting with a big personal choice: whether to stay in our brooklyn apartment that Tommy and I have lived in together for 5 years, or move home to Syracuse to be closer to my stepdad as he goes through cancer treatments, be closer to my family in general and have access to my own history and personal work, and also hopefully save money. I haven't been able to afford to live in NYC since I moved here, but I've just been pushing pushing pushing and maybe it's time to stop pushing? It seems like Syracuse is the "right" move, but I'm having such a hard time releasing our life in New York.
Last week's #therapythursday asked how you know when you're making a choice that feels good to you. Basically... you don't know. You have to trust that whatever choice you make will be the one that is right for you in the end. And whatever... if you make a choice that doesn't feel right, you can always make another choice.
Abolishing the Cop in Your Head 〰️
I've been really trying to release the ideas of "right" and "wrong" that I've lived with and been conditioned to believe in. It's WEIRD and HARD and it informs literally every move and choice I make. Everything is fucked and I just want to burn down the systems that exist and participate in a new rebuilding. I feel stupid all of the time – and maybe that's a good thing? To be able to feel like I have so much to learn and that I will never feel like I have the right language or vocabulary to "convince" anyone of anything because language is inherently flawed and the idea of believing your knowledge is complete about anything is rejecting growth.
Capitalism sucks. Here's a picture of my cat. That beautiful poster in the background is by Melody Newcomb and you can purchase it here! It features feminist gouache heads and quotes by Maya Angelou, Kathy Acker, Virginia Woolf, Simone DeBeauvoir, Alice Walker, Sylvia Plath, Angela Carter and Germaine Greer. Melody is so cool and talented. ⤵ ⤵ ⤵
THINGS I’M WORKING ON
I photographed my friend Arti through facetime recently because she needed a new headshot for a writing workshop she's a party of (yay)! FOLLOW ARTI ♥︎ Contact sheet from an open studio I had back in Feb that I STILL have not gotten my shit together and retouched (I did scan them!). More soon. But FOLLOW KAROLENA! ⚘
I'm still selling prints & postcards!
If you are in a position to spend money & you want to support my work while I'm unable to be out photographing, I have postcards & prints for sale! Buy a pack of postcards and send your friends love notes & support the USPS all in one go! You can also purchase gift cards for future photo shoots for you, family, friends, or even an emerging artist you love that might need headshots, live show coverage, etc.!
THINGS I’VE SEEN & LOVED
⋰ If you'd like to read previous newsletters, they are archived here.
This newsletter was written from the Onundagaonoga (Onondaga) & Haudenosaunee territory To learn more about the stolen land you're occupying, visit native-land.ca ⋰
