research is a way of life

it is an ongoing process that should be fun and led by curiosity and a desire to explore what is unknown to you

it goes beyond what formal education tells you research is— it should not feel like something you have to do. it should be something you love to do because research exists everywhere— research is looking up a recipe and modifying it to make it your own. it is learning about your favorite author’s life and why they wrote the book you’re reading. it is going down rabbit holes on topics you’ve just recently learned about.

but the core of research is the desire to learn and to share what you learn with others.

Well, answering for myself is, what I think artists are doing really is making worlds of some kind and they're inviting you to inhabit that world for a little while and see what it feels like and what you think about it. Asking you whether if there's anything about that world you can learn from. Sometimes in literature, it's very clear that's what's going on if you read something like a Dickens novel. You are clearly inhabiting a world that you don't live in for a little while, but I think its true of all arts that they in a way present you with alternatives, other places to be, other places in which to look back at the place you're really in. So for that to work for me they have to be places I haven't been before. When I get excited about something is when I go ooh I've never quite had this feeling before so thats what I'm looking for. I'm looking for sensations that are strange and familiar that connect to me but I don't really understand why they do and it's when I find one of...

“I like what I like, and you like what you like, and art is the place where liking what we like, over and over, is not only allowed but is the essential skill. How emphatically can you like what you like? How long are you willing to work on something, to ensure that every bit of it gets infused with some trace of your radical preference? The choosing, the choosing, that’s all we’ve got.”

It’s paradoxical. As artists we may work towards controlling the meanings produced by the artwork with great intensity and intention; we tighten the screws on structures of representation and materiality, trying to limit and direct the possible readings of the work. Yet it is precisely in this tightly controlled work that inadvertent affects and effects squeeze out the edges. What we didn’t intend is often a crucial part of the final work, and the more intentional we are in our practice, the more these by-products ooze out and come into being. That seems to me like a good thing.

We all unconsciously wish for authority figures; on some level, we want to believe that somewhere there is one who knows, one who can guarantee and validate our identities and our practices. But this is an illusion: the one who knows doesn’t exist. Institutional structures tend to participate in this illusion, and to invite our participation. Within this framework, it is understood that there is something reassuring about hierarchies. Someone will judge your work, and it may be a harsh judgment this time around, but the basic structure (that there’s an authority somewhere—in New York, perhaps—who knows what’s good and what isn’t) is sustained. The structure itself is a comforting illusion.

"Do stuff. Be clenched, curious. Not waiting for inspiration's shove or society's kiss on your forehead. Pay attention. It's all about paying attention. Attention is vitality. It connects you with others. It makes you eager. Stay eager.”

I am listening now with all of my senses, as if the whole universe might exist just to teach me more about love. I listen to strangers, I listen to random invitations, I listen to criticisms, I listen to my body, I listen to my creativity and to the artists who inspire me, I listen to elders, I listen to my dreams and the books I am reading. I notice that the more I pay attention, the more I see order, clear messages, patterns, and invitations in the small or seemingly random things that happen in my life. In all these ways, I meditate on love.

⚘ adrienne maree brown

Overthinking > Write
Tired > Nap
Sad > Exercise
Anxious > Meditate
Angry > Listen to music
Lazy > Reduce screen time
Burnt out > Read
Stressed > Go for a walk

SEE YOU IN 13 HOURS
MAKE EPHEMERAL SHIMMERING ELECTRONS
DIGITALY YOURS
N

There is always two things.
1. The work you are trying to make
2. The work that you are actually making
Number two doesn’t reveal itself until you’ve forgotten about number one.

If youre reading this take some time for 1 deep breath right now

If it is a human thing to do to put something you want, because it’s useful, edible, or beautiful, into a bag, or a basket, or a bit of rolled bark or leaf, or a net woven of your own hair, or what have you, and then take it home with you, home being another, larger kind of pouch or bag, a container for people, and then later on you take it out and eat it or share it or store it up for winter in a solider container or put it in the medicine bundle or the shrine or the museum, the holy place, the area that contains what is sacred, and then next day you probably do much the same again — if to do that is human, if that’s what it takes, then I am a human being after all. Fully, freely, gladly, for the first time.

I’m not one of those people who can come into the studio every day for eight hours and make something that feels good, but I am a person who can make sure my studio is set up at all times so that when I am ready to come in, I can get to it. It’s the discipline of setting up a garden; you don’t necessarily have to tend to the plants every day, but the soil’s got to be ready. The water’s got to be ready. I try to make it so that that’s part of my daily routine: I try to open myself up to myself every day and that definitely means giving up certain things. I have to make sure that I sleep well. I try to make sure that I take care of my body and my mind. I try to make sure that I’m in a healthy mental state as often as I can. That’s the discipline. It doesn’t really help me if I come into the studio for eight hours a day, seven days a week, but I make six hours worth of bullshit.