December Roundup
2025 Hopeful Projects & 10 things I learned this month.
This week, I went back to Ohio to close out my old job and close a chapter of my life—getting rid of the old to make way for the new. This next chapter will be a wild and magnificent ride with projects I could only have dreamed of and more consistency on my part in writing to you all.
Here are a few exciting things in the works for 2025:
For the first half of 2025, I am creating a traveling, interactive exhibition of climate change art. The exhibition will be educational and center community power. My hope is to disrupt folks’ climate dread by helping them imagine us winning on climate and getting things right.
Simultaneously, I’ll be doing a big first—throwing myself into installation work for a show in downtown Nashville in February. The show will be designed to empower fems and thems during what we can expect will be a year of disempowerment. Inspired by a wild story of an anti-colonial African Queen (Queen Nzinga), my show Echoes of Nzinga will play on Afro-futurism empowering viewers to imagine what community power looks like in an age of AI, climate fear, fascism, and severe economic inequality.
These two shows will be constructed mainly from recycled and found materials.
In 2025, creating light in dark times will be the name of the game. So, let’s find clever ways to do it!
More creative things are in the works including a tv show, podcast, and an artist apprenticeship in Memphis. (Send me your recs if you’ve been there!)
The Need of the Times
While in Columbus, I got caught up in several political conversations with friends— conversations that left me feeling like so much is at stake and there are many fires burning everywhere…but everyone is tired and too demystified to believe we can put them all out….
I think it’s super challenging dealing with the pessimism this time presents…to witness folks suffering in mass, no one getting paid what they’re worth, getting taxed out the ass, basic housing costing a fortune, and mediocre people with no experience taking leadership roles and reaping privilege and benefits exponentially. Shit is bleak. So how do we cultivate hope for better?
I’m not sure, but I plan to put forth the energy to find out. Among a variety of strategies I’m exploring, I am launching a craft circle series to provide folks in my community time to slow down, mellow out, and feel accomplished making something from start to finish. I think when people create things outside of themselves and outside of their required paid work, a special kind of magic happens. This is also why hobbies and passion projects are sooo vital to our mental health. We get an efficacy boost from play.
‘Play’ opens up people to unexpected unravelings.
I’ll send out dates and registration links soon for virtual and in-person craft circles. These are free opportunities to connect and unwind. I wanted to offer this because I imagine 2025 will be a wild and bumpy ride politically and socially, and when’s a better time to foster some community care and make space for slow making?
10 Things I Learned This Month
On to fun, less heavy things, here are 10 things I learned this month that are kinda wild:
Michelangelo the artist was a serial grave robber (read 10x is Easier than 2x to learn more …or ask an art historian friend).
egg danishes are delicious.
Estate sales are havens for artists searching for supplies.
A lot of people don’t holiday shop in-person anymore.
There’s such a thing as sustainable gift giving: check out this guide Urban Green Lab put together here.
Live paintings for parties are pretty fun and not as stressful as I thought. Just make sure inebriated folks don’t brush up on the painting or the palette.
Amazon and Starbucks workers are on strike (Fuck yeah!) What a thrilling time to be alive. Honestly, this was the Christmas gift I never expected. Cheers to all my pro-union girlies 🥂🍾
Cooking from home in fact saves boo koos of money and means you get control of how much you want! Thirds, please! 🥘
Holiday markets are hit or miss. Be discerning about where you vend. Go where your people are. I had my best sales at Turnip Green Creative Reuse Center and Lipstick Lounge (Nashville’s Historic Lesbian bar), ‘cause those are my people.
The more you tell folks your dreams, the more you’ll find those who want to support them. (Thanks dear friends, curators, collaborators, and fellow dreamers 🫶🏾)
Finally, special thanks to you the reader:
Thanks for all your support this year with my fledgling Substack. 🐣 There will be lots more to come and way more consistency in the New Year. I’m thinking weekly posts are in the cards.
Til then, be kind to yourself ❤️
Happy Holidays!