Today, I went to Rockland Center for the Arts and started creating my own portrait. I don’t know if it will work. It may not be recognizable at all. Oh well, I learn more from failures than success.

What’s different about this project is that it all happens in public. Typically, the trial and error happens in the safe, sacred space of the studio. This series, I need to make it on other peoples land to figure out what I am doing. So much of this project is upside down, inside out. I know I will get to where I want to go, but I am figuring out stuff in such a public way. Each time I will get better, but I don’t know how bad the failure will be.

I wonder if its connected to the theme of the project - my whiteness. By having to do this all outside the studio, my safety shell is removed. Last week in my (unlearning) racism group we had a dialog about a comment I made about trying to leave my whiteness behind. A black friend stated that she would never ask anyone to come as anything less their entire selves. For me I was clear - “My whiteness is a protective (egg) shell that keeps me safe, but at the cost of connection and my full humanity.” So doing art on other people’s land is a physical act of removing a safety shell so that I may make a mistake or even worse, a mess in public. It’s out there for the world to take a photo of and share - which I will do regardless of the outcome.

Today I was struck by how much suffering my comfort causes. How many people have deeply painful lives so that I may have cheap clothes, disposable anything. By making my image on the land, I am coming back to the land. I am acknowleding my presense, and connecting to the Earth. I make many mistakes. I am sorry. I don’t know what I will change, it all feels insignificant today. It starts with an acknowledgement. Maybe I can share this ritual with someone else. Instead of coming in with anger, may I come with grace. May I come to share.