Mad (dy) Libs

For much of 2021, I had no ideas. I knew I wanted to make things, but I never knew what to make. And some days I just needed to make SOMETHING to feel that satisfaction of having completed a project. So I started a sketchbook I called the “I need to make something” sketchbook, in which I made faces out of blobs and turned them into people.

When it came time to make my yearly book, I decided to use the blob faces, simply turning them into Mad(dy) Libs.

I love them. It’s so crazy where setting restraints and creativity can take you. I love it.

When Are They Coming Back?

I feel most creative when making things in physical handmade books. Accidental things can happen and when I know I don’t have to make something sleek and perfect, it seems to turn out more fun. So when these words popped into my head, I decided to go back to the book format, which I hadn’t been doing as much lately.

I seem to be having the “When are they coming back?” conversation over and over and over again lately in every social context, so I had to poke fun at it a bit. I hate and I love this conversation at the same time.

A few years ago I made a Minnesota-shaped book about how everyone seems to move away from Minnesota, so this is the sequel!

"Opting for Health" MN Women Center Re-imagining Feminist Futures Zine

This summer, I saw that the University of Minnesota Women’s Center was seeking proposals for a zine they were creating about “Re-Imagining Feminist Futures.” I was intrigued but also disappointed with myself because I couldn’t think of anything that wasn’t just “not [current state of affairs in US].” That kind of approach is hardly reimagining anything. It would not have worked. So I asked some friends to think through it with me one weekend over a zoom call. It was late August when it seemed like the entire West was on fire, and the friends I was talking to were in Oregon and Colorado, all of them holed up in their houses hiding from the smoky, caustic air. As we talked about this and other injustices that felt especially salient at that moment, a friend noticed that it all kept coming back to health. And there it was. What if we weren’t making all our decisions based on “more money” but “more healthy”? I know it feels lofty, but what if that were our inherent metric behind everything? It’s at least worth imagining even if it’s not currently possible.
The MN Women’s Center released their Re-Imagining Feminist Futures Zine today and I’m very glad to say it includes this piece (albeit a vertical version)! You can go to their page and order one or download one if you want. There’s a variety of writing and art in there, all by folks affiliated with UMN. Can’t wait to get mine in the mail next month!

Finding Joy in Mourning RBG

Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg was an inspiring woman in so many ways. As a female lawyer, it’s hard not to look up to her and aspire to be like her in some way. But the most surprising way she has been inspiring to me is the way she’s popped up into my art. Her possible death has been a concern for me since November 8, 2016. A huge concern. As I said in this zine in early 2019, it was such a concerning thought that I couldn’t even think about it or the likely the ramifications of such an event.

And then it happened. And somehow, despite the urge to wallow in despair at the predictable consequences of her death, I started joyfully making things:

First it was the impromptu collar made the morning after I heard the news. Made with scraps of colored paper, and documented to the tune of the Marriage of Figaro.

The next day, not sure what to do, I started making her response to the “When will there be enough women on the Supreme Court” question.

And finally, I responded to a friend’s request to draw her by cutting, pasting, and playing. It turned into a wonky portrait that I adore to pieces and a lawn sign.

May her legacy be honored and may she keep inspiring us all to create and act in positive ways.

Lake No Longer in Limbo

Hey look at that! The lake that was in limbo is now officially Bde Maka Ska! Or, as written in the Minnesota Supreme Court’s opinion, “Under Minnesota law, the body of water that was Lake Calhoun is now Bde Maka Ska.”

It’s fun to see where my analysis in Lake in Limbo overlaps with the court’s opinion. It definitely has some differences. For example, I see no “soothing blobs” in the opinion…

DACA in the Courts

For years, members of Congress have been attempting to pass a DREAM Act, which would provide a path to citizenship for the group of undocumented immigrants who arrived in the U.S. as children. These individuals have grown up in U.S. schools but continue to live outside the system, unable to work or participate legally in the society that raised them. The Obama administration, unable to fully solve this problem without a DREAM Act going forward in Congress, developed a stop-gap response from within the Executive branch. This stop-gap was DACA, Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, which was an official policy decision by the administration to deprioritize enforcement efforts (or “defer action”) on undocumented immigrants who arrived in the U.S. as children, fit certain criteria, and applied for DACA status. In a sense, receiving DACA status was a way of ensuring that your immigration file would be at the bottom of the pile and set aside for the time being. This little book is about what has happened since the Trump administration announced it planned to end DACA.