Minneapolis Institute of Art Virtual Family Day

Last summer, I told a friend I just wanted to design activities for kids. (I was clearly inspired by all the art and doodle activities that artists and illustrators like Mo Willems and Wendy McNaughton developed in response to the pandemic.) Somehow, I spoke that into existence. This winter, with impeccable art direction by Mia’s Natalia Choi, I designed an at-home art activity for Mia’s April Virtual Family Day: Coloring My Feelings.

Families could pick up a tote bag of simple supples from the steps of the Minneapolis Institute of Art. I loved seeing the different renditions of my little feelings blobs!

We also created a recording of myself reading The Book of Anger in my recently muraled studio space. The entire experience was just grand!

Adding Nuance When Click Bait is the Norm

After coming across social media posts (from news outlets across the world!) and news articles suggesting a recent Minnesota Supreme Court case was doing something it very much wasn’t, I felt compelled to try to explain what was actually going on in the opinion. What follows is more of less a sketchbook attempt to infuse the nuance missing in all the click bait. Imperfect, but the bones are there.

"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!