be like cilantro🌿
from where we are at
I was bullied as a kid. I think most of us are in some capacity. I was a tall weird girl that very much was ok with being weird. I have always been a giant freak weirdo. I spent my allowance when I was 7 on purple sparkly lipstick and wore it on my first day of school. I'm too loud, I speak my mind too often, I am too big, too bold, I am too much. My classmates, friends, teachers, family have all told me at some point to tone down my own self.
I know the things that others dislike about me are some of my most favourite things about myself. The things I am most criticized for are my superpowers. Feeling strange and weird and loud is how I am able to do what I do. It is how I create the art I want to make in the world and it is how I connect with other freak weirdos. My guess is that if you're here reading this, you too are also a freak weirdo. The criticisms we receive are probably the things that other people like the most about you, thinking of the last compliment somebody gave you is probably difficult. Thinking of the last criticism someone threw at you is easier to recall. My guess is that these are most likely the same thing. We are not for everyone, but the thing that others dislike about you is the thing so many will love. Be like cilantro. Not good for some, FUCKING INCREDIBLE THE BEST FOR OTHERS!
How can these things be a tool for you? In what ways can they help you get the job? Make the thing? How can these things be a resource for art? Creativity? Collaboration with the world?
TODAY at 1 pm I am chatting with my pal Ariel about COLLABORATION! Ariel was the first artist I worked with when creating Okay Shoe and is responsible for all the beautimous pictures of the first round of the Okay Oracle! Collaboration is something that holds my creative practice and weird art-making together - without feedback and working with others I feel my work would get nowhere reasonable.
I hope you are keeping well in whatever way well means to you. I love you my strange weird freak friends 💖
xx
phoebe