Thanksgiving  

I hope wherever you are this finds you well.

I hope I’m not alone in committing to make the best of this occasion that we set aside in American culture as a holiday. Maybe you’re reading this because you need a break from family stuff, or reading this on Friday or even Saturday because you’ve been wrapped in the warm embrace of family and friends. I’m also thankful that we our expectations of what we have a right to expect is shifting, and the resistance to the same, I think, points out that it is hard work worth doing. However you are arriving, thanks for doing so. I wish that this is a holiday from worry for you.

As I often do here on this blog, I’ll echo what others in our community are doing- Hyperallergic* put out a Thanksgiving list today in the same spirit (making the best of it) which you should check out. I’m so thankful for that day in my parents attic when I made my first abstract painting, because it also opened up the Art World to me, which is so much bigger than that one modality. Speaking of Hyperallergic, I’m grateful that I have the gift of not being in one of the cities they cover so rigorously, and for the perspective that gives me. And to circle back to the top, I’m really grateful for publications like Hyperallergic (who shouts out Burnaway) and of course Two Coats of Paint. If you wanted to leave me a comment about your favorites, I would thankful for that, too!

Just the other day I decided to make little bit of change in the way I approach this blog, when I made a post about Meg which was not the first time I wrote about her work (btw I did pull the first post so don’t worry about a proliferation of duplicates). As I said in that post, I think revisiting a creative is well within the spirit of paying homage where due. It is in that context that I’ve decided to write this essay- because I want to (also) revisit this post, each year on the holiday. New traditions!

So it turns out… I’ve written before about being thankful. On Thanksgiving no less! I love it when the universe gives you little subtle hints that you’re on a good path. Something happened in my studio recently that was also a strong hint that an intuition I’ve had could be fruitful, maybe even pivotal. So I’m leaning in to that energy. And, you guys will just have to wait to hear about that topic because I’m still processing. It’s also pretty fun for me to read a blog from 5 years ago, which was a time when I was almost exclusively writing about the object-making part of my practice, and see some themes come back around again (I’ve gone back to “edge” as a concern in my work a couple of times since that post, including in some recent studies). I’m thankful to be in a place where I have the capacity to be present for these realizations.

And btw, yes we *absolutely* should all remember and tell the truth on days like today. Honesty shouldn’t take a holiday. We can be grateful that we live in a time when we can create and add to truth, and lift up the resilience it takes to be honest about our history in the interest of never repeating it. I’m being vague because if you’re here reading an Art blog I don’t need to unpack colonialist histories for you or link to the hundreds of essays on the internet about the reality of the relationships between early settlers in the US and the aboriginal peoples who were already here. Feel free to take a moment to sit with that and then release it with the kind of resolve that leads to good outcomes and better, fairer futures. Give yourself the grace to go back to being present wherever you are with people who matter to you.

I’m so, so thankful for you, whoever you are, that read this whole essay. I look forward to revisiting this article next Thanksgiving.

(*) Speaking of Hyperallergic, I saw this article earlier in the week and thought “I’m thankful for John Yau and all 4 of these creatives” (about whom I’ve blogged, which I’m also grateful to have the chance to do, for the love). John was writing about an exhibition which traces the radical advancements in painting by Al Held (one of my first blogs), Elizabeth Murray, Frank Stella and Judy Pfaff (who I hadn’t realized until recently was not featured here).