if you a parent of a school aged child in new york city, you are familiar with mid-winter break. a random week off in february that has no connection to a holiday or celebration: only a collective feeling that we are cold and may need to thaw if we have to means to do so. defrosting was high on my agenda and in an attempt to stay within our time zone, we went south. the warm sun was beckoning me but as the date approached i had an increasing dread about leaving a sanctuary city and venturing into the abyss of red state's airport, taxis, sidewalks... i just didn't know what to expect to find.
what i found disturbed me: there really was no distinction from home. what i mean to say is there really didn't feel more or less of a division. the fantasy that the problem is outside your county lines just feels flimsy. i really didn't see more dictator sympathetic moments away as i do in queens. this further's my instinct to stay connected and to care for my milieu, my community...folks with big hearts and a moral compass! lately i have engaged in bake sales, creative programming for kids, copious dinners and breakfasts at my house, baking for neighbors, care packages for my friends' and their children, cooking for sick families, and signing up for julia sherman's granola exchange (a subject near and dear to my heart). this is all to say how important it is to love and nurture each other as we manage a long list of anxieties in this volatile series of current events. thank you for reading now more than ever. your presence and support means the world to me.
here is a lovely poem to carry with you today.
love like salt
by lisel mueller
it lies in our hands in crystals
too intricate to decipher
it goes into the skillet
without being given a second thought
It spills on the floor so fine
we step all over it
We carry pinch behind each eyeball
It break out on our foreheads
We store it inside our bodies
in secret wineskins
At supper, we pass it around the table
talking of holidays and the sea.
next on the agenda is introducing our moving push pick this week: betsy kenyon. i met betsy at a ceramic workshop at pioneer works. ominously it was the last publc gathering i would attend in a years before the city shut down for quarantine and i packed my family up and moved to the west coast for 7 months. i'm honored to have stayed connected to such a soulful thinker over the last few years (and who i haven't seen since that one chance encounter in march 2020). without further ado...
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Born in California, a westerner at heart, I’ve lived most of my adult life in the east and currently reside in NYC with my partner, Richard Rutkowski. My art explorations, exhibitions and rambling lifestyle take me to many parts of the country and world. Brooklyn Darkroom’s camper van residency enabled me to travel to the 4 cardinal corners of the contiguous United States culminating in a project exhibited at the United Nations in NYC, Four Directions. Other favorite residencies - Pioneer Works & the Lower Manhattan Cultural Center; where I spent 3 months of the pandemic on Governors Island, working on Slumber, a book project documenting our isolated & surreal nights of unrest. Soon to be released in 2025, Memento Mori, a techno-horror short film I co-created about a content moderator. I’m Including the teaser below…
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what kind of life do you want to live?
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In my ideal life I’m aware daily of the rhythms of nature. Last year I lucked into buying land in Mt. Shasta, CA.
Step #1.
Mount Shasta Fact Sheet
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In my latest project I’m using film and a moving pinhole camera to image the sun. These Solar Drawings radiate and glow, continue and break up, they flare and overlap. Seasonal changes and weather, the spectrum of color quite timely and unique to each exposure.
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betsy's social impact project
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Matanya’s Hope is a non-profit organization founded by Michelle Stark funding education in international deeply impoverished communities. Their work sponsors education and mentorship to orphaned children in need. We are amazed by Michelle’s hands-on approach! She keeps us connected to the inspiring 3 young adults we sponsor, making it a very intimate and special way to help.
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Tukdam: Between Worlds
This documentary explores a phenomenon known by Tibetan Buddhists’ as “tukdam”, a process that blurs life and death to an unprecedented degree.
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Memento Mori - is a techno-horror short film I co-created about an online content moderator grieving the death of his father. His daily job and personal loss push him to the brink of his mental and corporeal self.
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Hard to choose only one song this week! And lately, I’ve been listening to The Teenage Head Mixtapes 2013-2018, an early podcast dedicated to music. Here’s my choice this week.
Teenage Head Mixtapes #73
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betsy's articles of the week
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I’m always looking for stories about outer space or incredible human beings. Actually, I’m exhausted lately by the news.
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I love potatoes. Any time of day & everyway.
Potatoes were the first vegetable grown in space in 1995
A potato has more potassium than a banana
Potatoes have a single place of origin 5,400 years ago from a wild plant in the highlands of the Andes
The potato is a stem, not a root
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My favorite flower is the Shasta Daisy Leucanthemum x superbum I’ve always loved this flower, its simplicity, its upright attitude, its joy. I named my daughter after it, Daisy Dew.
106
The Daisy follows soft the Sun
And when his golden walk is done
Sits shyly at his feet
He—waking—finds the flower there
Wherefore—Marauder—art thou here?
Because, Sir, love is sweet!
We are the Flower—Thou the Sun!
Forgive us, if as days decline
We nearer steal to Thee!
Enamored of the parting West
The peace—the flight—the Amethyst
Night's possibility!
-Emily Dickinson (in many poems and letters, referred to herself as a daisy – or even simply as Daisy).
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and a few picks from push...
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You may consider joining the banned book club!
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this is my favorite movie blog at the moment.
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cake zine and bread, two of my favorite things combined into one fantastic issue.
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such a fascinating article from ARTnews on sotheby's upcoming AI auction.
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I'm so inspired by MoFaD's legacy quilt, which honors the countless African American food and drink producers who have laid the foundation for American cuisine.
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and last, I leave you with a poem by poet laureate Ada Limón, written to be on board NASA’s Europa Clipper.
In Praise of Mystery: A Poem for Europa
Arching under the night sky inky
with black expansiveness, we point
to the planets we know, we
pin quick wishes on stars. From earth,
we read the sky as if it is an unerring book
of the universe, expert and evident.
Still, there are mysteries below our sky:
the whale song, the songbird singing
its call in the bough of a wind-shaken tree.
We are creatures of constant awe,
curious at beauty, at leaf and blossom,
at grief and pleasure, sun and shadow.
And it is not darkness that unites us,
not the cold distance of space, but
the offering of water, each drop of rain,
each rivulet, each pulse, each vein.
O second moon, we, too, are made
of water, of vast and beckoning seas.
We, too, are made of wonders, of great
and ordinary loves, of small invisible worlds,
of a need to call out through the dark.
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we hope you are staying warm and that you enjoyed another installment of push picks. as always, if you like what you read, forward it to someone or encourage them to sign up. it would mean the world to us 🌎
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