We work in context

Hi, dear Jamie’s list friends —

I’m writing you today from a country with a fresh wound. The United States did the unthinkable in our election on Tuesday, and now the future looks very different than I had imagined.

Something I’m spending a lot of time thinking about today, both on my own and in conversation with Shannon, is what this is going to mean for our artistic practice moving forward. Because: the context for our practice has all of a sudden dramatically changed.

Specifically: the people who will be engaging with our work are not the same people they were prior to Tuesday. They’re different now. And that’s going to affect both what work we choose to pursue and how we approach it.

How is your artistic practice going to change in this new era? It’s worth contemplating. Our job as artists is to help people make sense of the world around them; this means that it’s incumbent upon us to lean in extra hard in times like this. To engage passionately, in hopes that the energy we invest may light someone through their darkness.

Please hit reply if you need to talk; I’m here. Love — jamie 🖤