Perpetually Curious

VISION BOARDS! Let's get a couple of things clear, right at the start. THERE IS NO WRONG WAY TO MAKE A VISION BOARD. THIS IS NOT SCIENCE. You believe that putting pieces of pretty paper on another piece of paper calls into your life your deepest hopes and dreams, then you believe it with all your heart and soul. These are inspirational devices, not architectural blueprints. Ok, now that we have some caveats taken care of, the briefest of background before we get to the supplies and instructions (OH MY GOD THIS IS WHY THE ONLINE RECIPE BLOGS ARE LIKE THIS) I've been making vision boards consistently every year for my birthday (ish, usually on the new moon closest to my actual natal day) for a decade and before that on and off since college. I've always considered paper art as my chosen visual artistic medium, so vision boards were right up my manifestation alley. At one point in my life I wanted to work in magazine publishing (scratch that, I still do) so buying and keeping...

My final read of the year (oh, wow, I didn't realize I hadn't done one of these since 2020's list. What is time.) I read 48 books in 2024, slightly off my goal of a book a week, but not too shabby over all. As always, some books that will stay with me, some that were meh-for-me, and a bit of "book candy". This list is not the complete list (you can check my Ig highlight for that) but instead, the ones I really enjoyed or meant the most to me for this time of my life. These are in chronological order to when I read them. Memorable: Same as Ever: A Guide to What Never Changes by Morgan Housel This new book is a fantastic antidote to our current chicken little the sky is falling media culture (which he actually talks about it "Crazy is Normal. Calm plants the seeds of crazy.") The chapters are short, so overall a quick read, but one packed with thoughtful points. I'm pondering writing my own post about "The grass is always greener on the side fert...

I took the middle of November off social media--a detox, if you will--for lots of reasons, starting with the overwhelming panic and hysteria going on. I needed a break to settle my own heart and nerves, plus to try to sort out my own thoughts post-election.  The couple of weeks leading up to the election were tough in our neighborhood because, due to yard signs and group events, we discovered just how conservative our neighbors are. So I was already grieving the lack of camaraderie with our neighbors. But "neighborliness" is also something I've been thinking about for 8+ years, how at least in the places we've lived, "knowing" our neighbors is basically waving as we go by, if anyone happens to be roadside. Even before 2020, the individual family had moved life into the house or backyard, removing the happenstance meetings that led to developing helpful relationships with your neighbors.  Fast forward to Nov 6: my problem-solving thinking goes to why are we a...

 pg 8 "Community arts aren't about art as a sign -- a noun, an object. They are about art as symbol -- a verb, a process. Those of us engaged in community arts work understand our work is about creating a process that invites individuals to participate in and experience the arts on a personal basis. It is, in essence, a paradigm shift from "art as product and citizen as patron" to "art as process and citizen as participant."  "Community arts development is and always has been about relationships. It is people-oriented. It has a long and valued history of individuals taking the initiative to promote self-improvement through self-expression and self-education."  pg 9 " Art is an invitation for people to tell their stories and to listen to the stories of others. Community arts experiences create places where people can gather together and celebrate their story as a community."  pg 49 "Remembering our heroes, organizational and communi...

I was listening to a recent episode of the Tim Ferris podcast and the guest, happiness scholar Arthur C. Brooks, was discussing death meditations. And the little lightbulb in my brain turned on with the thought, "We need to talk more about death in theaters." I know, I know, that seems like an illogical statement because it feels like we're always talking about the death of theater. This whole summer has been filled with articles and op-eds from across the country about how large regional theaters are dying in major cities. But that's not the kind of death Brooks was talking about, and in reality, it isn't death these articles are complaining about, either: they are trying to stay alive in a “E’s just resting” fashion, to find some kind of life-support for the theaters, to keep them going, receive new money from new audiences or donors, new shows, new gimmicks to draw more or different people in the door. Anything to keep from dying. We don't talk about death...

Director and cast of "Othello," Deep Dish Theater, 2011, Chapel Hill One of the questions that comes up over and over in my work--supporting both theater and other arts genres--is the idea of the "professional." What is professional theater, or a professional writer, or painter, or poet, or dancer, or improviser?  Much like the term "success," we've conflated "professional" with "earning money." If you have earned a lot of money from your art, you are a "professional" "success."  Odd, in that we also equate the term "selling out" with "earning money" and that has a bad connotation.  I think, though, Steven Pressfield's idea of "Professional" is closer to the truth, and why so much of the Triangle theater scene is so damn good, is actually professional quality.  Pressfield talks about the Professional Mindset being one of doing the best work you're capable of at all times...

Various sizes of buildings, with some sort of seating arranged in rows, facing a slightly raised platform. may have curtains around the platform. people --primarily men-- take the platform to orate to the audience seated before them. A plea for donations is made at some point, either before or after the show, which may have music and will definitely have directives masked as stories on how to be a human in this day-and-age. children will be seen, maybe, but definitely not heard. the men in charge will believe they have been given a special gift for leading this particular group of people. and the people, for whatever reason, will also believe this. and this group of people will believe that their building and person and each other are completely different and somehow better than all the other exact same groups around their town/city/county/state/nation. If theater wants to be treated as church and church as theater, then both are getting exactly what they have been setting up for the p...

I asked in a Facebook post in 2011: "Theater is about connections. How do administrators facilitate this connecting? How do theaters (as an entity) ensure this connection continues happening, time and time again?" Strengthening these connections is what makes a theater resilient, what makes the theater ecosystem resilient.  Even before Covid forced theater closures, our local ecosystem lost several long-standing organizations due to life happening (people moved, people aged and retired, etc.). Add the normal ebb and flow of creatives coming together for some number of shows and then going on to reassemble in different configurations. New groups crop up, some grow, some provide fodder for a completely different way of making art.  Nonprofit theater cannot build itself in the same way as for-profit theater. The very heart of the nonprofit mission is community-mindedness. For-profit theater by its very nature will follow a path of least resistance to earning as much profit as ...

How utterly ironic. Also, I wrote a book about DPAC. The Triangle theater ecosystem has a long and vibrant history. But as with all ecosystems there are good times and bad, birth and death, growth and loss. Theodore Reik pronounced "There are recurring cycles, ups and downs, but the course of events is essentially the same, with small variations. It has been said that history repeats itself. This is perhaps not quite correct; it merely rhymes." It feels that way now: these questions are ones that have been asked before, which is what led these artists to do the damn thing in the first place. Much of the downswing for our ecosystem started before 2020, but was, of course, exacerbated by loss of physically being able to gather. We've long said that was crucial to live theater and the pandemic only served as proof of concept. Can theater happen online? Kind of. Is it the same? Not even remotely (pun fully intended).   So here we are, asking these questions again. Where are t...

Dress for the job you want, not the job you have. Clothes make the human. How do you dress a body {that has birthed two humans}{that carried you through an ongoing global pandemic and more stress}{that doesn’t look/measure/feel the way you think it should feel} when you don’t have a clear picture of who you want to be? Before Instagram influencers, before Stacy and Clinton on “What Not To Wear” (and the many different iterations), and sometime after a Vogue subscription, there was the J Peterman catalog and its numerous historical and fictitious women carrying on around the world. I’ve been toying around with the idea of writing a long-form series about “Who is a J Peterman Woman.” If clothes or fashion is an expression of who you aspire to be, then “an unconventional woman of very good taste”--to quote but one of their many copy lines--has long been my guiding star.   The one thing she’s not, though, is a mother to children-at-home. They may be grown-and-gone, but they are mention...

Amazingly, I managed to hit half of my reading goal for the year! Between a new baby and a global pandemic, I am firmly in camp "making it through each day is a success." I somehow wound up with MORE books on my TBR shelf than I started with, thanks in no small part to discovering BookOutlet, plus the library's super-convenient website ordering and curbside pickup. I still adore browsing through the stacks, but between email list and Bookstagram recs, and having the entire NC Cardinal system at my fingertips, it's too easy to get the exact book I'm looking for. I can't wait to be able to be pleasantly surprised again, though. My Four Favorite Books:  1. Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents by Isabel Wilkerson . "Beyond race, class, or other factors, a powerful caste system influences people's lives and behavior and the nation's fate. Linking the caste systems of America, India, and Nazi Germany, Wilkerson explores eight pillars that underlie cast...

2019 Reading was not quite as prolific as 2018 (which I didn't write a recap on because #moving), but contained quite a few stand-out books. I did manage to complete 42 books, plus a handful of magazines and tons of online articles/essays. I didn't read as many off of my To Be Read shelves as I'd hoped: dammit, Instagram, I'm looking at you! Too many authors I follow, too many readers I'm friends with who keep recommending interesting books. Couple that with the browser tab I keep open to my local library account, which also links up with over 50 other library systems across the state, so I can simply place holds at any time... Look, I'm not saying I have a problem, I'm just saying it's reallllly easy to give into ordering a new-to-me book at any time. For 2020, I'm trying to keep lists of "books to read", either as a saved collection in Instagram or on paper in my planner, that I can reference after I've finished the current stack. ...