humans//an ode to la dispute:: part dos

part dos

dear reader,

tell me.

tell it.

tell us,

from the beginning.

:with shaking hands,

and a long, squirmy exhale:)

it's one of those things that's hard to pinpoint: this beginning. so it's hard to find a place to establish toolboxEarth.

but in hopes of saving us s0me time, my sixth grade art teacher compared me to matisse and i used to smoke cigarettes and paint with rapid emotion in the basement of my mom's house

while listening to albums like this.

and weave on cardboard and peg looms at my dad's house sitting quietly in bed listening to headphones. while listening to albums like this.

toolboxEarth began in 2021 in Portland, OR. i thought of the name walking across our living room on the corner of 23rd and NW Johnson. the closet was open.

and i couldn't let it go. this named thing. it.

toolboxEarth started as crocheted goods and plant hangers on Etsy.

i'll always be grateful to the healing place of portland, or.

i became more curious about macrame tapestries

and tried a few

then we moved back to ny

and clean cups again

i became curious about round weaving

'well what about again?'

so i figured out how to build a circular warp into a picture frame.

(the piece my sixth grade teacher and this first frame weaving both hang

in my father's house.)

and i had never seen a round weaving in another shaped frame

before*.

and toolboxEarth kept evolving and changing

and i alongside.

i found this way

already made

of healing-

through and with art.

rediscovered this intrinsic infrastructure

of healing byways

already laid.**

and toolboxEarth kept evolving

and changing

with i/we alongside

then i reached out to a muse of mine

to say thank you

to express gratitude

to see unbalanced similarities*

born

and i retreated in a way

for a lot of reasons

reasons justified and fueled

by the Socratic Method

at in-person art festivals and farmer's markets

and each Reason's pointed hand

was directed at

loss of self

but i kept building

but i kept weaving

but i kept reaching

farther out

thereby,

returning with more

substantially

and the philosophy heard

within a stoic's permaculture garden

(hands unmotivated by money)

began to form

this idea of reusing the methods

we intrinsically have already made**

this idea of deconstructing

to reconstruct

this idea of stepping up to

and away from

this idea of art

as a universal narrative

this idea of

weaving in loose ends

this idea of redefinition

as absolution

this idea that the catalyst

to systemic change

is the activation

of the individual.

this idea that we can

without them,

but not

without each other.

and then i started listening to this.

and i touched a place

topographically

that i had never

touched before

and i stayed there.

but regardless

even though

still

tendrils like dendrites

began to grow

and wander

fueled by the delicious reaction

to curiosity

that happens in an artist's mind

i began growing bolder with raw networking

versus

using social media

i began deciding to

lead by examples

of alternatives

i began reaching out to local non-profits

in the area to source materials from

lowering production costs

i began defining my own sense

of freedom

i began weaving in de-spoked, spent bike rims.

the room became an atrium

a dome defining.

chaos breeds

within confined spaces

a jagged, harsh creature

and i knew i was back at the top of the mountain again.

then i met america again

then i met chicago, illinois

againandagainandagainandagain

the atrium

flipped

into Ahab's fishbowl.

since the beginning of the year,

it's been so dark

and it still feels dark

alongside

nevertheless

with another quarter turn

the fishbowl now hangs

as a dusty, empty

glass terrarium globe

i began wondering if an optical cue

like artwork

could trigger a physical response

i began wondering if art that appealed to the masses

had tapped into something-

like the backdoor to a neurological response

i began wondering if i could create art

that caused people's shoulders to drop

universally and unbeknownst to them

i began to wonder if it had anything to do with

stimulating the vegus nerve-

the pathway to the amygdala.

it's all

catalogued.

someone recently said from within an intersection,

"you just stopped that car with a little wave"

and i had.

someone recently said reading my birth chart,

"your art is going to take a new direction"

and it is.

with a gentle squeeze on the arm in passing,

as a friend for the end of the world,