prayer and other non-linear ways to bring possibility

this is an assorted update

• liberty season is live and going astoundingly well

• i just voted early and the pollworkers cheered for a first time voter - emotional and uplifting!

• the weather keeps alternating between extremely hot and extremely wet

• I got a new license, updating my former Massachusetts license (and photo from when I was 21 with a blonde streak in the front of my hair)

• I got a new car, which I’m terribly excited to use this summer for various adventures

• I am currently in week 6 of The Artist’s Way, which I am really really loving. I feel like I had been using the tools (morning pages, artist dates) loosely and irregularly for some time now, and woven in to a more structured context I’m really feeling things loosen up in my brain. really couldn’t recommend it more! to anyone!

• I just recovered from being sick with covid for a week, which allowed me to rail some television series and get sick of myself for a bit (Purl is sick of me too, despite sleeping in my armpit last night), all in time to get swept up in the busyness of Pride month

• Because of my Artist’s Way practice my studio candy stash is currently flush (with whoppers and junior mints and peanut butter m&ms, swedish fish and terra chips).

• Consider this your official Save The Date for a St. Veronica’s Saint Day Celebration on Saturday, July 12th.

• Last year I celebrated and honored the patron saint of photography by taking the day off and biking around to all of the altar sites I had saved on my devotions map, every little trashcan Virgin Mary statue I had passed while walked around and hadn’t yet gotten the chance to photograph. I shot two rolls of film that day and was stopped twice for photographing peoples’ windows.

• In 2023, I celebrated by throwing a feast for St. Veronica in my back yard, to kick off a week long devotional performance to a photo altar as part of a show ‘a labor party.’ Friends came over and ate sandwiches and enjoyed the string lights in my backyard and listened to me pass on the legends of St. Veronica.

• Its too much to go into her whole story here (I’ll save it for the next gather - if you want to know more, you’ll have to come), but what has stayed with me about St. Veronica is the idea that her compassion for Christ, reaching out to wipe his face with her veil during his walk to his crucifixion, ultimately became this record of him. Her veil was said to capture his “true image” and was said to have healing properties. There is so much conversation in photo theory about “capturing” the “real” and representing the other, but I am interested in the ideal St. Veronica represents - the rendering of your compassion for someone through an interaction with them, that produces an empathetic depiction of them, that in turn heals and helps people when they see it.

• It feels like a time to gather and give compassion to one another, no? I’m picturing a picnic in Prospect Park somewhere with trees and shade, with some food and cameras and prayer candals and some zines or posters or linen photo prints from celebrations past. Watch this space for more formal details or let me know if you want to be on the invite!