Open Studio for California Dreamin' Event

by The Locket Sisters

Open Studio for California Dreamin' Event

On the backdrop of suffering, we're moving through with art and the honest reflections it reveals to us, participating in a huge art event in the Northeast Minneapolis Art District the second weekend in November. Here are the details, and more reflections on the world at large and the micro world we inhabit here, too, and how to reconcile the two. Join us if you can.

CALIFORNIA DREAMIN' EVENT:

  • Saturday, November 11th and Sunday, November 12th from
  • 12pm-4pm
  • Kelly Rae Kerwin, a healer based in the Twin Cities will offer mini healings
  • walk-ins and appointments for Permanent Jewelry by the Locket Sisters
  • six floors of art across the California Building
  • and the best espresso in town from Mojo's Coffee Cafe, and I'm willing to fight about that statement. 

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I've wondered a lot lately what role art plays on the backdrop of suffering and destruction. What right do I have, do any of us have, to be in the presence of beauty, even the kind that stirs and inspires us to be honest and better, when there is an equal presence of pain. 

Last weekend I danced at a wedding with people I love until my knees hurt (and I have good knees!). This, after spending the morning helping someone we love put their home back together while we also waited on life-changing news about someone else we love. It was the most freely I've danced, ever. I shimmied with my brother, learned new moves from my brother-in-law, watched my Dad hop across a dance circle while everyone chanted his name. It was fun, joyful, celebratory. It felt so good. So maybe the question isn’t about whether or not I have a right to art, but if we'll give ourselves to feel good even when so many cannot.

And maybe the question isn’t about our right to access art, but our duty to notice it wherever we can. Let it reveal what it wants to reveal. Let it stir something inside us, make us honest and better. Maybe our job is simply to remain open when everything is inviting us to curl into the fetal position, including our reflexes.

I've thought a lot lately about what it feels like to laugh for the first time after you've lost someone you love. Does it hurt? Or maybe it feels delicious? Or both? I’ve wondered about how many of you have witnessed someone you love through deep suffering. How many of you have suffered alone. Or suffer collectively, communally. How many of all of us have felt our suffering shouldn't even be mentioned. 
I’ve wondered if suffering is unique at all, or is its omnipresence a tie that binds us despite our forgetfulness of the ubiquitousness of the human condition. And then, ultimately, I’ve wondered what right I have to refuse beauty, to refuse art, when it’s presence is omni, too. I see it in kindness of baristas, I read it in the words of poets, I heard it at a talk with author Jesmyn Ward when she reflected, openly, on wrestling with the balance between life and death. I see it in activism and rage. I see it everywhere. 

Life itself, an art form. How you live it, move with it, respond to it, act with it. A choice, an impulse, a way of being.
We're opening our studios for California Dreamin' in November, and here are the details:
  • Saturday, November 11th and Sunday, November 12th from 
  • 12pm-4pm 
  • Kelly Rae Kerwin, a healer based in the Twin Cities will offer mini healings
  • walk-ins and appointments for Permanent Jewelry by the Locket Sisters
  • six floors of art across the California Building, 
  • and the best espresso in town from Mojo's Coffee Cafe, and I'm willing to fight about that statement. 
On the backdrop of suffering, we're moving through it with art and the honest reflections it reveals to us. Join us if you can.
Warmly,
Allyssa