Dressember is a movement to fight human trafficking. Each December, teams come together to raise money for the cause. They do so by committing to wearing a dress or tie every day of the month, sharing it on social media along with information about human trafficking, sex trafficking, and slave labor, and asking people to donate. I’ve decided to join the Namaste and Crochet team this year, which has an additional component: raising awareness about the power of crochet and knitting as slow fashion, sustainable, ethical antidotes to fast fashion which is one major contributor to slave labor around the world. My personal fundraising goal is $1000. Ready to donate?…
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Female Veterans Surviving Homelessness Together – Low Hanging Fruit, a Compelling Play
Heather Gordon, Cat Brooks, Livia Demarchi in Low Hanging Fruit. Photo credit: Mario Parnell Photography Intro: A Compelling Play One of the things that I miss the most during the restrictions from the COVID-19 pandemic is seeing live performances including theater. So, I’ve been looking back at some of my old reviews of events like that, reminiscing. Here’s a post from July 2016 about a compelling play that really moved me, enough so that I still remember the power of it four years later (although it’s so hard to believe it’s been that long since I saw it!) Compelling. That is the word that keeps coming to mind as I…
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How COVID Has Inspired Digital Performance Art and Where It Might Go
Photo by engin akyurt on Unsplash I have intended to get back to posting here regularly for quite some time. I haven’t done that for myriad reasons but a lot of things have inspired me recently, and I’m finally motivated to get back to it. Tonight I am watching Digital Witness: Performance in the Era of Online-Only, a Zoom panel discussion hosted by SOMArts. It’s a smart, articulate, intriguing, edgy discussion about how performance artists are adapting to a digital forum in the era of COVID-19. Everyone Is Active On Screens Right Now It speaks to something I have been thinking about a lot lately, which I haven’t quite really been…
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Literacy Volunteer: Appreciating the Ease of Reading and Writing
This post originally appeared in 2007 on my old blog: Real Words for a Real Writer. It’s about my brief but memorable experience as a literacy volunteer. When I was about eighteen, I signed up as a Literacy Volunteer of Tucson. My work with the group didn’t last long (what can I say, I was eighteen and not exactly committed to anything for very long periods of time). However, it left a lasting impression on my life. Although I obviously knew that there were illiterate adults living around me, I hadn’t really understood until working with one what that meant on a daily basis. And I hadn’t understood until that…
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Recommended Essay Reading: The Artist as Culture Producer … and Thoughts on Creative Collaboration
The Artist as Culture Producer: Living and Sustaining a Creative Life is an essay collection edited by Sharon Louden in an effort to combat the stereotype that artists are working in studios alone, toiling away in solitary – even self-absorbed – pursuits. The essays are each by an artist who “reaches outside of the studio to extend creative energies and pursuits into his or her community.” She goes on to say she chose these artists for many reasons including their generosity and that “they inject creative culture into the cracks of society, where they alter the direction of small towns and large cities”. Each of the essays is as different…
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Book Review: Art of Asking
This book review of the Art of Asking by Amanda Palmer is from the archives. I originally published in April 2015. I lost my posts for this site in an update problem and am slowly restoring the posts I think are important. Since I really loved The Art of Asking, I wanted to be sure to share this again. I read a lot. And I like most of the books that I read. But rarely am I so moved and touched by a book that I have to tell everyone about it over and over. I recently read The Art of Asking by Amanda Palmer, and I find that I…
