"City Blues 2" In Support of Selah

Activated Restlessness
My “official” studio projects can often take months (sometimes years) to develop. In 2025, that means I may as well be repairing a glacier.

I’m a habitual tinker and a repeat re-arranger. The things I make don’t always look like much when they’re finished; so you can only imagine how humble things are in my studio. Sitting on a shelf = work in progress.

Paradoxically, I'm also an endlessly restless person. Even before the "Age of Anxiety," I can't remember a time where I felt like I was doing enough. Not making enough. Not contributing enough. Just not enough. The specifics of this judgement is probably better explored with my therapist, but the pressure to perform (and to be performative) is no doubt something a lot of us feel.

City Blues is less about trying to meet today's breakneck, inhuman acceleration of culture; and instead it's a reply to the call of action that seems to fill every minute of every day. Look left, look right, and there’s an injustice to be reckoned with.

So instead of rushing my larger projects to completion, I head to my local dollar store and buy a $20 of monochromatic things from the NCH's "Care Bag" list*. Then I leave it somewhere I’ve seen folks who could use it. More on that part in an upcoming post.

This is part 2 of an ongoing series - You can find Part 1 here.

*The National Coalition for the Homeless (NCH) doesn't allow embedded links to their website. To access their care list copy and paste this URL: www.nationalhomeless.org/carebag-project/

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