I am so relieved the Kickstarter was a success! It was a bumpy, emotional marathon of anxiety and excitement. Would anyone be interested? Would anyone care about an art book exploring the ‘metaphysics of daily life”? Undertaking what felt like a relentless campaign of self promotion would be challenging for me under normal circumstances, never mind in the middle of a global pandemic and waves of institutional violence and murders by the police.
I struggled with this for the entire campaign. You can’t pause a Kickstarter—you get 30 days and that’s all. My book, in the works for 4 years, needs to be published by September in time for my exhibit at Galerie Confluence.
Fortunately, my friends old and new, acquaintances and complete strangers were supportive and happy to see the Pseudologia book and to learn about the project. I was so grateful for all the positivity that people shared.
I am so grateful to all the friends, family and supporters that made this possible. Pledges came from all sorts of unexpected places, including my friends who are freelancing and may not be in the most stable situations. I feel so blessed to accept this gift from my community.
I looked at the final layout of Pseudologia last night, and it is so exciting to see it coming together. It does look good. I am nervous and excited to see the test from the printer.
Going out and demonstrating every week and consistently showing my support for Black Lives Matter in my neighborhood in Brooklyn, and elsewhere in the city, as well as donating to bail funds and other orgs is something that has made me feel a little bit more hopeful about where we are as a country. We have to make dramatic changes: defunding the police, planning for restitution, abolishing institutional racism.
Right now, I’m learning and listening to be a better ally and supporter of BLM. I am also working to actively hire more POC and Black people as an art director, and working to better educate my son about institutional racism. I am also aware that this is probably not enough, and that I need to do more, and also that I still have a lot to learn. The institutions that trained me are not diverse, and the art and photography world has a huge white male fixation.