The problem has not been that I don’t have Motivation. It is that Motivation is off somewhere else with someone else having a wonderful time, enjoying life’s riches and achievements. She has greeted me with her urgent and exciting presence from time to time, but she never stays long. I stay static, unshifting, waiting for her to come back.
This week I found her. While hoping for “something else”, some sort of different environment or spiritual shift, I committed to spending two weeks in Brooklyn. I was not in my same old spot, in my same old headspace, with my same old tools. I was being carried by rail through areas of New York City I hadn’t been to yet. All of a sudden I was looking for her, and I found her: Motivation, holding hands with her sister Inspiration on the 8th floor of the Whitney.
Art has a pretty big capacity to move me, but it’s been a while. I’m not one to look up what exhibitions are showing before I step into a museum or larger gallery. I’m just happy to get out of the house. In the most pleasant of surprises, I found myself in a large room displaying a robust collection from Christine Sun Kim, a California-born sound artist, activist, and performer who I was unfamiliar with. The captivating part of Christine Sun Kim being a sound artist, as well as a visual artist, is her approach from a deaf experience.
Because I am not a believer in taking photographs in galleries, often due to being able to find the work online and because photographs often do not due artwork justice, I am sharing two images from Whitney’s website and HYPERALLERGIC:
“Trauma, LOL” (2020) would of course stand out to me as a therapist, but also as a child of an immigrant, a queer person, a neurodivergent person, someone who has dabbled in and out of recovery, and a person newly understanding their emergent disability. What was most refreshing for me, an “audist” as described in some of the works, or hearing person, was being allowed to witness someone else’s friction with the world. A friction I won’t be able to understand. I can learn to see it. To acknowledge it. To soak in Christine Sun Kim’s work as one example of the deaf experience and apply it to my observation of the world. The work made me further curious about what it means to be deaf in a hearing world, the ways in which deaf people are handled, and how spaces are made accessible (or rather, not) to deaf people.
More broadly, as someone who is neurodivergent and dealing with a blossoming and debilitating autoimmune disorder, I take pause to notice my own experience with friction in an able-bodied, neurotypical prioritized world. I left Christine Sun Kim’s exhibit feeling emotionally charged, with permission to reflect on my own experiences.
I moved into the second exhibit, Shifting Landscapes. In my sketch book I wrote names, titles, and took note of techniques that felt exciting to me. I was moved by my fellow Latine artists and particularly cherished La Migración Es Natural by Patrick Martinez. I ended my time at Whitney in Amy Sherland’s American Sublime. The works are massive. Overwhelmingly emotional. Amy Sherland, while addressing skin-tone in muted, monochromatic pigments, captures the subtle textures of lines, veins, and structure of each model. Standing before Breonna Taylor’s portrait, featured on the cover of Vanity Fair in 2020, was transportive: my own nervous system remembered the time very vividly.
I awoke that day feeling unsure if I wanted to leave the apartment where I am dog sitting and make the 40 minutes or more across Brooklyn and Manhattan just to look at art. I allowed myself to say yes to something that seemed challenging, but really only a little: I caught one train and walked 20 minutes, took a bus across Manhattan, walked a few blocks to the museum, then walked 25 minutes to eat lunch and catch the train back. I want to note that walking is something that is not easy for me anymore, and often comes at a cost of pain and inflammation and less mobility. I did it, despite this, and the payoff was worth it on this day.
Now I know where to find Motivation. She’s just busy showing off the product of her labor while she was inspiring other creative people to make their best work.
I believe food is a spiritual good, so here’s what I have checked out so far:
Lan Larb Chiang Mai in Lower Manhattan had the best Thai food I have enjoyed yet. I had the Khao Soi Chiang Mai and shared fried calamari with my friend. I keep thinking about this meal!
House Party on Bushwick for coffee, food, sitting, very normal and positive energy.
Chez Alex on Ralph for coffee, vegan pastries/food.
Tokuyamatcha & Onigirazu Bar in East Village for onigirazu - so many options! - and a very good, ceremonial-grade matcha. Why, though, are all the ‘girlies’ drinking matcha all of a sudden?
Turks Inn in Bushwick, where I ate the best steak frites of my life. No surprise, because this was transported from northern WI to Brooklyn many moons ago. They were so generous and accommodating to our group of Wisconsinites, I might actually go back here for my ‘last meal’ the night before I leave!
Mominette in Bushwick, a French bistro with very good moules frites and steak frites. Sitting on the patio with my sweet spouse as the Flower Moon rose over Brooklyn was a wonderful spring moment.
Saraghina Restaurant in Bed-Stuy for delicious pizza and perhaps the best brussels sprouts I have had yet. I met up with my oldest Live Journal friend for the first time in about 13 years and was so glad she brought me here. Is this the new LJ?
Greenberg’s Bagels in Bed-Stuy had a very good Egg Bacon Cheese, which I got on an everything egg bagel.
L’industrie in Williamsburg. I get it, it’s good! Popped in here with my spouse and our friend J and you should definitely just get two slices.
The West Brooklyn in Williamsburg was a surprise hit. Spouse, J, and I really liked the vibe and the coffee was good.
Allswell in Williamsburg had good burgers. I watched our server leave while smoking a cigarette and never saw them again. It was about 3 p.m. though, so that could explain a shift change.
I am pretty poor at the moment, with having to change my job, and I’ve made the express decision to say heck-it and use credit cards to enjoy the spiritual benefits of good meals.
If you feel like supporting me during this tense financial shift, you can do so by subscribing to this newsletter or buying me a coffee. I promise to pass on the good fortune when my wallet fills up a little more.
Now what to do that I’ve found some motivation? Firstly, write this newsletter. I took a two week break in preparation for my trip and also to just get the pressure off of writing here. I did it. I wrote all these words and now they’ve gone into your eyes. Evidence that everything can be done in good time and there’s no need to put pressure on ourselves. What’s next is doing something a little more for myself. I’m carrying my sketchbook around NYC and seeing if I will have any desire to put marks on it’s pages. What do you carry around in hopes that you’ll actually do something with it? Maybe today is the day.
