Good friction and the beauty of wonky brains
Her ladyship holding court amidst the chaos of my worktable
Working on…
The summer solstice zine for the Friends of the Haus! Every season I put together a (loosely themed) list of my favourites as an extra thank you for my gorgeous patrons, and last season I made it into a digital zine and it was so awesome (watch the process here) that I’ve decided to do it again. Without giving too much away this zine is watery/beachy/boaty themed, and I had a lovely time beachcombing in the sunshine to find materials for making it. I’ve filmed the whole process so you’ll be able to watch it on my YouTube channel very soon. The zine will be released exclusively to the Friends of the Haus, so if you want your own copy then you know what to do.
Thinking about…
Good friction. It occurs to me that having cats is a lot like tending a wood fire. It’s not a passive experience: it requires something from you, but in return it gives you so much back. It’s the same with tidying. The act of tidying up and caring for a space generates love. You don't care for your space because you love it. You love your space because you care for it. Attention is love, and what you tend, you come to cherish. In this instance friction becomes a Very Good Thing.
This is the reason I designed the Haus the way I did. With almost everything these days (particularly online) being designed to be as convenient and frictionless as possible, it feels like we’re being lulled gently into some kind of stupor. Online, the places we frequent most are engineered to cultivate addiction, not inspiration. You don’t choose what you look at, you’re not encouraged to follow your curiosity and seek out new things, you’re fed what’s most likely to keep you “engaged”.
Like keeping a cat, tending a fire, or maintaining a space, the Haus asks something of you. You have to figure out your own path through it and find your way around. It’s not a frictionless experience. You have to work a little to get the good stuff. And I think that's precisely what creates the conditions for real attachment - the people who love what I’ve created have done something to be here. They've tended the fire so they get to enjoy the warmth.
Reading…
The Book of Form and Emptiness by Ruth Ozeki
Whelp. This book turned me inside out. It’s one of the most beautiful explorations of mental health I’ve ever read and comes at it with the idea that we need to treat the circumstances of a person as much as we treat whatever “disorder” they have. That different brains are beautiful and there is magic in it all. That so much of suffering comes not so much from having a wonky brain, but from having a wonky brain in a world that penalises wonky brains. And she does it all with a deftness and lightness of touch that never minimises or trivialises the struggles that people are going through. Ahh - it’s just gorgeous. A must read.
Watching…
We’re three episodes in to this five-part miniseries from queer icon Russell T. Davies and christ on a cracker it’s brutal. I think it’s absolutely brilliant and an important piece of television for the current state of everything, but don’t watch unless you’re feeling robust and well-resourced.
