revolt/art
I will not despair.
I will not change the world with my words. Technically, maybe. But largely, the world will not be wholly peaceful once I have finished speaking, writing, dancing, singing. My words will not complete us. Perhaps someone who has steeped in the tea long enough or who is good enough can carry out that monumental task, but I am not the face of this time, this place, this moment.
Instead, I grapple intimately with who I am to be inside of it all.
I have shied away from witnessing death…
Since I heard George Floyd calling for his mother. Since I saw my friends pepper sprayed in the face while sitting and holding hands in the middle of the street. Since I flushed tear gas from their burning screaming faces.
Since a woman I marched with killed herself the next week out of the despair of it all.
Since I read every name and saw every face of every black trans woman killed within the first few months of a new year and it was more people than I have ever personally known to die in my entire lifetime.
Since I saw the memorial photo of a baby killed by flying glass debris after an ammonium nitrate explosion. Saw the families across Beirut grieving loved ones filled with shrapnel. Opened my wallet over and over and over again knowing it’s a privilege to do so and yet never ever enough.
Since I saw Palestinian children pleading for help and attention one day and saw their lifeless bodies the next. Since I saw the propaganda trying to convince me it is necessary. Since I saw the leveled cities as far as the eye can see and realized they are not searching for anyone, not quelling any threat. This is not the way.
Since I first began to ask where we are detaining and sending those deported, see the conditions where they are trapped once they are kidnapped, ask why…ask when it will end…
I have shied away from seeing death, yet I refuse to close my eyes until the dying stops. The horror horror horror that it never does.
I fear my heart too soft and too weak to see see see so much. I am, at times, swallowed by fear and despair, especially when the world leaks into my own, my job, my neighborhood, my drive home, my hike, my grocery trip. When I am shaking from the words and eyes of others who think I don’t belong anywhere I am. I spend so many moments wondering how I can protect myself and my people and still do what we do to help others but quietly and covertly.
And then I grit my teeth and remember that I refuse to do anything covertly. I will walk freely, go boldly, scream loudly, read what is banned, say what is banned, do what is banned - disobey disobey disobey.
I will stand out like a sore thumb. Like a nail that refuses to be hammered.
Where the fuck is the revolution?
Friends,
There is no transition from that piece into this newsletter, sorry. I am always holding life and the world in a strange duality.
It has been a while since I put out a real genuine newsletter with updates about my art or life that aren’t artistic reflections on the horrors. So let me recap a period of time in as few paragraphs as possible and then get to art updates:
Last summer, I thought I was dying. I’ve always had underlying, unsolved health concerns from time to time but this was different. Thus began a roughly 6-month battle with Lyme disease. First, I was given an incorrect test which ruled it out, then set on a wild goose chase to figure out if I had Lupus, and then finally given the longterm medication I needed to beat Lyme. I was in bed for 4 months, in and out of work for 2.5 months, and finally on medical leave for two weeks when I simply couldn’t function in half-awareness anymore. I started treatment in November and was set to return for reevaluation in December when…
Car troubles! I was in my first car accident and my trusty 2002 Avalon was totaled by a careless driver. It was a long, excruciating process of being denied needs and on extended timelines until I thought I would rather fall into a volcano than do one more day of the bullshit. And then I finally received a settlement. Only to find that the driver at fault was appealing everything in court.
Luckily, the situation was so black-and-white nothing changed in the ruling and eventually I was able to buy my dream car. I love my dream car.
Eventually, I got back to the doctor and we believe I am Lyme-free, but will continue to experience residual inflammation and arthritis for up to a year. Who’s to say?
During my Lyme disease bed rotting days, I came to many life realizations (as one does when they are going insane) and decided it was time to get my Master’s degree.
Long story short, I am enrolled in grad school and begin the journey to getting my MFA on August 1st in beautiful Lake Tahoe.
I have applied for another grant, applied for a promotion at work, and created some very ambitious art pieces.
I wish I could chalk the absence of sharing my art up to something easy like being busy or being lazy but no. My god no, it’s actually because I have created projects so enormous they have taken every day of my life and the lives of a couple of friends to get remotely close to having proof of concept available to show off. I have no reference for how long these things will take now that I have put so much more professional effort in to creating the best pieces I can.
Below is a relatively general timeline?
On the docket:
Extraplanar Radio Show - 1-2 months until rerelease, expect a new trailer this month.
Whoop whoop! This project has become absolutely insane since parting ways with my previous collaborators and moving this show under the umbrella of my production company, Pulsing Prism Productions. I am awaiting news of a grant I applied for to see if I can use some more advanced equipment to polish season 1 before putting it out there, but we’ve got at least a month to hear back on that, so hang tight. I also have some amazing friends who are contributing guest voices to some critical characters (and villains, teehee), so YEAH the stupid show ain’t out yet, but I promise the wait is worth it! The cosmos will never be the same.
Tales from Niveen - 5-7 months until rerelease, safe estimate
I have… a book. I am writing, editing, writing, editing, and spending many hours reading. And holy fuck it’s actually a book and I am still on track to begin reposting this marvelous beast of a story sometime in the fall. If you read it before, I think you will be so pleasantly surprised to find a refined and matured story this time around.
BODYPARTS: Free to a Good Home - Who knows‽ I really hope it’s this year
I swear this experimental film series will simply not be done until the year 2050. Why didn’t anyone tell me what I was signing up for by combining projection with film and frame-by-frame animation and sound design and (please shoot me with a poison dart and put me out of my misery). The first film of the 4-film series, EYES, is the most ambitious thing I have ever had the audacity to create - I decided to learn many of the skills needed to make this thing on the job and it has been incredibly rewarding, but such a monster. Each time I figure something out, I realize it adds another month to the filmmaking process. BUT I hope you all love it as much as I do when it finally comes out 80 years from now.
Speaking of BODYPARTS, here are just a handful of unrefined frames (still awaiting some line clean-up and VFX) from EYES as well as the current working description of the project. Special thanks to my friend Bridget for being my lovely scene partner and allowing me to film in their home, and shoutout to my friend Allie for collaborating as my animation assistant for the obscenely high frame count we have to complete before we die of old age. I hope to share an excerpt of the film soon, but we just aren’t there yet.
“BODYPARTS: Free to a Good Home is series of experimental short films exploring fragmented identity, bodily autonomy, and the tension between presence and absence. Through practical effects, projection, hybridization of film and frame-by-frame animation, and layered sound design, each film isolates a body part and dissects from it stories of trauma, decay, and revelation. The series emphasizes absurdism, horror, and reality distortion as key storytelling elements.
Pieces include: EYES, VOCAL CORDS, SKIN, NERVES”
If it feels like the revolution is out of reach, make art. If it feels like empires are falling, make love (or friends or whatever). I am marinating myself in both, currently. The act of creating is liberatory, the act of sharing what I have created with others, in both process and final product, feels subversive to a society obsessed with anti-intellectualism, individualism, authoritarianism, and allowing capitalism to devour us all.
Under fascism, me and the girls, gays, and theys will hand out T, Plan B, and Anne Frank’s Diary at the craft night. That’s the gay commie DEI agenda, by the way. I was indoctrinated by the fluoride in our tap water and watching Antifa punch Nazis and throw firecrackers back at the police.
We will persist. We will continue to love and laugh. Do not despair.
Illegitimi non carborundum.
I don’t have much else to report currently, but expect to see more from me soon :)
And if you would like to collaborate, have a skillset you feel would be a good contribution to any of the projects that I am working on, or just want to talk shop, please reach out! I am always eager to find ways to share the creative process - it’s no fun to work alone.
xoxo,
Lash
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xoxo <3