54. ART FARM, PART 1
maybe i will run away to the prairie forever
i’ll cut to the chase. i love it here. within twenty-four hours of arriving at art farm, i was fantasizing about leaving my daily grind behind forever. the idea of sitting at my desk back in new york and churning out emails and applications all day felt simply unthinkable. i suddenly get why people go off the grid.
while by new york standards (or at least my standards for myself when i am in new york, waist-deep in the miasma of hustle culture), i have been somewhat unproductive and fairly difficult to reach, by other standards, this is the most creative i have ever been. every morning, i create: i drill through planks of two by four and mallet screws into place until there is a barn (where there never was a barn). or at least there will be a barn. every afternoon, i create: i go to the studio i share with sophie and pitch plot twists and write monologues and fill our dramaturgy packet with excerpts from nebraska history books that i find lying around. and every night, i rest. i sleep deeply, my body sore, my brain ready to reset.
to those of you who have known me for years, this may come as something of a surprise. i have historically been an indoor kid, a late sleeper, a merciless perfectionist. and yet, things change. on wednesday night, i voluntarily hiked for three hours on the prairie — bone tired, soul happy. i will never stop loving sleep, but i have come to appreciate early mornings when i don’t have to rush to finish my tea. i am practicing sharing my work before it is polished to a shine, my thoughts before i have rewritten them three times in my mind, my feelings before they have been sanded down to what i hope will be accepted. i am content with myself and who i have become.
this installment will probably go out late. my first instinct is to text several of my closest friends and ask if anyone will hate me if that’s the case. (they will lovingly humble me.) for now, i am allowing myself to bend, to wait. i know this will reach you when the time is right.
p.s. this post is too long for email, largely because there are so many pictures that i want you to see! click the title in your inbox or click HERE to read it on my little substack website so you don’t miss the end.
reading.
there are poems on almost every wall of art farm. some are below.
some other excellent signs from around the farm should give you a sense of how rustic it is.
some alternatives to “how are you?”
this reddit q&a with jesse green and michael paulson of the new york times.
this longread about the state of streaming. basically, it’s not good. also, i’m obsessed with the descriptor “former nobody.” (very “artist, unpaid.”)
seeing.
nebraska. you guys. it’s unreal out here. i’ve literally never been somewhere so flat, so green, so full of stars.
and art farm itself? you can’t even imagine. every inch of this place is covered in art. below is the wall of the building sophie and i are sleeping in.
and below is a slice of my bedroom and its collage wall.
the studios are just so cool. some of them are below.
gjerloff prairie. behold.
we came across a cow skeleton on the prairie and everyone took home a bone. i kept a little bit from near the tailbone that fits me like a knuckle ring.
also saw this gorgeously carved walking stick, which belonged to one of our prairie tour guides.
on tuesday night, we had a sharing circle where everybody offered up a piece of what they had been working on. all the offerings were gorgeous, but i was particularly struck my one resident’s stop motion video piece about the archives of memory and her mother’s slowly deteriorating mind. will be thinking about it for a while. there were short stories, poems, excerpts from novels, a spinning demonstration, and a performance on long horn carved out of mulberry. even art farm’s resident baby shared some beautiful finger paintings.
and now for something pretty different… the tony awards! one of my favorite holidays of the year! it’s as commercial as christmas and you’ll still find me glued to my tv! not only was this year’s tonys particularly noteworthy due to the ongoing wga strike, but i ended up watching it via sophie’s hotspot as i lay curled on my bed with nausea and a migraine. (i am much better now! but boy, did i feel gross after our full day of travel to nebraska!) anyway, i particularly loved watching the opening number (which i didn’t catch live as we fought with the lack of service on the farm but am now watching on repeat) and speeches by michael arden, alex newell, brandon uranowitz (can’t find a link, but i cried), and j. harrison ghee.
the ultimatum: queer love makes a fairly strong argument that six weeks on a reality show are sufficient to convince the ultimatum-receiver to see the appeal of proposing to their partner (in large part based on how difficult they found a “trial marriage” with someone they barely knew)… as well as an even stronger argument that an engagement ballasted by reality tv razzle dazzle is unlikely to even last until the televised reunion.
finished my rewatch of season 1 of friday night lights. what a brilliant, soul-filling show.
hearing.
making.
so. very. much.
specifically, sophie and i are out here to work on the settled, our play about a cult inspired by the little house on the prairie books.
this is one of our studios. it’s a million degrees but the vibes are incredible.
i also am making tea. and i found this mug, which made me feel like before the flood had followed me to nebraska in the best way.
i am officially writing. i finished a draft of a big monologue for the play. this terrified me. anyway. part of it goes like this. (obvious caveat: these not my beliefs. this play is fiction.)
somehow, i also squeezed in a zoom readthrough for a new musical reading i’m directing when i’m back in the city. very excited about this one and hoping i’ll be able to share more about it soon.
finally taking photos again for fun, as you may have noticed. some more shots of art farm below.
and finally, as i mentioned, i am BUILDING STUFF. i leave you with a photo of the barn we are building, as well as a photo of me with one of my best friends, the power drill. and yes, there is a lot of video proof of me using it. i’m a drill girl now.
