Dear reader,

What truth feels most alive in you right now, even if it changes everything? I want to know.

Yesterday I went walking through town with a friend. Looking down, the California poppies were everywhere, saying hello. Eschscholzia californica. The sun was beaming, making everything thirsty. I loaned Liz a bucket hat with a strap that fit snugly under her chin.

“What’s it like to meet people from the internet?” she asked me.

I told her about the dissonance I sometimes feel when I connect with somebody who knows about me before I know about them. I worry that people build up an idea of me as an openhearted Agent of Love because of how prevalent love is in my work. I sometimes get the feeling that people assume the messages I share are concepts I’ve arrived at, sentiments about me.

“The truth is,” I told her, “the art I make is just the medicine I need to hear the most.”

Are people disappointed when they realize I’m talking to myself?

I often think about how my ability to write something beautiful—loving gut-punches that connect readers with their own sense of love, wellbeing, and compassion—in no way means that I am the softest, most loving person in the room. My work doesn’t tell people about who I am, although perhaps it gives a window into who I am becoming.

Art is funny, because by the time people see it, the artist has decided it’s complete—or complete enough. As the viewer, we therefore assume the work we’re looking at is done.

If the work is a bite-sized truism that I’ve written on found paper, a personal proverb like “When in doubt, soften” or “Cowgirl says you’re only as strong as you are soft,” do people infer that I have learned how to be soft, in spite of it all? Do they assume my work is done?

I wonder if I would feel less pressure to perform certain qualities that my work speaks to if I could tell everyone that my ideas are born from a place of learning, wrestling with, or walking towards something. My expression comes from a sense of yearning—and from working out life’s kinks. There are few kinks left for something I’ve already figured out, or learned to embody, not that I’ve ever really figured anything out…

Love,

Sky

Dear reader,

I’m dating again.

I still live 30-feet from my last partner, T. When I’ve run out of half-and-half for my coffee, I sneak into the house at sunrise to raid a tablespoon of his heavy whipping cream, the kind that comes in a glass bottle. When I need a ride home from the mechanic, T. is still the first person I call. When UPS drops off a package, he signs for me.

I never thought we’d get here. In fact, while making the paintings for my last show, there was a three-month period where we didn’t speak, and I swore I’d never look him in the eyes again. I was desperate to move, despite how at-home I feel living in the trailer.

But then fall turned to winter, which lasted approximately 5 minutes, and now spring is here, which feels like one of the hottest summers on record, and somewhere along the way, I got free.

I don’t feel an urgent need to move anymore, and I can look at T. ‘s face, and ride shotgun in his truck, without feeling an ache. Honestly, I don’t feel anything. I wonder if at some point, we really do exhaust the feelings we can have over a person.

There’s an essay rolling around in my head about living with my ex—post-breakup—for over a year, and what it has shown me about grief, care, and hope. But today, I’m writing about the value of dating new people after being in a relationship that was never easy, even on its best days.

In February, I downloaded Hinge. Three weeks later, S. and I met halfway between our domiciles at one of my favorite campgrounds. It feels important to note that normally, I wouldn’t go camping or plan an overnight for a first date. By some miracle, S. and I had discovered that we share 1 billion mutual friends, and as a result, S. felt safe. Hinge +1. Waiting for “things to happen naturally” -1.

Camping, I learned, is actually a great setup for a first encounter, as long as you’re at a busy, family-oriented place with all of the amenities. At a campground, you’re safely surrounded by dozens of people, but free from the social anxiety that usually comes with crowds, like at a hip restaurant or bar. And despite the barking dogs, and the hoots and hollers from children playing, it’s possible to experience a sense of privacy.

S. and I did normal camping things together. We made onions, apples, and sausages for dinner, assembled a fire, washed our faces in the river, brewed coffee, and napped on the beach. When it was time to go our separate ways, we sat side by side on the bed of their truck, tossing reflections back and forth over a single, shared mug of coffee.

“You’re so silly, sillier than I expected,” they said.

I felt a wave of anxiety flood in.

When was I silly? Was I too silly? Was it a bad thing? Had I used humor to deflect intimacy?

I was headed for a shame spiral, but then suddenly, my racing thoughts came to a halt. I realized I was just caught off guard, unfamiliar with the association.

T. never called me silly, and after so much life together, I was unknowingly still wearing a cloak of his projections about who I am. Why didn’t he call me silly? Why hadn’t he noticed?

S. was right: I had been silly, playful, and open-hearted during our time together. And T. was right, too. I had seldom been silly during our relationship. Being cheeky often felt entirely inaccessible; we were too busy attempting to mold each other into pieces for our respective puzzles.

With T., I often got caught up explaining myself, drawing blueprints and crafting wordy presentations about the kind of care and support I needed. I had no time for silly. After 24 hours with S., I recognized the ache of that loss instantly. Not the loss of my relationship with T., but the loss of myself in order to try and make the relationship work.

I’ve stayed places longer than I should have. It’s almost like the obvious reasons to leave weren’t enough. I stayed when it eroded my confidence. I stayed when I was dismissed and objectified. I stayed when I wasn’t seen. When I didn’t feel taken care of, I stayed. Humans are creatures of hope, and the cycles of misery–and my intuitive knowledge that something was off–were no match for my imagination.

Not only does being in the wrong place for too long feel like a repetitive shit-loop, I see now that the greater cost is that it distracts me from me. I miss out on life. I abandon parts of myself as a survival instinct, a way to smooth over the kinks in a difficult dynamic, so much that I completely forget those parts exist until someone says the word “silly” on a Sunday afternoon, and my mind is blown and I remember who I am.

I don’t have regrets, but I am thinking about the hours spent estranged from my most silly self. The days I gave over-explaining for somebody else, deluded into thinking it was worth it. No relationship is worth that time.

Dear reader, your relationships should bring out the best in you, and I don’t mean the best qualities that are the most liked by others. I mean the best in you. You should be pleasantly surprised by the version of yourself that comes out around the person you share your life with.

Love,

Sky

1. My online store is currently SOLD OUT. Thank you to everyone who supported my recent transition into a more sustainable (or entirely different?) business model. Think limited releases, think random drops, think of me floating up in a cloud, in a place where your email can’t find me. Make sure you are signed up for the sexy mailing list (not to be confused with this Substack) if you want to stay updated about print releases, ROCK SHOP hours, collaborations, ceramics, pop-ups and what song currently reminds me of my crush.

2. What is the sexy mailing list, you ask? This little newsie is like a lovingly designed and aesthetically delightful one-page flyer. It comes out every Thursday. It’s brief, hot as fuck, top-notch cute. Think of it like a weekly dessert to the once-monthly entrees that you read here.

3. Connect with my audience! I now offer CLASSIFIEDS. My weekly newsie gets read by thousands of eyeballs every week. Drop your offering, workshop, personal ad and get a boost. More info here.

4. As some of you know, this newsletter is currently supported by Squarespace. Everything on my website is currently SOLD OUT, but I still use my website to book creative advising sessions and host workshops. I also use it to connect with my audience via…you guessed it, my sexy mailing list. Lol.

   

   Click here for a free trial and use the code “UNSUPERVISED” to save 10% off of your first purchase of a website or domain. IF I CAN DO IT, YOU CAN DO IT.

Dear reader,

Yesterday on Instagram, a reel appeared of a woman outside, bathing in a river. The footage showed her lizarding on rocks under the sun, basking in nature’s simple delights, while a feminine voiceover spoke. “I’ve never known a relaxed woman,” the voice said.

Hurriedly, I scrolled past before it ended, but the sentiment stayed with me all day.

I’ve known a lot of women.

I’ve known rushing women, caretaking women, stressed women, and tired women. I’ve known worried women, scared women, codependent women, and sick women. I’ve known women who could outwork any man in the room and still apologize for taking up space. I’ve known women who keep everything afloat with clenched jaws and quiet resentment.

But a relaxed woman? It gave me pause.

When I think about my childhood, the women I had the most access to were the ones who raised me: my mother, my grandmother, my aunts, and the mothers of my friends. With a few exceptions, these women weren’t notably chaotic, but they were always doing something for someone else when I witnessed them. If they weren’t in service, they were maintaining themselves—exercising, grooming, improving, tending.

I have no memory of them simply existing. I see performance. I see vigilance.

The relaxed woman feels like an enigma. Is she a luxury item, or a museum piece behind glass? Is she something only wealth can buy? Is she born into protection? Does she outsource her stress? Does she marry it away? Is she buffered by reliable security—financial, relational, structural? What allows a woman to be unburdened in a patriarchal world that profits from her performance?

I spent today running around, equal parts work and personal maintenance. Though I made a point not to rush, I wasn’t necessarily relaxed either. When do I actually relax, I wondered? And is my relaxation actually just self-optimization in disguise? Am I even willing to relax?

Relaxation feels suspicious seeing as I've learned that intensity means virtue. Intensity also feels like control, however false that notion is.

If I’m relaxed, will I fall behind?
If I’m relaxed, will I gain weight?
If I’m relaxed, will I be useless to a partner?
If I’m relaxed, will I stop striving and disappear?

Dear reader, I don’t know if I’ve ever truly known a relaxed woman, but I think I’d like to try and be one.

Love,

Joanna

1. Are you lonesome tonight? Do you miss something about yourself? NIGHT MOVES, my online art club for freaks and normies alike, starts THIS TUESDAY MARCH 3RD from 5-8 PM PST and runs for 6 SESSIONS. 18 HOURS TO PARALLEL PLAY AND LET YOUR FREAK FLAG FLY, with me as your accountability dreamgirl host. Use COURAGE at checkout for $25 OFF!

2. Squarespace wants to keep helping support this newsletter! I use my Squarespace website to sell prints and host online workshops. LOOK HOW CUTE IT IS:

   

   I use their booking services to schedule one-on-one meetings with other creatives. Click here for a free trial and use the code “UNSUPERVISED” to save 10% off of your first purchase of a website or domain. IF I CAN DO IT, YOU CAN DO IT.

   

3. NEW PRINT ALERT:

4. :

Dear reader,

Sometimes I hear people say things like, “It has always been bad! There has always been war, and genocide, and violence!” Based on what I know, they’re not wrong. It has always been pretty bad.

But what’s different about now versus “then” is that we’re all online. We see things, we know things. And while I feel like I know about the world without actually knowing anything, I do think this seeing and knowing is important. I believe everybody becoming a witness is impacting the course of civilization in a seismic and life-changing way, one I hope is for the better.

The question I have today is: Are we closer and more empathetic towards each other because of what we see on our screens? I think it’s a possibility, but right now I think the answer is no.

We are fed an enormous amount of grief through our screens every day, but we live in a grief-phobic culture. We don’t speak about death with each other, yet death flashes on Instagram before I tuck my phone into my pocket and order a cappuccino from the Gen Z barista in baggy pants. We barely talk about getting old—unless we’re trying to avoid it.

Being online is something that we never asked for. I don’t think we’re wired for it, but here we are, doing it all day, every day—and without any guardrails. My guess is that until we become a society that embraces the necessity of mainstream grief practices, our “being online-ness” will continue to disconnect us from ourselves and each other more than it brings us together.

This month, one of my favorite companies asked me to reflect on attention, community, and small acts of care. If you’re feeling any of this too—the overwhelm, the disconnection—you might find the answers in the excerpt below grounding.

5. You are a huge proponent of digital detoxes and stepping away from the noise of the internet. What is your advice for listening to yourself, stepping away from distraction as a currency, and finding community outside of social media?

My advice is to take these technologies and the lived experiences they disappear from us seriously. People talk about the currency of attention, like technology is stealing my attention, but I think what’s at stake is a lot more than just my attention. Every minute I spend sucked into the void is a minute of real life that I will never get back. If I spend one hour a day on my phone, that’s 30 hours a month, or 360 hours a year. It doesn’t feel like a lot while it’s happening, but when I picture myself alone, hunched over my phone for 360 consecutive hours, it feels pretty alarming.

I am still not ready to step away from using my online presence to support my business, but I am well aware that I’m a different person when I’m not on social media. Taking regular breaks from Instagram has been integral to my mental health over the last few years, and now that I’ve created the container of a support group (TUNE IN, DROP OUT), I don’t have to white-knuckle these breaks alone anymore.

People think they’re in the driver’s seat and can simply unplug from scrolling or habitual “checking” (email, YouTube, Twitter) on their own accord, but that hasn’t been my experience. Almost everyone I know is addicted to their phone and unhappy about it. I think we need to hold each other up when it comes to divesting, even if it’s just for a few weeks. When the experience of loss and craving becomes a shared one, it’s a lot easier to stay the course and to remember the “why,” to learn and grow from the process.

6. In a world with so much noise, how can we remind ourselves that small actions are the building blocks for bigger impacts?

It’s nearly impossible not to feel helpless when thinking about the state of the world. I get defeated or frozen, I get tempted to pedestal and blame someone else for “not doing enough” because I perceive them to have more power or a bigger audience than I do. But who thrives when I point fingers and simultaneously think that I have no power? What systems benefit when I insist on outsourcing–or altogether denying–my own agency?

The reality is, at the end of my life, I will have had the most impact on the people around me and in my immediate community. Sometimes I think we lose the plot when we task ourselves with saving the entire world. We know so much, and I think it’s a natural response to want to fix everything. But fixing everything is too big; it swallows us and we do nothing.

There’s this notion that we have to “think bigger,” but that just sounds like capitalism talking to me. I think world peace is actually asking us to think smaller. If I narrow my lens and focus on helping what’s in front of me, that’s no less important than a “bigger” cause. What is a bigger cause anyway? I refuse to get pulled into thinking that some lives are more important than others, and that’s exactly what happens when we start playing God and qualifying bigger versus smaller problems.

I think what saving the world actually looks like in practice is individual people–not corporations, not governments, not celebrities, not billionaires–but individual people doing what they can to nurture the world around them. If everybody commits to nurturing what’s in arm’s reach, the world will be a lot safer for everyone.

Read the rest of the interview here.

Dear reader, I know you don’t expect me to have one, but I don’t have a grand solution. Right now I’m practicing paying attention to what’s near me—my body, my work, the people in my orbit—and trying not to miss my life while it’s happening.

I hope today’s letter reminds you that you don’t have to hold everything, fix everything, or know everything. Sometimes the most radical thing we can do is show up fully for what’s already here. Like literally here, right in front of you.

Love,

Joanna

1. I’m currently running SEASON THREE (!!!) of TUNE IN, DROP OUT: A 5-Week Digital Detox. There are almost 100 people signed up for this one. It’s a dog damn miracle and it’s the coolest thing I do. It also means I am NOT on Instagram and am experiencing a DROP in sales and a RISE in overall well-being and orientation towards other humans.

   

2. Something very special is coming to the Central Coast: I am hosting Oakland-based tattoo artist Valicia Byrne (Pretty Heavy) and her dog Carrot for a Valentine’s weekend tattoo extravaganza here in Morro Bay. THIS IS A RARE OPPORTUNITY AND SPOTS WILL FILL FAST. Feb 13th, 14th, & 15th.

   ~To Book with Valicia~

   Email: prettyheavybooking@gmail.com

   DM: @pretty_heavy_

   Exact location disclosed upon booking.

   

3. This reminder from Sierra Lash (web) / :

   

4. Squarespace wants to keep helping support this newsletter! I use my Squarespace website to sell prints and host online workshops. I also use their booking services to schedule one-on-one meetings with other creatives. Click here for a free trial and use the code “UNSUPERVISED” to save 10% off of your first purchase of a website or domain.

   

5. Two different approaches to love, 2025:

   

6. Just finished reading Brutalities by Margo Steines, now reading Discontent by Beatriz Serrano

7. ROCK SHOP will be open Jan. 31, Feb. 7, Feb. 28, Mar. 7, Mar 28, April 4 from 11-3! 735 NAPA AVE, MORRO BAY.

Dear reader,

I don’t have any memories of my mother asking for help. It’s hard to imagine, because she was a single mother of two, relying on minimum wage jobs and sporadic allowances from her Italian boyfriend to keep our heads above water.

The oldest of four in a Roman Catholic family, I mostly recall my mother insisting she do everything herself. Asking for support was too risky. She believed people would let her down, or that they wouldn’t do the job to her liking. Even worse, if people did show up and do right, then she’d be guilty, or obligated to them in some way. It was better to keep everybody out, and to white-knuckle the day-to-day chores of being human alone.

In November, I debuted twenty original paintings at a gallery up the road from where I live, just south of Big Sur. IDLE HEART was my fourth solo exhibition, but making the work felt uniquely different than in previous eras when I’ve hustled for a show.

Unlike Barn’s Burnt Down, Now I Can See the Moon (2021), or Man of My Word (2022), or The Rolling Hills of Jenny West (2023), I was alone when I made IDLE HEART. I didn’t have a boyfriend, nor the hammock of an intentional living community to hold me.

It doesn’t sound like a big deal—plenty of people are single and have jobs at the same time. But without a boyfriend or a roommate, there were no warm dinners waiting for me when I got home after a late night in the studio. There was no one to take Zen for a romp on the beach, no one to run an errand, nobody doing a load of laundry and thinking to toss my pile of clothes in too. That is, until I asked.

With two weeks left before the paintings were due at the gallery, I swallowed my pride and asked my community for help. What compelled me wasn’t whether or not I would get everything done on my own—I knew I would, just like I always do. It was whether or not I would be able to enjoy the process, given the workload and deadline I was up against. Heaps of tasks remained, but I wasn’t yet struggling—and that was the point: I didn’t want to be. When I realized that I was nearing overwhelm, but still in good shape and spirits, I knew I needed backup to keep it that way.

Some artists forgo eating altogether when they’re in the weeds, but I am not one of those artists. I love food, and being fed is my love language. Having a full belly without having to do any shopping, ordering, cooking, and cleaning is a luxury I think most people with partners or live-in families take for granted.

When I’m saddled with to-do’s, feeding myself and doing it well is often the first thing to go, which is a bummer, because food makes everything tolerable. With this in mind, I summoned warm meals be brought to my studio and left outside in the giant cactus plant. I asked the people, and the people delivered.

It wasn’t easy, my blatant display of being perfectly fine and asking people to do something for me anyway. I didn’t have a “Big Reason” for needing help—no tragedy, no 200-person dinner, no perineal tear. But if we only mobilize for each other when we are sick, injured, or dying—or achieving socially recognized dreams, like getting married or having a baby, then I’ll probably get left out of getting help.

If I believe that receiving help is only worthy when something major happens, then I play into the idea of help as a finite resource where I only get to cash my chips in once. What if there is no limit to the help I can receive? Can I normalize naming what I need when I’m contentedly working towards a personal goal, before a cortisol surge or nervous system collapse hits? Why should I wait until I’m crashing out, hating my creative practice, and resenting my career choice entirely to ask for support? What’s the point in filling a room full of paintings and asking everyone I love to come look at them, if making them required me to disappear my wellbeing?

Dear reader, sometimes I don’t know how anyone does things, but I do know that it takes a village to do things. I also know that not everyone has the same dreams, a family nearby, a wife, or a hot work-husband. And I know that everybody needs help, often before we even think to ask.

Love,

Joanna “Sky”

1. I am returning to the name my mom gave me at birth, Joanna. I still love Sky as a nickname and will use both names interchangeably until the entire world is confused and annoyed and overjoyed with happiness for me.

   

2. SENSITIVE HORSE GIRLS TO THE FRONT: Are you looking for a life-changing 7-day retreat that weaves somatic work, ritual, and group process in the magic of the Scottish Highlands? I cannot recommend The Inner Wild enough (April 25 - May 2nd, 2026). I have been working with Kathryn of for years and this is an experience not to miss. Read more here.

3. There are still some paintings left from IDLE HEART. These will never be made into prints. They are all custom framed by T. and I. They are my heart. Email Charlie at info@cruisecontrolcambria.com for a list of works available.

4. This letter is the last of three sponsored by Squarespace. I use my Squarespace website to sell prints and host online workshops. I also use their booking services to schedule one-on-one meetings with other creatives. Click here for a free trial and use the code “UNSUPERVISED” to save 10% off of your first purchase of a website or domain.

   

5. This painting, Georgia #2, just because she’s beautiful.

   

Dear reader,

I drove all the way up a mountain to forget you.

Bring special items with you to handle the effects (altitude), they wrote in an email the week before I arrived. I brought a headlamp, but not once in five dark nights have I used it to find my way. The silence illuminates everything.

Without saying too much, I asked the teacher about you.

“It’s not that I’m thinking about a lot of things or that I have a restless mind,” I explained, “it’s that I can only think of one thing, over and over.”

“Help,” I said.

The teacher said that you are like a stone I have been clutching, softly petting, for years.

“What if there was no stone? Then what?” he asked me.

You would never come here with me, which is why it is the perfect place to try and erase everything. But I see you.

I see you in the husbands and wives; I’m surrounded by them. They’ve come here together—to forget, or remember—I’ll never know. Like the rest of us, they’re not allowed to talk, even to each other, but they do. When a husband sets down a glass of water beside his wife’s dinner plate, without words or glances, he is talking to her then.

I see you in the food. You would be satisfied with how much food there is, but I’m almost certain you would not bow your head when it enters the dining hall and the bell is rung. This would embarrass me if we were here together, even though no one would know we were here together unless we were talking without words or glances too.

With a serving bowl balanced in one hand, I use my other hand to sprinkle nutritional yeast onto a mound of quinoa. I imagine myself returning to sea level, worshipping a new god.

There are no promises made at the mountain of forgetting, but for $1200 dollars, five nights, and three vegetarian meals a day, it could happen to you. They don’t advertise that forgetting is a process of recovering, but it’s insinuated in the way they take away our phones, ask us not to talk to each other, and make us promise to let them know if we leave. “If you don’t tell us, we will worry about you,” they said during orientation.

I’ve tried to forget in other ways before. I’ve sat fireside and cursed burning affirmations into the flames as tears rolled down my cheeks. I’ve painted your truck, or trucks that look like yours, dozens of times. I’ve let myself be loved by clowns.

After being here for a few days, I’m beginning to suspect that my chances of forgetting you are directly tied to my willingness to remember myself. Here I sit, whispering to birds, weeping in the cafeteria, so deeply aware of my heart’s wisdom. How obviously stifling to be in time with someone who doesn’t see it.

I can’t shake the image of a little gremlin, crouching while holding a stone—mine, my stone, my precious—ever since the teacher rubbed the soft khaki fabric covering his kneecap to illustrate my compulsive remembering.

I act as though I’m helpless, but the teacher suggested that perhaps I like it this way. If there was no stone, then I’d have to be the one who soothes whatever I think is healed by the space I let you take up.

The silence here chooses me as the best witness to my thoughts. Are they pain-points from the past, or the anxieties of anticipating the future? Neither are real, but one or both must be present for longing and/or delusion to occur.

When I come back down, I will try to love you from afar. It is better this way, as long as I stop filling the gaps of your absence—or presence—with wild, painful story.

Who is the gremlin without the stone? She will have to come up with an entirely new quest, or accept that there is no quest to behold at all.

Sky

1. My solo exhibition of 20 original paintings, IDLE HEART, is now on view at Cruise Control Contemporary in Cambria, CA. Please email Charlie at info@cruisecontrolcambria.com for a list of works. There are only a handful left for purchase, and these will never be made into prints.

   

2. This letter is one of many unreleased artist statements I wrote for the paintings. Thank you for reading it.

   

3. I will be at a holiday market selling prints, stickers, cards, and ceramics on December 13th in Ojai, CA at the Ojai Rancho Inn. Come say hi.

4. This letter is the second of three sponsored by Squarespace. I use my Squarespace website (linked above) to sell prints and host online workshops. I also use their booking services to schedule one-on-one meetings with other creatives. Click here for a free trial and use the code “UNSUPERVISED” to save 10% off of your first purchase of a website or domain.

   

*this love letter is sponsored by Squarespace* if that makes you uncomfortable, you most likely aren’t an artist or a writer in this economy!

Dear reader,

Two years ago, I signed a lease on a brick and mortar commercial space in a salty, somewhat sleepy town on California’s central coast. At the time, the two adjacent spaces were also empty; I picked the last one on the end of an unassuming strip mall.

The cost of rent was high—nothing like LA or Austin—but coastal California nonetheless, and the concerned looks on my friend’s faces were warranted. I was saddling myself with a second rent, while most people around me were hustling to cover the cost of one.

A commercial space was high risk with an unlikely reward, given the decline of in-person retail, and how polarizing my work is. It seemed impossible I’d make enough sales from walk-ins to survive. Lucky for me, I knew I didn’t have to. Even though I had no idea what I was doing, I was certain that if I didn’t try, I’d always wonder what if. And most importantly, I trusted that my online store would catch me if I failed magnificently.

Throughout my twenties, I lived paycheck to paycheck, borrowed money, and worked multiple service jobs. I always had enough to get by, go to the movies, and eat out once a week. I rarely traveled, I thrifted everything, and I relied on social services and places like Planned Parenthood or women’s clinics for healthcare.

Then, during the first month of the 2020 Covid pandemic, I lost my job, my boyfriend, and my dog died. Though I eventually received unemployment assistance for the decade I spent making lattes and serving tables, I didn’t see a penny of it for the first six months of the shutdown. My landlord showed no mercy: rent was still due every month. Without work or the hope of finding any, I was shit-outta-luck. The only option I had was to give myself a job, one that I could fulfill from the comfort of my apartment.

I decided to make a website where people could buy reproductions of the art I was occasionally posting on Instagram. Building it out didn’t happen overnight, and not because I needed it to look perfect. It took time to figure out not only what I was good at, but what I could imagine sustaining for more than just a few months.

I also had to think about my audience. What did they want from me? Was it something I wanted to give? What kind of requests or suggestions were showing up from friends, or in my DM's and comment feed?

Based on the answers to these questions, the next step was to figure out how to turn my musings into an actual product. How does a small doodle in my notebook, or the poem I wrote on the back of a receipt, become a tangible, archival print that somebody wants to hang over their mantle and look at every day? How do I make it? How much does it cost? How much should I charge for it? How do I deliver it?

During this period of fine-tuning, I also had to boost my confidence. I had to believe that the research, troubleshooting, and Squarespace subscription were all worth it before I had any customers. I had to believe in my art when nobody else did.

To say that Lordcowboy—and ROCK SHOP—wouldn’t exist without my website would be an understatement. For the last five years, I’ve made ends meet precisely because of the online store I made when the world was on a time-out.

On November 3rd, 2020, I received my first online print order from a customer. Today, almost 2,000 days later, my website has received over 10,000 online sales. What started out as a humble homepage with two prints for purchase is now a full-blown inventory of over 50 prints, stickers, and postcards.

Like any business, some months on Lordcowboy.com are better than others. And so far, my friends were right: ROCK SHOP doesn’t pay for itself. I’ve wondered if it’s because I’m rarely open, but the businesses next door to my studio have come and gone, unable to keep up with the cost of rent without established online platforms. It has been heartbreaking to witness, and has simultaneously fortified my gratitude for every online sale that contributes to my survival.

Dear reader, do you have a website? Has it made a significant impact on your life? Perhaps your website is still hidden because you don’t think it looks right,* or maybe it just doesn’t exist yet. It’s possible you’re unsure of what to offer, or what to say. Maybe you’ve convinced yourself it’s not necessary to have one. Maybe you tell yourself that nobody cares, and you might be right. Without a website, you deny people a reason to care in the first place.

10 Things I Know About Having a Website:

1. People still go to websites.

2. Your website doesn’t have to be perfect; it just has to exist.

3. The longer you delay having a website, the longer you will be working for other people’s dreams.

4. When you deny yourself a website, you deny other people the opportunity to care about what you have to share.

5. You will most likely always feel the urge to update, change, tweak your website. This is not an excuse to keep it hidden from view.

6. Consider how your website looks on desktop AND mobile.

7. Making sure people understand the purpose of your website within 5-10 seconds of landing is more important than it’s overall appearance.

8. If you’re an artist juggling everything, make it easy on yourself: use built-in templates and integrations and modify as you go.

9. Don’t wait until you have a library of products or offerings. All you need is one or two. More will come once you build the container.

10. Pick a simple domain that is easy—not funny—to remember.

Love,

Sky

If you’ve been thinking about making a website, whether it’s an online store or a place to host memberships, workshops, or classes, I recommend Squarespace, who also generously sponsored this post. Click here for a free trial and use the code “UNSUPERVISED” to save 10% off of your first purchase of a website or domain.

*A note on Things Looking Perfect: Once and a while, I’ll witness a friend stalling to release their website into the wild because it doesn’t look perfect. At this very moment, my website doesn’t look the way I want it to (though I still get compliments on it). My desire for change has nothing to do with the platform I use, and everything to do with the fact that as an artist, my aesthetic sensibilities are always shapeshifting and evolving.

For me, I understand that the itch to update the design of my website is not an exception—it’s an everlasting rule. Depending on my mood or how much time I have to devote, I know that templates, fonts, colors, and images will come and go. Luckily, making changes big or small is easy on Squarespace, even for an analog girlie like me.

The appearance of my website will always have the potential to be more eye-catching or unique. That’s the fun of it. I imagine it like a house that’s both comfortable and perpetually under construction. What’s important is that throughout the seasons of renovations, the purpose of my website remains steadfast and clear: This is where you can buy my art.

*all photos in this post were taken by Joy Newell, now booking Embodied Portrait Sessions and more in Los Angeles.

Dear reader,

Nothing tastes like it used to. It’s too soon to tell if it’s because we’re in the growing pains of global enlightenment, or if it’s because we’re inching towards total societal collapse.

These days, the only relationship that feels familiar to me, or remotely resembles relationships I’ve known in the past, is the one I have with my dog. All other relationships I have—with people, nature, work, leisure, and the overall experience of being human—feel contaminated, or just off. Things feel increasingly confusing, hostile, and more removed from themselves every day.

Given that there’s an endless buffet of suffering to internalize and ruminate on, it would be easy to quit. It’s hard not to feel like Artax in The NeverEnding Story, the horse swallowed by mud because the Swamp of Sadness overtakes his spirit.

But despite the growing lack of hospitality to life itself, I’ve decided to keep living. I’m going to persist. Because more than ever, I feel like my life isn’t just for me.

Lately, when people ask me how I am, I tell them that I’m in the practice of being okay with not being okay. Instead of telling them that I’m in pain, I tell them that I’m in the process of learning to love something new. Because isn’t it the same thing? Despite what I’ve been told, my pain isn’t weakness leaving the body; it’s the discomfort of learning to love something new, often against my will, or timeline.

What is my suffering, other than my refusal to meet something exactly as it is? What is the ache, other than a side effect of my resistance to something not being as I think it should be, or want it to be?

Since reframing my heartache and suffering this way, my body has softened. I imagine that the pain of losing someone to a breakup is a sign that I’m learning to love my life outside of that relationship: a new schedule, a different social circle, maybe even parts of my personality that I’ve kept hidden. I consider the agony of exercise or a new intellectual endeavor is a sign that I’m learning to fall in love with saying no to everything superfluous—and being sore. And the horror of quitting a substance—be it nicotine, alcohol, or caffeine—is a sign that I’m learning to love a new way of being with my body, or interacting with people.

In a way, it feels like I’m offering myself the grace of beginner’s mind, but applying it to the places that hurt, instead of towards a new skill or hobby. What happens to my heartache when I treat it like it’s a brand new experience? What happens to my pain when I don’t expect myself to be perfect at it, or know the right way out? The only thing my heartbreak needs from me is a willingness to try and love something new.

Love,

Sky

SO MANY THINGS TO UPDATE YOU ON.

1. My solo exhibition of original ink paintings opens on November 15th from 5-8 PM at Cruise Control Contemporary in Cambria, CA. There will be over 20 new works on view, all custom framed. I hope you can make it. My last exhibition was over two years ago, and this one feels especially…special. I won’t have any family present at the opening, so I’m relying heavily on fans, friends, and lovers to show up.

   

2. This Saturday, October 18th, I will be at OFF REGISTER, Santa Barbara’s Art Book and Print Fair. It was SO STINKIN’ FUN last year. 10-6 at the Community Arts Workshop.

   

3. Wake up babe, new Lordcowboy just dropped! There are SO MANY NEW prints and stickers up on my website. Take a look at www.lordcowboy.com and make my day.

   

4. 

   

5. This is my version of Taylor Swift releasing a new album. I can’t stop listening to Mia Wilson, this track all day. She’s just so good. Can’t wait for her full album out Nov. 14th.

Yesterday, I woke up and told myself that it would be different. Today is going to feel good, I thought. Today, I am going to prioritize my self-care before the dog’s. Today, I’m going to keep my cool.

First, I meditated for thirty minutes in the doorway of the trailer. It had been over a week since I last cleared the mental cobwebs. Meditation is always the first thing to disappear from my mornings when there’s a shakedown or I’m in a transition. It’s a shame, because I know that’s precisely when slowing down is the most potent thing I can do.

On a good day, meditating feels like a massage from the inside-out, like a magic brush softly combing through the folds of my brain. Yesterday, meditation felt like trudging through shit, and more than once I impatiently cracked an eye to peek at my timer.

When it was over, I followed a Yoga flow on YouTube for another thirty minutes. Laying on the floor and feeling hopeful that the last hour I had devoted to myself would lead to serenity, I was pulled out of shavasana by a faint sound of chewing coming from the other side of the trailer. When I looked up, I saw a dog with my sock in his mouth, torn to shreds. I lost it.

Ram Dass once said, “If you think you’re enlightened, go spend a week with your family.” I’d argue the same logic applies to spending time with a stray dog looking for his pack.

Dear reader, I got a dog. Despite the fact that he looks like he should be riding shotgun—nose-first—in an old pickup truck while it rattles down a dusty road, this cattle dog is not the freewheelin’ kind. Not yet, at least.

Over the last ten days, I’ve cleaned up more puddles of dog puke from the floor and seats of my car than I can count. I have the process down at this point: I’m well-stocked on paper towels, disposable gloves, puppy pads, and enzymatic cleaner, and we’re experimenting with safe doses of Dramamine while he adjusts.

For months, I’ve been feeling a familiar call for a companion. This dog—who I’ve decided to call Zen—is not my first rescue. And just like the other times I’ve folded a shelter dog into my life, as soon as the “other-species ache” revealed itself, I knew it was unlikely to subside.

Instead of painting or keeping public hours for ROCK SHOP, I started with a simple ritual of visiting the local humane society every Friday afternoon. The first time, my friend Marsha came with me. I needed somebody honest to crosscheck my choices. That day, we met with a feral, fifteen-pound Dachshund/Chihuahua mix named Hazel. She was as cute as she was petrified, army-crawling around the floor with her head low. “Has anyone actually seen her stand up yet?” I asked the staff.

Hazel melted my heart, but I was more charmed by the fact that Marsha and I were mistaken for a couple. The staff addressed us like we were two gays searching for a new member to join our outcast family.

Weeks later, I was alone when I met Sheldon, a middle-aged terrier with cotton-white hair. “He’s a total lovebug, you’ll fall in love with him quickly,” the volunteer shouted over a chorus of barking dogs.

She was right. In a shaded courtyard outside, I sat down on the pavement hoping to be more approachable. Sheldon calmly walked over, curled into my lap, and let out a sigh. Over the next few minutes, we exchanged cuddles and kisses, and got each other riled up to play. We were having a really good first date, when suddenly he looked me in the eye, lifted his leg, and peed on me.

I didn’t go back to the shelter after my golden shower. I wasn’t giving up that easily, but it was admittedly hectic and hard for me to comprehend anything whenever I was there. I had a feeling that finding a dog was going to be more easeful and anti-climatic. And then, late one Saturday night while I was scrolling on PetFinder, Zen showed up.

On Monday, three weeks with Zen will have passed. T. says that Zen is a basic white bitch name, that I might as well have named the dog Bliss. I am a basic white bitch, and more importantly, I need the reminder. Because Zen? I am not.

The dog is cute—handsome even. He’s affectionate, and occasionally funny, and I still don’t love him. I feel flat, not because I’m incapable of love, but because love in this form doesn’t plug into the systems I’ve learned to build my life around. Luckily, I didn’t get the dog expecting to love him overnight. I got the dog because cultivating love where there is none is the practice.

For years, every single thing I’ve tended has been measurable: my body shifts, my bank account ebbs, paintings get finished, shows get scheduled, metrics go up. Even rest has been tracked—and rationalized.

But dogs don’t belong to that world. Dogs aren’t about control, data, or money. Zen just exists: alive, messy, inconvenient, needing care, silliness, and softness. He confronts me with the one muscle I don’t work: tending to something living, with no payoff except presence.

Being with Zen is like learning a new instrument. It’s disorienting, uncomfortable, and awkward. Most of the time, I resent it. But my resistance is so clearly not about whether he’s a good dog (he is). It’s about my willingness to let something alive interrupt my systematized world. It’s the withdrawal of my usual drugs: control, productivity, performance, and achievement.

When I heard my inner voice calling out for a dog, I knew it wasn’t just because I needed a walking companion or a foot-warmer. I could tell that it was a deeper invitation to feel the friction when confronted with something that doesn’t give back in the ways I am used to—and to befriend it. If I continue to let myself heed the call, I’m sure the next year will be the psycho-spiritual skin-shedding I subconsciously asked for.

Based on my approach to life, the landscape of my heart, and the ways in which capitalism has brainwashed me, I currently feel utterly and cellularly inhospitable to living things. And yet, I have a hunch the dog is here to remind me I am not.

Love,

Sky

1. My episode on ’s podcast co-regulation is live today. Listen to Why Sky Fusco Doesn’t Want a Boyfriend (lol) on Spotify or Apple Podcasts.

   “Sky and Holly wrestle with fundamental questions about the role of the artist in times of crisis: Who gets to claim the title of artist? Is making art “enough” or should creative people abandon their practices? The conversation explores the existential doubt that plagues many creatives during unprecedented times, the fantasy of having “useful skills” instead of making vulnerable art, and how Sky uses herself as a guinea pig to give others permission to follow their creative impulses. The discussion evolves into Sky’s recent decision to step back from dating men—not from hatred, but from exhaustion with those who refuse to engage in the internal work that women have been doing for decades, while maintaining that love remains her North Star even as she redefines what healthy relationships look like.”

   

2. Most of my prints, stickers, and cards are now available on Faire for wholesale buyers. Do you have a shop that you want to feature my work in? Use my direct link: faire.com/direct/lordcowboy

   

3. LOS ANGELES: Two incredible musicians, Mia Wilson and Nydia Gonzalez, are playing THIS SUNDAY, September 7th at Scribble. It will be one of those evenings you think “maybe I’ll stay home instead” and will end so heart-filled that you’re glad you didn’t.

4. Zen:

Dear reader,

A few years ago, a writer with a staggeringly massive audience shared a poetic declaration of mine in an Instagram carousel post to promote their new book. The first image was a press release about the upcoming book of essays on living in community. The second image was my manifesto—signature cropped out—with no tag or mention of me.

I was perplexed that an author would use my writing to promote their book. Doesn’t that undermine the whole point of somebody’s press release? I wondered. Yes, unless of course, somebody is trying to pretend that the writing they’ve attached is their own. What infuriated me most about the whole thing was the weaponized incompetence. It was literally unbelievable: A published author, posting text that wasn’t theirs to Instagram and Substack in 2023, without a footnote.

As an artist and a writer, I’ve learned that being copied is inevitable. Making things and sharing them publicly means more eyes on me. And as my audience grows, so do imitators and copycats. Whether I like it or not, my ideas are outside of my control, bound to take on new forms. While I’ve made peace with this reality, not all instances of it affect me equally. The following are the three ways I’ve witnessed my ideas evolve without my control, in order of how seriously I take them—and how disruptive they are to my peace.

1. Transmission: Sometimes, I sit on an idea for weeks, months, or years, stalling for personal or creative reasons. I can’t seem to release the vision into the wild. And then, one day, when I’m scrolling on my phone, unguarded and relaxed, there it is—the idea! The caveat? It’s coming from someone else's brain.

   I’m forced to remember what speaks to in Big Magic: ideas are conscious, and sometimes impatient. They show little mercy for hesitation, and ruthlessly move on to another host without warning. It’s annoying when this happens, but ultimately I have nobody to blame besides myself. Plus, I’m comforted to know that in this business of ideas, there’s more going on than meets the eye.

2. Direct Imitation: The second instance is when I discover that somebody who admires and engages with my work has created a piece of art using my moxie. It's easy to replicate: find a piece of trashed paper or hotel stationery and, in an interesting typeface, write a paradoxically universal and esoteric musing on it by hand.

   This is copying—not inspiration or influence. Regardless, while I might take a screenshot and joke about it with a friend, I don’t lose sleep over these moments. We've been copying each other for years, and it is perfectly safe. In fact, I think copying is important. Art is copying, and there’s no such thing as original art, not anymore at least. And if that’s the case, then is making a piece of art with the formula I mentioned really using my moxie?

3. The third, and in my opinion, most unsettling instance is the only one that really ruffles my feathers. It’s disheartening when I learn, usually with the help of fans, that someone has directly plagiarized my work. Sometimes it’s a person reusing sentences I've written as their own. Other times, an image of my artwork is shared in a social media post or newsletter, with my signature cropped and no credit given, like in the book release snafu. The audience is left to assume, perhaps lazily, that it was made by the person reposting it.

   Being plagiarized is a wretched feeling, especially when it could have been an opportunity for another artist to lift me up alongside her. I usually reach out to more than one friend when I get ripped off, and I often ask for the post to be taken down. But I’ve learned that it doesn’t actually make me feel better to pressure someone into redacting the work. Sniffing out appropriation feels off-track, like I’m a hound whose lost the plot.

   Plagiarism is not a sustainable art-making practice, and as someone who doesn’t rely on this method to remain prolific, I return to gratitude. People who take shortcuts and leapfrog between borrowings aren’t nourishing their own creativity. It's no way to feed the muse.

   I feed the muse by generating ideas. These ideas are born from the intersection of influence and imitation, from reading others’ words and looking to artists, past and present. But my concern when reading other people’s work is not how to recreate it. Instead, I ask myself: What does this bring up for me, and how do I feel called to express my answer?

There’s a worry every artist faces: What if someone takes my idea and receives more recognition or reward for it than I did? At the heart of this common nightmare is fear and scarcity—the false logic that if someone else receives more of something than I do, it means I’ll be left behind, with my needs unmet. But is that really true? What if there is enough to go around? And do I really want to be the gatekeeper of someone else’s love and attention? If the worst-case scenario of being copied is someone else getting a boost, whether in money or attention, is it really a worst-case scenario?

I think it’s hypocritical to fight tooth and nail for love and equality, only to become selective about how that love gets spread when someone steps on our toes. It’s like saying, “I want everybody to have love, success, and freedom, but not if it takes anything from me, not if it threatens my chances of having it, not if someone else gets a bigger piece of pie than I do!”

When I’m at risk of getting caught in this web, I get real with myself about why I make art. Chasing fame or recognition is like climbing a ladder against the wrong wall. It might bring some success, but I know it won’t last, and I’m in this for the long haul.

Furthermore, there’s no way to monitor the universe for my copycats. If I focus on hyper-vigilance, it takes away from the energy I need to pour into my work. It steals time, my most valuable resource. Most importantly, it diminishes joy, which is how I actually measure success.

I make art because I am an artist. For better or worse, it’s who I am. I’ve never claimed to be good at it, and whether one person sees it or ten, whether someone copies it or no one does, I will keep making art. And so the job is not to police my art once I’ve released it. The job is to make the work, and to fiercely protect what fuels my desire to keep doing it.

I feel compassion for those who copy or take without consent. I’m fortunate that so far, my tank has never been empty. I’m almost certain that I’ll die before I finish all the projects swirling in my head.

We all have this capacity to create, but for a variety of reasons, most of us are too scared to sit with it, let alone share it with the world. I understand why taking from someone else and hoping no one notices feels like an easy, safe choice for many. It’s hard to pass up the guaranteed recognition and affection from something that has already been made and well-received. I’ve traced a drawing before—it’s fun, but I know deep down it’s not really mine. My hope is that people find a way to befriend and trust their own ideas.

I like to imagine that we’re all flowers, reaching for the same sun. Am I the flower that turns to my neighbor flower and says, “What the fuck are you doing? That’s my sun!” or am I the flower that nods and says, “Feels good, doesn’t it? How can I help you get a better angle on that petal? How can I help you find joy?”

Love,

Sky

PS: I am teaching a two-hour online workshop this Sunday, August 17th from 10 AM-12 PM PST. The class is called ANALOG MARKETING: Make a flyer for your world with Sky Fusco! $55. Spots are limited. JOIN & LEARN MORE HERE.

Dear reader,

My relationship to men is changing. Whether this shift is general, or will extend into my personal life, it’s too soon to tell. I can confirm that male validation, or whether men desire me or not, is finally wholly uninteresting. And the more men want my time, the more I want my solitude, nature, my work, and my friendships.

Without notice, it’s as if the rose-colored glasses for my own Prince Charming fell off of my head, and I don’t know where they went. Awakenings have happened before, but this time, I’m not the least bit concerned with what it takes to put the glasses back on.

I’ve been dating men for twenty years. I’ve merged lives with brooding musicians, flamboyant jocks, hard-working farmers, single dads, tortured professors, treehouse builders, and award-winning chefs. I tried to love these men for who they were, and not for what they did, but it was impossible. Their actions towards love were clouded by ego, coercion, control, dominance, manipulation, self-loathing, reactivity, weaponized incompetence, and cowardice. With one exception, I don’t remember any of them taking the time to sit still, self-reflect, or even jot some thoughts down in a journal.

Currently, I see multiple generations of men who haven’t done any inner work, and generations of women who have done all of it. Men can barely look at themselves, and women are taught to look too much. This disparity is sad for everyone involved, but because of it, I rarely feel the benefits of the “love” men try to offer me, especially when compared to the nourishment and deep intimacy provided by my friendships with everyone else.

It turns out that love starts with the self, and it requires courage, attention, and devotion. Deeply loving someone, and being loved by them in return, requires radically loving ourselves. In my experience, most men don’t even like themselves. It’s no wonder I don’t really feel their love.

Read more

Dear friend,

It took me twenty years—about how long I’ve had a cell phone—but I finally cracked the code. Did you know that you don’t have to reply to text messages right away? I didn’t.

The road to get here was long, and checkered with significant periods of feeling constantly accessible, and subsequent waves of shameful social burnout. But in June, a peer reached out about taking a walk and catching up. Though we aren’t close friends, we run in similar circles and admire each other’s public pursuits. Our conversations are generative.

I was pleased to hear from him, but for reasons I will intentionally leave out—lest it seem like I’m making excuses or explaining myself—I could not mentally incorporate him into the folds of my day.

A week passed, and then another. Every few days, I remembered him waiting in my inbox. I thought about responding, but physically I couldn’t muster it. I decided to experiment and wait until I was ready.

There is a different friend of mine who is exceptional at ignoring her text messages until she is ready. We are close friends, and sometimes weeks go by before I hear back from her. Early on in our friendship, she apologized profusely for one of her “disappearances.”

“I’m so sorry,” she said in a voice note. “I’ve just been off of my phone as much as possible, outside in nature, spending time with my family, and in the ocean. I’ve been taking care of myself, and sleeping a ton.”

As she spoke, I felt my cells tingle with sweet pleasure. My body relaxed on her behalf. I was delighted to hear what had replaced the given centerpiece of our lives: the phone and it’s communications.

That day, I realized I don’t want my friend—or anyone—to apologize for being away from their phone again. I don’t want someone to feel bad if the social load is overwhelming, or if I am currently one long-distance relationship too many. I have other friends who can love me in the interim.

I also realized that all of my friends are overachievers and over-givers, and that perhaps the kindest thing they can do for me, as a friend, is to put themselves first. It turns out that my love language is when my friends are MIA or OOO, even to me.

Nowadays, when periods of silence grow between my friend and I, I trust it isn't personal. Our friendship is secure. I know she is either working late into the night, or resting in a place—physical or psychological—where the email can’t find her. When I really need her attention, I sometimes follow up after a week with a simple “Woman!” though I play this card sparingly. Usually, I just give her space.

Last week, my second Instagram Detox cohort began. These groups are the most radical thing I do, and often the part of my practice that people seem to understand the least.

“People’s addiction to social media runs that deep? Really?” I’m asked frequently, as if it’s hard to believe.

“What does your screen time look like?” I respond.

On Tuesday’s meeting—the first of five—fifty people came. I was overjoyed. That’s fifty people who want something different for themselves. Fifty people hoping to reject the widespread complacency about living life on our phones. Some people are taking a vacation from Instagram. For others, it’s YouTube, Twitter, Facebook Marketplace, dating apps, email, or all of the above.

Together, we hypothesized about who we’d be if no one was looking, and how the feeling of being perceived impacts the way we relate to ourselves. We imagined Internet Utopias—perhaps a group like this is a tiny seed in the garden of change? We teased each other about a shared, hellbent tenacity for scrolling. “Even when I delete the fun apps, like Instagram or TikTok, I just start looking at Venmo, the weather, or even my grocery app,” said one member while rolling their eyes.

Compulsively searching for anything to open on a phone supports a thesis I’ve long held, which is that although it is shiny, Instagram is not actually the problem. Or, it’s not the only problem.

There’s a line in the new book, The Dry Season, that stopped me in my tracks when I first heard it. I was walking around the lake, and immediately paused the audiobook in order to open my notes app and type it out. Speaking to addiction, Febos quotes her therapist: “You can’t get enough of a thing you don’t need,” she says, illustrating how the desire for something we don’t really need will always feel insatiable, because no need can actually be met.

I’ve learned that people carry shame, not just about how much they use their phone, but about how impossible it feels to stop. “What is wrong with me?” they ask, tail between their legs. Febos’ book reminded me of the reassurance spiel I give at the beginning of every detox group I host.

I tell people that media apps aren’t like the other things we get addicted to, and they should be categorized separately. Cannabis and alcohol, for example, are tangible and can be measured. A person can understand the passing of time and the amount consumed via the length of a joint, or a glass going from full to empty. And while dispensaries and liquor stores make it easy to get more, more requires time, money, and leaving the house. Additionally, our bodies eventually tap out from the effects of mind-altering substances, or food. There is actually a limit to consumption, even if it means death.

I can’t say the same about Instagram. I don’t know where it begins or ends. When I use, I’m engaging with something infinite, and as a result, the passage of time is rendered meaningless. The app is also free, and I don’t have to go anywhere or talk to anyone to use it.

Perhaps long-term effects will reveal themselves later on, but for now I can use it for hours and not feel physically different—maybe just a little anxiety, shame, or not-enoughness, side effects that often inspire me to use it even more.

You can’t get enough of a thing you don’t need, and I wonder: Maybe you also can’t get enough of a thing that never ends. It’s like these apps are the cockroach of addictions. They just won’t die, and they’re designed that way.

On Tuesday, I lost count of how many people said “I hate my phone, I am so sick of it” during the meeting. The magic is in the repetition, and this is the arrow I follow when I think about what people deserve, and how I can orient my work towards it.

What I love most about my friends taking eons to text me back—emergencies and crash-outs aside—is the idea that even if they aren’t lounging in a shady patch of a Mexican beach with Mango juice dripping down their forearms, I know they’ve reclaimed agency over their own attention span and accessibility. For a brief spell, I am relieved to know that someone, somewhere, is the master over their device, and not the other way around.

I responded to my friend’s invitation for a walk sixteen days after he sent it. I acknowledged the gap in time, but did so without giving an excuse or explanation for why his text message had been left alone and one-sided.

“I’d love to see you. A bit of a delay on my end, but if your offer still stands…” I said.

An hour later, he replied. “Sounds great.”

Love,

Sky

1. If you want to join us on Tuesdays from 5-7 PM PST for the month of July, please sign up here. There are still four weeks left, and the first session was recorded. If you are struggling with your screen time, feeling alone, and losing hope that other people have the same quandaries, this is the place for you.

2. As you can tell, my friend is unbelievably good at making me look hot, in double-denim no less! Joy did not ask me to do this, but I highly recommend everyone who lives in California consider hiring them to take your portrait before we all die. Leave something behind for the cockroaches to admire. This is their website.

3. 10/10 recommend ’ new book. To quote my pal Thora, “Febos is the patron saint of brave self examination, which never gets old.”

4. I just finished Her Body and Other Parties by . You know when you read something and you can just tell you’re reading the presence of greatness?

5. I am rebuilding my Substack audience bit by bit, as I’ve had a bit of a lapse here due to prioritizing support groups, making prints, and painting. I have temporarily removed the paywall for three of my most popular, most loved, most-commented-on articles. If you like them, consider sharing them or becoming a paid subscriber to help me support this practice:

…on wildfires, evacuations, and dating men who only want one thing.

…on wanting romance but needing friendship, and wishing I could have all of my ex-boyfriends back.

…on not pretending that a menstrual cycle is easy.

Dear reader,

It’s the middle of June, and the breeze is warm, but welcome. My dishes are bone-dry minutes after I wash them. The lavender bush is yellow and brittle. The escaped bunnies that took up residence on the property months ago finally have a successful litter.

I walk a one-mile loop at a lake near the trailer almost daily. The dirt path wraps around a 30-acre reservoir, one of two major drainages of the Atascadero Creek-Mid Salinas watershed. Surrounded entirely by residential homes, it feels unmistakably suburban. The trail is often crowded: septuagenarians walking Golden Retrievers after an early supper, or young hetero couples jogging side by side in spandex, the husband (I assume) pushing a stroller with one, sometimes two, small humans inside.

It takes a week for me to feel like a regular. Now other walkers recognize me, and I them. I learn who prefers a nod or a toothless smile, and who’s hoping for an optimistic “good morning!” to feel less alone. I give it freely, even when I don’t want to.

I think about getting a dog again—probably because I see so many on my walks. The big ones seem like a handful—so much fur—and I’m stunned to recall that I used to be one of those people walking a large, shaggy dog. I don’t recognize her—that woman—the version of myself who made those choices, the person who lived that life.

Mom loses her way while walking this morning. Without a loop to guide you, it’s easy to forget where you’re going. She’s gotten lost before, but today when the police find her, she can’t remember the details of her life.

My brother texts me while I’m on the loop: We need to chat asap. I return to the trailer, portion a packed lunch into a glass container, slather myself in more Korean SPF, and head to the studio.

I drive down the hill in silence, knowing he is either going to share bad news, or very bad news about my mother. I’m not ready to let go, but I pray for the worst-case scenario. The alternative—living with dementia—seems worse. Forgive me.

In assisted living, being able to get yourself home is a non-negotiable—you’re a liability otherwise. Today mom gets kicked out, and my brother apologizes to me for not knowing what to do next.

I wonder why I prefer a manmade, mindless loop over walking the Pacific shoreline, just fifteen minutes in the other direction. Maybe it reminds me of adolescent summers in Massachusetts, walking West Concord with my mother in the early mornings. She taught me how to walk. Brisk, determined, unfuckwithable. A pace I’m constantly teased for, unless I’m in New York.

Similar to public sidewalks, I can’t fall apart at the lake, and I like it this way. Walking the loop, I keep my feelings inside, smile gently, and stay on track. I love the ocean, but it shakes me from a stupor of control that I don’t always want to let go of. Standing where the land meets the sea, I can cry and scream, I can go under, I can float away. Sometimes I don’t want to give in to what the water’s edge pulls out of me. Sometimes I don’t want to get lost.

Love,

Sky

1. July is a hard mental health month for a lot of people. Eager for a media blackout? I am hosting another Instagram detox for the month of July. This is an all-new cohort of people that will start together from scratch. We meet on Zoom every Tuesday in July for five weeks from 5-7 PM PST. Think of it like a digital pillow-fort that aims to bring together sensitive baddies, analog girlies, big-time daydreamers, and tender queers who want to interrupt their algorithm and quiet the noise. Maybe you aren’t ready to take a break from Instagram and you just need a place to check-in with yourself and others around how it impacts your life (terrible/beautiful?). As a group, we will be supportive witnesses for each other to log on or log off! Sign ups before June 21st get an early bird discount ($50 for the whole month). ENTER THE VOID, FOR A LITTLE WHILE AT LEAST.

   

2. New prints and t-shirts online now, and free domestic shipping on orders over $100. Thank you for any patronage, support, reshares, reposts—all of it.

   

3. has a PODCAST. Listen to the first episode with here. Holly and Chris each write newsletters that I actually open, and getting to hear them in dialogue is like a mind-massage.

4. This guided meditation and dharma talk with Matthew Brensilver has stayed with me for weeks.

5. My studio assistant made me get a TikTok. I don’t make the rules! Just trying to get my art on people’s walls. If you’re into me, but slightly more unhinged, you can find me here.

6. If you have an interesting, non-ugly store or boutique and want to start a wholesale account for Lordcowboy stickers or small prints, email me at Hello@lordcowboy.com

Dear reader,

Before my mother developed dementia, being her daughter felt straightforward. If we couldn’t be together in person, birthdays and holidays—especially Christmas and Mother’s Day—called for cards, flowers, and a phone call, ideally before noon Eastern time. For decades, I upheld this standard. It pleased my mother, and helped soothe the quiet guilt I carried for living thousands of miles away and rarely visiting.

Now that my mother’s short-term memory sometimes lasts only five minutes, how to be a daughter feels less clear. My brother and sister-in-law still do things by the book. Yesterday, on Mother’s Day, they called Deb at 9 a.m. sharp to say “thank you,” and then went on with their day.

But when I woke up in California a few hours later, I didn’t know what to do. I’ve seen the fallout of reminding my mother about milestones—It’s my birthday?! and How could I forget Christmas?!—the shock followed by a wave of shame. Being the one to illuminate the gaps in her memory is excruciating. For a moment, she understands what’s happening to her. No holiday is worth that kind of pain. Maybe I’ll just call her and skip the mention of Mother’s Day, I thought.

I decided to reach out to my brother, hoping to get a read on my mother’s temperature—a crutch I rely on frequently. He usually knows whether it’ll be a good or bad day for Deb while I’m still asleep on the west coast. My days often start by getting caught up on the headlines.

Unexpectedly, yesterday my mother got to me before I could get to him. I was in the trailer, mid-stretch, when I saw the missed calls—several—and a string of heavily worded texts, thick with the hurt of a victim. My mother was a Hallmark casualty, and I was the villain.

My focus narrowed, my heart raced. I couldn’t believe it: on most days, she forgets what month it is, what season we’re in, where I live. But she had remembered Mother’s Day—and she was beside herself, convinced her children had forgotten.

Hunched over my phone, splayed out on my yoga mat, I abandoned my calisthenics and dove headfirst into damage control. I skipped the excuses, showering her with I love you, I miss you, thank you. But it was no use. Her mind had already written the story, and she was committed to the bit: neither of her children had called her on Mother’s Day—nor do they ever call, or care about anything that happens to her.

When I was a cranky, depressed teenager, my mother used to tell me how much my mood impacted her. “As a parent, you’re only as happy as your saddest child,” she’d say whenever I wanted to stay in bed instead of face the music of high school. I understood what she meant—it’s painful to feel helpless while your kid confronts the world’s horrors for the first time.

But that affirmation also taught me something else: that I was responsible for other people’s happiness. What followed were years of peacekeeping, of hiding how I really felt from the people closest to me.

Dear reader, I wish I could tell you I’ve outgrown this attitude. But I haven’t. I’m still scared of what might happen if I stop acting happy and someone notices. I still feel the urge to apologize for having a full range of emotions—especially anger.

What’s worse, I feel so responsible for my mother’s wellbeing that I’ve internalized her affirmation and flipped the script. “As a child,” I tell friends when they ask how she’s doing, “you’re only as happy as your saddest parent.”

Codependency is sneaky; it wears the costume of love. It’s also a choice—one I don’t have to make. I don’t want to live curled around someone else’s ache. Can I honor the sadness of my mother’s life story without letting it become my own?

A special kind of rage blooms in me when my mother’s reality contradicts my own. In other words, I lose my shit when she misunderstands me and there’s nothing I can do to fix it. I want to show her: we do care, we do call, we are doing everything we can to keep her safe, fed, and housed. But I’m no match for the conviction her dementia carries. Her mind has made up its mind.

I’m lucky to have people in my life who know my heart is in the right place, even when I’m ballistic. I let them see my anger. They aren’t afraid of it. They keep coming back.

I’m unlucky, though, that in the frenzy of trying to course-correct Mother’s Day 2025, I accidentally sent a text about my mother to my mother, instead of the person it was meant for. Another string of calls from Deb. Another cross-continental mother-daughter shame spiral.

Hours later, in army shorts and huaraches, I walked the neighborhood hurling football-sized rocks at the pavement, one after another. From the porch, my lover sipped his coffee and watched—quietly, with kind eyes.

By evening, my mother had forgotten everything. A blessing or a curse of dementia? I still don’t know.

Love,

Sky

1. reads at ROCK SHOP this Friday May 16th at 6 PM. CAN YOU BELIEVE IT? Book signing to follow. 735 Napa Ave in Morro Bay, CA. Bring a chair or cushion—I don’t have any. Kathryn de Lancellotti will also be reading.

   

2. Some new prints and print bundles (aka two-for-onesies) over at www.lordcowboy.com.

3. This delicious version of Shakedown Street by the Grateful Dead will keep you grooving, maybe in your kitchen.

4. Reading this book of essays by Alexander Chee in the bath every night.

5. My Brain Finally Broke by Jia Tolentino.

Dear reader,

During my first spring on the Central Coast, the total rainfall measured two feet taller than me. Journal entries from that time loop like a soggy record: Everything is wet. The power is out again. It’s still raining. Has it ever not been raining?

This season, we’ve had barely a fraction of that deluge, and still, the hills of Jenny West grow greener by the day. It’s an offering the land still knows how to give. This is a love that cannot go wrong.

Lately, I’ve been looking outside of myself for answers less than usual. I like to imagine that if I get quiet enough, a kind of primal recall will root to rise—as if I’m remembering something I never learned, but already know. The hills know what to do. They don’t ask anybody. How can I be more like them?

I’ve been overwhelmed with other people’s words. I’m weeks behind on nearly every newsletter I subscribe to. My appetite for screen-bound thought, and for the constant dispatches of grief and confusion, has waned. I’m often full with my own.

There are so many questions floating around like balloons. What are we supposed to do? The urge is to fill the air around them, to pull their strings back down to earth—as if holding them all at once might enlighten us, or make uncertainty disappear. But I wonder: Are we even asking the right questions?

The shape of any revolution will reflect the state of the people inside it. After all, revolutions aren’t abstract. They’re made of individual people. And most of us are exhausted. Unsettled. Half-present—not because we don’t care, but because surviving this world requires a lot. And, it’s noisy here.

These days, I’ve been tending to the small work of caring for my own heart. What attitude will I bring to a collective healing if I don’t acknowledge my own shadow first? What presence can I bring to a movement if I don’t know how to settle in my own body? How could I know what to offer the world if I refuse to sit with myself in it’s glory?

Read more

Dear reader,

It’s early morning. I’m perched at a counter inside a roadside diner, sipping a cup of decaf. I’m gazing through a window at the trees that line the road. Their branches frame a cluster of weathered mailboxes before a driveway, lost in the shade, while the sun warms the backs of my hands as I write to you.

In January, I moved off of the ranch. I’m still close by, about thirty minutes from there, but I don’t have nine landmates anymore, and now I go to my own house meeting on Tuesday nights. Situated on a winding road and tucked into a canyon, my new home is a wood-paneled Silver Streak trailer from the 1970’s. Considering its age, I’m amazed by how many of it’s original features are still intact and functioning. I’ve hung my mother’s glass prisms in the south-facing windows, and light shines through them all morning which creates a tapestry of dappled rainbow dispersions.

My fingers touch the ceiling during sun salutations every morning, but otherwise the trailer feels like it was made for me. As a petite woman, this is a somatic experience that I don’t take for granted. Inside the trailer walls—which are curved—I feel safe and cocooned. Nowadays, when I visit friends in their homes, I’m rattled by how cavernous most modern spaces are. Suddenly everything seems so big, and empty. I wonder, What is all this room for?

It’s just me in the trailer, so you can intuit that after two and a half years of communal living, my life just got a lot more simple. Indeed, things are quieter, and I am taking better care of myself than I ever have. I practice yoga every day. I’ve been sober for 69. At long last, I’m caffeine and sugar-free. Most importantly, I’m available.

Read more

Dear sweet one,

It’s Valentine’s Day, and I’m thinking of you. I know it’s controversial, but I like that we get the opportunity to dote on each other during a specific day of the year. I think we actually do need the reminder. I also think Valentine’s Day should be once a month. Maybe then we’d have no choice but to remember that love is our greatest skill and the root of our sustenance.

Lately, I’ve been thinking about how special it is that we get to love each other while we’re here, on this giant spinning rock. I’ve been curious about how sharing love with someone else—or even just the prospect of it—often shifts my entire paradigm. It gets me high. It rattles me, and at the same time, completely blisses me out.

I can have very little data about a situation, and yet if there’s chemistry or a connection with another person, it feels like I’ve been plugged in. I’m still me, but turbocharged. It’s just so exciting to love. Why?

Read more

Dear reader,

In August, a man behind a cafe counter wrote his name and number on the back of an order slip and passed it to me. Chatting briefly while I waited for my grain bowl, we acknowledged each other’s familiarity. “I’ve seen you around before,” I said. “Call me,” he said with a smile.

I kept my cool until I was outside, and out of view. Under a cloudless blue sky, I skipped giddily along the sidewalk on my way back to work. This was the first attention from a man I had received, let alone wanted, since breaking up with T., and I was elated.

The next day, after a few friendly texts back and forth, I invited him to come by the studio after his shift. By that point, ROCK SHOP was finished and furnished, but I still hadn’t started letting people in. Though I longed to feel at ease sharing the space with others, I hadn’t gotten over a shyness that made me want to hide in the bathroom every time someone walked by.

Cafe Guy was a good excuse to rip the bandaid off. I knew I was never going feel ready to be in the presence of a stranger while they give me—and everything I make—a once-over. I reassured myself that one day I would feel proud of the space, but that it would happen in tiny increments.

Admittedly, opening the door for an available, single man with romantic potential felt like skipping ahead into a hard launch. I hadn’t even practiced talking about the studio without mentioning my history with T. But Cafe Guy was cute, and so into the deep end I went.

A few minutes before he was scheduled to arrive, I dusted off the record player, took the trash out, and wiped down the bathroom sink. In ass-hugging jeans, I busied myself with easy-to-interrupt tasks, like sorting paper and organizing my color pencils.

When Cafe Guy finally showed up, he let himself in, plopped down on the sofa, leaned back in repose, and let out a sigh. On the contrary, I situated myself awkwardly on one of the milk crates I had been using as a plant stand, which meant that I was literally on the edge of my seat and had no choice but to appear intrigued, and borderline thirsty.

We passed around some small talk. I waited for the moment when I’d finally have to say something about the studio and the work inside of it, or reveal a personal detail about myself, but the moment never came. Instead, Cafe Guy talked about himself for the better part of an hour, while I unintentionally played the role of The Milk Crate Therapist. When our session was up, we agreed to meet again over the weekend and have a proper date. Using only the sides of our bodies, we half-hugged each other, and he left.

Saturday was a lazy morning in the canyon. One landmate prepped beds in the field, while another worked on his truck. I did laundry and made coffee, and listened to a 12-step meeting on my phone. I was halfway through a YouTube Pilates video when the texts started piling up. “There’s a fire over by Ben’s ranch,” said someone in the group chat.

Sweaty and out of breath, I paused the video, took my velcro ankle weights off, and stepped outside. I looked to the sky, and sure enough, a cloud of smoke was growing from the horizon line. Another text from a landmate: “For anyone that is home right now, meet in kitchen.”

It was a skeleton crew that day. Half of us were off the property, likely already on the coast doing weekend chores, drinking smoothies, or surfing with loved ones. The rest of us converged around the kitchen island and devised a plan.

“Welcome to the closest a fire has ever been to our house since we’ve lived here,” Lucia said calmly. We each picked a walkie-talkie from the dock that lives on our junk table, and made sure we could hear the landmate who was already down the road and at the scene. Options were passed around, like staying put and clearing any remaining fuel around the perimeter of the house, or packing up our cars and heading for the coast. We agreed to get everything we needed ready to go.

When I walked back up to my room, it was entirely different than how I’d left it. It was no longer the safe place where I kept the objects that make me feel like me: clothes, shoes, books, gifts, art, pictures, letters, exercise equipment, lotions, potions, drugs, instruments, etc. It wasn’t the sanctuary where I slept, showered, fucked, and took rest when I was ill. Instead, it was a landscape of rapidly forming hierarchies.

Everything was reduced to two categories: leave behind, or take with. Choosing was simple and limited to the size of my car, but felt cutthroat nonetheless. I picked my passports, my mother’s journals from the eighties, my sunburst Harmony Stratotone from the fifties, a few changes of clothes, camping gear, baby books full of photos, a surfboard and a wetsuit, and a pair of cowboy boots I had gotten with T. at the swap meet.

The driveway was a flurry of quiet and focused landmates stuffing their cars. I took one last look around, hugged the people that remained, and climbed into my van. Driving to my studio, I passed CalFire trucks headed in the opposite direction, towards the blazing hill. I felt a hollow grief in my stomach: I will be never be ready to lose this, I thought.

By evening, the fire was under control and no evacuation orders had been issued. I was posted at ROCK SHOP when Cafe Guy texted. “Still up for dinner? I heard there was a fire on your road, everything okay?”

I was grateful to be preoccupied with the trappings of a first date. I knew we weren’t going to lose our house that weekend, but a domino had fallen that day: the road home had caught fire.

“All good here,” I replied. “Weird times, but looking forward to dinner.”

Cafe Guy and I sat side by side at a sushi bar, pushing rice and loose pieces of fish around in bowls of Chirashi. We poured each other tea from a cast iron kettle and swiveled nervously back and forth in half circles on our stools.

“I’m so relieved your house is going to be okay,” he said.

“Me too,” I replied. “It would have been devastating for the community, plus our neighbors…”

“Yeah, I just like, you know, part of the reason things with my ex got weird is because her dog died,” he explained. “She just got so sad, I mean like really sad. It was so heavy. And then when I heard about the fire on your road, I was like, Oh no! Not again! Another girl who’s going to lose something!”

I was silent, unsure of what route to take in my response. I had been on first dates before where I’d caught the ick after a well-meaning person had said too much, too soon. I knew he was talking about his ex, but he could have been telling my story. I thought about Lily, the cattle dog I adopted from a shelter in San Francisco when I was nineteen. I was obsessed with her death in the weeks leading up to it, and when the day finally came, I felt life leave my body when Lily gave her last breath. For all I knew, the creature that held every good and pure thing about me had just died, and she’d taken them with her.

I wanted to tell Cafe Guy that maybe his ex’s dog was the first thing that was safe for her to love, and be loved by in return. I also wanted to tell him that it sounded like he was whining about supporting his partner, and that I didn’t feel sorry for him, but I did. I know that I can only be there for people because I’ve let myself really love, and lose something.

Glancing at the TV screen that hung above the bar, I watched tiny bodies throw a ball around on a bright green field. Earlier in the day, I’d swiftly broken everything I owned into two categories. I wondered if living through this great unraveling would require me to do the same thing, but with people: the ones who can go into the dark with me, and the ones who can’t.

I leaned back in my stool and let out a sigh. “If you’re looking for a relationship without loss,” I prefaced, “you’ve come to the wrong planet.”

Love,

Anna

*all photos by (on Instagram Joy Newell)

Dear reader,

In November, two traveling poets came to the ranch and read their hearts aloud. Our home became their first stop on a month-long tour that spanned thousands of miles. Poetry in commotion for the modern drifter, they said.

Chairs from the kitchen and library were carried across the brick floor of our house and into the hearth. Lucia had made a fire and a pot of soup, and dimmed the overhead lights. The kitchen filled to its capacity as people dipped bread into bowls of hearty broth, pausing between bites to greet whoever wandered in through the back door. The crowd was made up of friends, neighbors, and coworkers, some I had yet to meet, and many who’d also come to share.

As the sun set, we were summoned to find our seats — chair, bench, mattress, or giant beanbag — and settle in. It had been over a year since the last poetry slam at the ranch, and though it was the out-of-towners that prompted us to make a flyer and host again, over a dozen members of our community showed up eager to reveal parts of themselves often kept in the shadows. To begin the evening, Gabriel grounded the crowd by plucking his guitar with a hypnotic rhythm. Kim then read a love letter to her mother, written after her death. Dressed in red from head to toe, tears streaking her cheeks, Abby strummed a simple melody and sang, pleading for the world to change.

And then the poets stood before us, a room overflowing with sleeping dogs, tea drinkers, and heat from the crackling fire. The poets were two city boys who, like the other participants that evening, cared enough to cradle what moved them and put it into words. But I also sensed from them an energy that I hadn’t felt in a long time. Their poetry burnt with raw anger — a jarring contrast to the muted rhythms of life on the central coast of California. Anger – not its usual gatekeepers like sadness, disillusionment, fear, or hopelessness. It was out in the open, uncloaked.

In a few days, the calendar turns to a new year. As I reflect, I’m not focused on what I accomplished in 2024. There will be no recap. Most important is that I survived, and that I’m healthy and sheltered. That’s enough for me.

What stands out isn’t what I did, but what I stopped doing. I stopped drinking alcohol (mostly). That feels like a good thing — something I’ll keep not doing.

I also stopped writing on Substack as much as I used to. But I’m not estranged from writing. I write all the time, just not to you. And it’s not because I don’t miss you — I do.

I think I’ve become estranged from why I write publicly in the first place. I started my Substack because I like to write and because I’m good at it. It was that simple. Like most things before self-consciousness sets in, it was full of curiosity and good intentions. Fun, bold, sloppy, unpretentious — that’s what I wanted.

Then my audience grew. 3,000 readers became 23,000. Book agents started emailing me. My landmate began editing my pieces before I published them, and though he always encouraged me to stay in my lane and not get bogged down by conventions, I started tripping. What began as a creative outlet became about growth, optics, and what publishers look for. I’ve had plenty to say this year, but I’ve found myself holding back. Writing is different when it feels like the thing I should want as a writer (a book deal) is on the line. But what is it I really want?

The night the poets came to town, I think I fell in love with both of them. It helped that one guy was barefoot in a cowboy hat, covered in tattoos, and possibly missing a tooth. As I leaned against the wall with my shoulders back and eyes wide, I felt myself peek out from the safe and shrunken place where I’ve been slumbering. I remembered that what’s clean, polished, cultured, or academic has never been what stirs my soul. I come alive with self-taught grit, with spit on the pavement, with calloused heels, and dried blood on the seam of a pair of jeans.

As I look to the year ahead, I want to remind myself that my Substack isn’t always about doing my best—sometimes it’s just about getting my fingers dirty by myself under the hood of my car. Sometimes it’s about the courage to let the words be what they are. I did name it Unsupervised…

Love,

Anna

1. There are two days left to join TUNE IN, DROP OUT.

   Paid subscribers to Unsupervised get 50% off ($75) with code PAIDSUB at checkout!

   Join me on Zoom for a 5-week accountability container that aims to bring together artists and writers (and anybody else!) who are eager to detox from Instagram in order to quiet the noise, enter the void, and rejuvenate their curiosity.

   In solidarity with each other, we can use this time to co-work, set goals, daydream, create, reflect, share, and rest. We can explore what it feels like to be away from the noise, and how our relationship to doing the things we say we want to do evolves.

   We meet for five Wednesdays from 9 AM - 11 AM PST (12 PM - 2 PM EST) on Jan. 8, 15, 22, 29, and Feb. 5.

2. You’re doing great. Remember to rest.

Dear reader,

Tonight, I’m on dinner duty for our weekly house meeting. This morning, Farmer cracked an egg over a cast iron skillet while I surveyed the contents of our communal fridge to brainstorm what will end up on everybody’s plates come seven-o-clock. 

“Carrots, cabbage, cauliflower,” I muttered to myself in a thick British accent as my hands combed through the produce drawers. Farmer looked up from the sizzling egg. “Are you okay?” he asked. “I’ve never heard you talk in so many accents for this many days.” 

One silver lining of last week’s election is that I no longer feel a responsibility to dissociate privately. Masking doesn’t feel available to me anyway. The faculties I generally rely on to hide parts of myself are wholly exhausted. A domino fell, and it broke — and liberated me — at the same time. 

Last Wednesday morning I woke up wanting — no, needing — to be a different person. To face the day as Anna, heart wide open, felt not only reckless, but impossible. Without thinking, I resorted to my first language, a glitchy hybrid of Italian and English, and used it to pull myself up by my bootstraps and into another person’s shoes altogether: Giovanna’s. 

Giovanna wants every child of the world safely in their beds, engulfed in billowing linens, while she recounts Italian terms of endearment that she can still hear rolling off of her mother’s tongue. Giovanna knows no sides; she is a friend to all. Giovanna is resilient and only sees the beauty in everything, even as many turn away from it to a point of no return. Giovanna listens to the animals for guidance. Giovanna moves slowly, so slow that she can feel the earth turning. She is reassurance embodied. She remembers that the sun does not go down. 

At first, portraying this caricature was funny, yet it’s now become tender. I was happy to interrupt doom-scrolling with levity for the dire minds who happened upon my Instagram stories. But now a week has passed, and being Giovanna feels less lighthearted and more like a coping mechanism, one I cannot quit. Evolving into the realm of the absurd feels like the only way I will survive this hellscape. The alternative is to persist on a plane of existence where we remain harmful to each other because unfathomable states of repression, delusion and scarcity are the acceptable manifestations of being under-resourced. 

Other people, not just Farmer, are starting to talk about Giovanna. On Sunday at work, and last night at a poetry reading, I was met with the same line from various friends: “I’m seeing your stories…” said in a tone of equal parts confusion and care.

A quick Google search confirmed that “feeling overtaken by an alternate identity” is a trauma response called dissociative identity disorder (DID), formerly known as multiple personality disorder.1 Apparently, a primary characteristic of DID is having two or more distinct identities, each with a unique name, personal history, and features. And while it’s sometimes comforting to have a name for something I’m going through, Giovanna does not need to be pathologized. I just like how it feels pretending to be somebody calm, unwaveringly loving, and completely unafraid.

Yes, I am coping, and this is how. Because yes, I am still, and always will be, an artist. E tu?

Love, 

Giovanna

1

https://www.webmd.com/mental-health/dissociation-overview

1. James Baldwin and The Artist’s Struggle for Integrity, a 30-minute recording that carries me through. Sometimes I just let it play in the background to wake what stirs my soul.

2. Come and find me this Saturday November 16th in Santa Barbara at Off Register: Art Book & Print Fair 11AM to 6PM. Free entry, free air-kisses.

3. takes us through the Six Elements of Modern Ethics. A must read please.

4. I’m listening to Unmasking Autism by Price while washing dishes at my new part-time job. Tracks!

5. This country set by DJ Adam Lucky is an arrow to my heart.

6. calls it like it is: “…the constant barrage of reels and videos and information on Instagram has never made me feel more stupid” in Deactivation Mania.

   

7. GOOD GOOD FRIEND, a limited ceramics collaboration between Erin Louise Clancy and I drops December 10th. Mark your calendars, these pieces will fly. Mugs! Cake stands! Plates!