Dear Starlight,
This week, I reflected on a simple yet profound truth:
I’m perfect. You are perfect.
Forget about being better or being enough—we are perfect.
I wonder what blocks us from recognizing, remembering, or knowing our perfection—not as a measure of flawlessness, but as the undeniable worth and wholeness of simply being. Perfection, in this sense, is not about achievement or fitting into societal molds; it is the truth of our existence, complete and unbroken, regardless of external definitions or expectations.
I circle back to the fallacy of language.
Language is a shapemaker—a kind of magic that transforms infinite possibility into meaning, creating order from the vastness of the unknown. It allows us to extract order from what might otherwise feel meaningless. Yet, like truth, language is not static; it evolves over time, imagined and reshaped by the needs and discoveries of those who wield it.
However, language is a paradox. It is both a bridge and a boundary, a tool for understanding and a cause for misunderstanding. It reduces the universe's infinite possibilities into the confines of finite words. Perhaps this is why perfection feels elusive—it exists beyond language, in the spaces words cannot reach. Maybe our fullest sense of perfection existed in the darkness of the womb, where there was no language, no comparison, only pure being.
This tension between the vastness of being and the limits of language also shapes how we see ourselves—how we name and define our identities.
Skipping ahead to the conundrum of identity and fitting in, or naming oneself.
Some of us easily fit into pre-identified and recognized paths, or at least appear to easily fit and succeed in such named paths classified by vocation. Like: mother, fisherman, bookmaker, artist, architect, teacher. Most people have primary identifiers like: gender, race, sexual orientation, age, etc., and a bunch of other parts like: hobbies, religion, and of course these categories are all divided into greater or lesser percentages in an individual’s self-determining way of identifying.
The language we use to define ourselves often obscures as much as it reveals. What does it truly mean to be a mother, an artist, or a teacher? These terms come with societal expectations and assumptions that may not align with our lived realities. Labels like these can feel like ill-fitting garments—limiting our sense of self rather than expressing our inherent vastness.
Recently, while reading about Sufi mysticism, I came across a description of a mystic that made me laugh. 'Wait,' I thought, 'maybe I’m not an artist after all—maybe I’ve been a seeker this whole time.'
I imagined trying to explain this to a school counselor or parent: 'When I grow up, I want to be a Seeker!' The likely response: 'So you’ll become an academic or researcher?' As an Academic—I wouldn’t want to write MLA or AP formatted papers. I’d rather scrawl letters in the sand with a stick and let the tide erase them. This would immediately make me an imperfect academic writer but maybe a performance artist?
Back to me being an artist.
Identifying as an artist has always made the most sense to me. Firstly, it was an identity I was told I was as a child, because I was gifted in what is considered the creative fields and visual art making. But, I didn’t want to grow up to be an artist because the examples offered to me were not appealing. However, later as an adult I reclaimed the identity on my own terms. In part, I chose it because it offered the most freedom—it seems like being an artist is permission to be and do anything. I think that is in part because we cannot agree on what it means and or what art is.
To say you're an artist is, in essence, to affirm your humanity—your ability to create meaning and shape the world around you.
During my MFA in Interdisciplinary Studies, I wrote my thesis mostly on this conundrum. In its simplest essence, I believe all humans are artists because to create is fundamental to being human. Art, in this sense, is not confined to galleries or performances; it is the act of imagining and bringing something new into existence. If art is creation, then each of us participates in it every day—whether through storytelling, problem-solving, or simply shaping the lives we live. Saying you're an artist is kind of like saying you are a human.
A brief history on the evolution of art.
Art has always existed as creative meaning-making by humans. You can look at indigenous communities that make what we call art in Western society (paintings, sculpture, theater, song, dance, etc.), but these communities do not have a word for art. They do not point to these purposeful objects and call them art. These objects and actions have utility and/or are decorative.
The word art and artist originated within the trades of artisanship. Artisans were people who created decorative objects of utility. A painting was first found as decoration and storytelling painted onto a bed or a house. These objects were primarily connected to building, tools, and clothing.
Suddenly there is a schism, and artist and artisan split from one another. One person is suddenly in the position of idea-maker and the other to the technology of crafting. This split left a lingering tension in how we value art today. Is it the concept that holds worth, or the craft? The artist is either celebrated as a genius or dismissed as impractical, while the artisan’s labor often goes undervalued. Both are trapped within a system that commodifies what was once purely a means of connection or utility and ultimately a shared community resource before the concept of ownership existed.
So, where do we go from here as artists, as humans? Let’s circle back to my original question: How do we recognize and feel our perfection?
The prescription is twofold: first, trust in our inherent perfection, even when it feels intangible or defies explanation. Second, experiment with language—create new words and hybrid identities.
Alternatively, we might release the need for definition altogether. Perhaps perfection lies not in fitting neatly into words, but in accepting the vast, evolving mystery of who we are as whole and valuable even if we can’t explain ourselves perfectly.
PS. I am working on sculpting an updated definition of myself and my work. I’m looking ahead to a new artist statement and website in 2025. We change our minds, we change our work, we change where we live, what we wear, who we hang out with, what we say, but we don’t really change.
PPPS. It’s week two of the advent calendar. A week of PEACE.
Affirmation: "Nature does not hurry, yet everything is accomplished." –Lao Tzu
Journal Prompts: How do you stay ready without feeling hurried? How does acceptance create peace? What helps you forgive and feel peaceful?
PPPPS. Do you need to imagine a new word or hybridization of who you are and what your vocation is? Please share with me:)
PPS. For extra fun, I thought I’d share what’s been my weekly reading this week see below.
Tao Te Ching. I read a page a day. Today I wrestled with the following statement:
The master stays behind;
that is why she is ahead.
She is detached from all things;
that is why she is one with them.
Because she has let go of herself,
she is perfectly fulfilled.
My challenge with this statement is that it suggests that peace is when there is unity of self with all else. But I am not certain that is the human condition and we are here having a human experience even if we are also God. So why are we struggling to remember that we are God? Maybe we need to allow ourselves the ego experience?
Bucky!!!! OMG I love this book—he writes a manifesto in one 3000 word sentence, titled “What I am Trying to Do”. His thinking on society, god, and earth is through the lens of science which I adore, and he is a futurist. This book was written in the 60’s and many of the descriptions of the imagined future are now our current circumstances.
I have learned
That man knows little
And thinks he knows a lot.
…
When any man can tell us
That he is deliberately
Pushing each of his million
Head hairs
Out through his scalp
At specifically preffered rates
And in specifically controlled shapes
For specific purposes,
We may say that this man
Knows a little,
But I don’t know of any man
Who can tell me
So little even as
Why we have hair.
Nancy Friday, My Secret Garden. I missed this reading as part of a woman’s required repertiore. Catching up now:)
Women’s Work. Adore this gorgeous book on the Bauhuas movement. (Read the Bauhuas manifesto as it also relates to my letter this week). I’ve always been smitten with textiles. My grandmother had a loom that was a symbol more than a used tool in her life. Her loom is in my mind and heart. In this book I love the paintings of the future rugs and how iterative our creative imaginings are.
The fact that indigenous contexts do not have a category for art says everything. It doesn’t have to be this way. “Art” and being an artist could be otherwise! Thank you for this invitation to reflect on the fraught space of calling myself an artist.
“Do you need to imagine a new word or hybridization of who you are and what your vocation is?” Yes. I am in a new phase in my working life in which I am not using my shame as fuel. And what have I been ashamed of? Of wanting to work with my hands. Of being interested in invisible connections. I am learning how to do work without it meaning more than it needs to. Enough to be interesting, and not so much that there is nothing left with which to burn private fires.