Jason's Big Dump - April 2023

Last January I posted the first Jason's Big Dump. It was an amalgamation of all the things that make me Queerly Complex. 

Since then, I've been incredibly busy coaching clients on their goals, working with Crystal Mason to help our clients navigate BIG change, and co-creating the Immigrant Artist Network and Queer Art School. PLUS! There's been art shows, durational performance, study, inquiry, and so much more! 

So here's another Jason's Big Dump! Scroll through the slideshow above. Make sure to CLICK THE LINKS so you don't miss out on all the amazing content. And you can read up on each of the slides below to get a short reflection and image description. 

This is what it means to live a Queerly Complex life: free to be our full, gloriously fabulous queer selves.

IMAGE DESCRIPTIONS

Slide 1: This is a photo looking up through a gingko tree in my neighborhood and into the gray March sky above. I love the cycle of the leaves budding, growing, turning colors, and then falling off. Being from Minnesota, it is a nice reminder of the passing of the seasons. Text reads, Jason's Big Dump - April 10, 2023. A smattering of shit Jason’s illustrated, posted, co-created, drafted, designed, snapped, or diagrammed from Feb to April 2023. 

Slide 2: A button that reads, When you see this button: CLICK ON IT!

Slide 3: For this digitally illustrated self portrait, I began with a selfie. I colored over this selfie with pinks, purples, olives, peaches, and blues to capture the essence my sadness and grief. I quickly sketched a gesture outline of myself and then wrote over the gesture drawing. This created gestural movement for the words in my head. Through this process, I was able to float closer to the surface. 

The text reads: It’s intense to sit with the fullness of who you be and not shy away from the bits that make our selves (and often others) uncomfortable. I try not to turn away & instead linger for I have a deep desire (something that’s been with me since childhood) to understand the ugly, messy, chaotic bits that make us human. Sometimes when I linger & look, my instinct kicks in to create. This act / practice helps me process my witnessing. 

Slide 4: Queer Art School is a new peer-based, experimental school co-created by Crystal Mason, Tray Smith, blkcowrie, Midori, Juan Carlos Escobedo, and myself. We just pulled together our webpage, and we have a Virtual Gathering called a QiQi on April 29 and May 11, 2023. Check out the website to learn more. 

Slide 5: Have you checked out The QC, a blog, yet? I worked incredibly hard on the How the Fuck Do I Do This: Practicing Abolition post. I have also written about my work with the Immigrant Artist Network and about facing change. Check out The QC for even more writing and art. 

Slide 6: I am so excited! The Immigrant Artist Network finally has a website. Thanks to some fabulous lifting by Rupy C. Tut, you can now find us online. PLUS! We just launched our THIRD cohort for the IAN Virtual Salons with 13 immigrant artists from across the world! On our first call we had folx calling in from Canada, US, UK, and India! 

Slide 7: On March 8, 2023, Crystal and I facilitated a workshop on how we cultivate belonging in virtual and physical space. This is all a part of our work with Tree of Change. And over the past three months, we've been expanding our client base and are now supporting the African American Art & Culture Complex with a spring of Dreaming & Listening Session. Want to know how we can help you or your organization embrace change? Check out www.treeofchange.net for more info. 

Slide 8: My mom was in town, and John and I took a trip with her to Año Nueva State Park. We got lucky this time and saw a few elephant seals on the beach. There's also something about the expansiveness of the horizon at the ocean that brings calm. Sitting there all directions before you are possible. Yet to travel towards one requires labor. How much labor do you want to expend? Or is it time to rest? Which way will you go?

Slide 9: Sometimes inspiration just strikes you like it did me with this short parfable (part parable, part fable, all truth) titled, "The Visitor's Gift." I also got inspired to illustrate a zine for a reading at Queer Bedtime Stories produced and hosted by Scott Sessions. I just submitted the illustrated version to a zine, and I'm waiting to hear back on whether it gets accepted or not. In the meantime, if you would like to read it, send an email to complex [at] queerlycomplex [dot] com to get a version delivered to your inbox. 

Slide 10: I am constantly reading. That doesn't mean I finish all the books or even read them in a linear manner. Sometimes, when I start reading one book the writer will mention someone else's name. So I go look that person up, find a book by or with them in it, and order it. When it arrives, I put down the first book and start reading the second book. That book will mention an idea, person, ritual. I'll find another book, and down the rabbit hole I go. These are all books I ordered or continued reading this month.

As you will notice, I picked up six different versions of the Tao Te Ching. I focused on translations by Chinese authors. I also got copies that use different source texts. As I can't read Chinese, it's a good way to start better understanding the core concepts in the text. Different people find different ways to express the Tao's simple complexity. I've been trying to queer my understanding (or shift my perspective towards plurality and multiplicity) of the Tao, so now having nine different versions is bringing more nuance to the words, grammar, poetics, philosophy, and cosmology of this ancient and sacred text. 

Other great finds include: Enough of Dying (a collection of anti-war and anti-racist writings), Create Dangerously by Edwidge Dandicat (thanks Ryan for the recommendation!), Revolution and Evolution by James and Grace Lee Boggs, Sustaining Spirit by Naomi Ortiz, and Inside / Out: Lesbian Theories, Gay Theories (a collection of essays from 1991). Other books read include an assortment of archetypal psychology books gifted to me by a dear friend at the C. G. Jung Institute in San Francisco. 

Slide 11: Crystal Mason and I attended the People Get Ready 4 conference produced by the Center for Political Education. It was held at the UC Berkeley Campus. It opened with a land acknowledgement by a Board Member of the Sogorea Te' Land Trust. Then, Tongo Eisen-Martin spit poetic politics to orient us all. After Tongo, there was a conversation between Barbara Ransby and Thenjiwe McHarris about Confronting the Moment. Next, we broke out into smaller panel discussions. 

I attended a panel discussion on the Power of the Working Class. One thing that stuck out was a call by Alejo, an organizer with Trabajadores Unidos, for Worker Centers not just labor union organizing. Alejo talked about how undocumented workers won't be represented by unions, and that does not preclude them from needing to organize. 

I attended a TUWU meeting this past month, and being there in solidarity with undocumented workers was powerful. Seeing how workers are organizing themselves to take action at the City and State level is inspiring. The meeting also covered mental health and wellness with a representative from Instituto Familiar de la Raza giving a presentation in Spanish. 

Trabajadores Unidos is currently in need of a large banner they can take with them to protests. If you or anyone you know can help secure a banner, please get in contact with us at complex [at] queerlycomplex [dot] com and we can put you in touch with organizers at Trabjadores Unidos. 

Slide 12: I'm working on a follow up blog post to the People Get Ready 4 conference about all the ways Queerly Complex is getting (and staying) ready. This is my initial brainstorm right after attending. 

Slide 13: I had one of my Multiple Reality prints (see it here) in the More Is More! group show at the 4 Star Theater on Balboa Street in San Francisco. It was curated by Silky Shoemaker, and the entire exhibit was a floor to ceiling maximal experience. Midori (who also had a piece in the show), Kelly, and I all got to see it on our way up to Santa Rosa to see...

Slide 14: Maya McNeil, Bright Dark Dawn, and RAD at the Lost Church - Santa Rosa. Bright Dark Dawn (aka Anne Carol Mitchell) created an album dedicated to cycle of night - from dusk until dawn. She's still working on her album release event, but I was able to hear her perform some of those songs at a songwriters' event this past March. It was such a delight to behold, and I cannot wait for the album release. 

Slide 15: Tray Smith (aka Realest Exposure) is a dear, dear friend and comrade. In addition to helping found Queer Art School, Tray is having his first solo show at Philz Coffee - Dogpatch, located on Minnesota Street between 23rd and 24th Streets. If you're in San Francisco, go check our his eye popping fashion and photography. 

Slide 16: I did a 3-hour durational performance of Chaos Poetry at the Closing Reception of Muni Raised Me at SOMArts Cultural Center. I interviewed 11 people about their memories of riding Muni and their dreams of belonging, San Francisco, and public transit. I feel so honored that folx got really intimate and vulnerable with me in such a short amount of time. Plus, I got to reconnect with dear friends like D'Arion, who I haven't seen since the start of the pandemic. 

Read all The Poems here. 

Slide 17: OMG! You made it to the end. Thanks so much for reading. The text on this slide reads: 

Thank you so much for being curious and clicking through Jason’s Big Dump for April 2023. You’ve made it to the end! 

Please click the links and visit the other Queerdos and comrades mentioned in this dump. One way we can work against othering and cultivate belonging is to get to know each other a bit more. One small step down that path / way is to click links, follow folx, sign up for email lists. We can only get free together, and it’s gonna take a whole hell of a lot of us to do so. So let’s link up with our fellow Queerdos & comrades. 

Finally, I want to contextualize one thing for you. Everything in this slideshow is art. Everything. Art is how we come to understand, (co-)create, and make meaning of our cosmos. Art is not one thing. Anyone who’s trying to tell you otherwise wants to capitalize on art. And that’s just not a queerly complex way of being in the world.