Some Art Was Made… but Mostly Many Conversations

Exquisite Being

I’m feeling pretty full thinking back on this past month. Funny how spring can flip the dragging weight of winter into something lighter — like, oh yeah... life is good. Flowers, birds, green plants popping up everywhere. It helps.

After my last bog post, I tried something new with my creative practice. I made a bunch of collaborative drawings with friends based on the surrealist game Exquisite Corpse. I’ve started calling them Exquisite Being drawings instead. That shift feels important. It’s less about the weird or gross (though I love that too!) and more about celebrating the layered, awkward, radiant mess of being human.

The game is simple but powerful: a group of us each draw a hidden part of a figure — head, torso, legs — without seeing what the others have done. The results? Strange, hilarious, kind of wild creatures made from many hands and minds. Funny, freaky, beautiful, ridiculous — sometimes all at once.

But honestly, it wasn’t just about the drawings.

It became this way of showing up with people. As we made art, we caught up. We shared real stuff — not the polished surface, but what’s going on underneath. And that, to me, is the heart of Exquisite Being. Not just what ends up on the page, but what’s happening between us as we make it.

A lot of our conversations circled around the same feelings: anxiety, burnout, that weird fear that comes up when we finally slow down. I’m starting to think that maybe this is just part of life — learning how to live with the unknown. How to be okay without needing to have it all figured out.

And in these small moments — drawing, talking, laughing — I started to feel it:

I’m okay.
I’m not behind.
I don’t have to earn being enough.
I already am.

Everyone I talked to — even the ones who seem like they’ve got it all together — is also figuring it out. Also stumbling. Also growing.

And that’s actually really comforting.

Oh, the joy in wild creation—
Pieces mixed in celebration.
A head, a center, maybe some feet,
Three visions coming together, incomplete.

And as this being starts to form,
So does a kind of quiet warm.
Stories shared in scribbled lines,
Laughs and pauses, little signs.

Making art with people, and letting go of needing it to be “perfect” — that’s been the best part of this season. There’s something kind of wonderful about leaning into the weird and the imperfect. It makes it feel more real. More alive.

These drawings hold that, I think. Strange and soft and totally human.

Being Made by Isabel and I

Update on Myself:

Started taking karate with a coworker (very fun, very humbling), and joined a weekly Wednesday night pickup soccer game — if you're near Northampton, come play! I’m finishing up my Intro to Psych class at GCC, teaching kids’ art at the Hampshire YMCA, still working at Janna Ugone and Co, doing some running, lots of biking, and swimming whenever I can. Might even sign up for a triathlon? Who knows.

Update on My Friends:

You are all exquisite beings. Truly. The kind of people who show up with honesty, humor, care, and realness. I feel so lucky to be in your orbit.

You’re out here doing amazing things — building meaningful work lives, going back to school, starting new chapters, growing food, fighting for justice, expressing yourselves through art and action, trying new hobbies, moving through hard stuff with grace and grit. And you’re doing it all while being kind, thoughtful, imperfect, human. That’s what inspires me most.

Being around people like you — who are willing to be seen, to be awkward, to be brave — makes me want to keep growing, too.

I’ve also been loving small joys: reading Mary Oliver (forever a comfort), listening to audiobooks (Trauma Stewardship, Brené Brown’s Atlas of the Heart, and Emotional Agility by Susan David were favorites this month), house-sitting and petting some very important cats, catching up with my grandma, and doing FaceTime yoga with friends.

All these little things — all of you — make me feel connected. To myself, to each other, and to the bigger story we’re all part of.

Here’s to more imperfect, beautiful creations.
Here’s to being exquisite beings — just as we are.