This week I’m welcoming Common Shapes’ very first guest, Lukaza Branfman-Verissimo.
“I’m at this moment where I’m realizing that my work is my job. And, you know, job doesn’t always mean financial, and financial jobs don’t always mean pleasure or nourishment work. But I’m at a point where I’m thinking a lot about the claiming of one’s work as your main income stream — and how totally wild weird and wonderful that is.”
Lukaza (they/them/Lukaza) an artist, abolitionist, educator, storyteller, cultural worker and person of multitudes. Through a practice based in the printed multiple, community-based work and installation building, they invite the viewer to recall and share their own lived narratives, offering power and weight to the creation of a larger dialogue around the telling of B.I.Q.T.P.O.C. (Black, Indigenous, queer, trans, people of color) stories.
Listen in to hear us discuss—
🕸 The web shape for creative work
🕸 How to craft a studio practice
🕸 Claiming our work as our main income stream
🕸 How to weave your values and your activism into your sharing practices
🕸 The radical history of newsletters
Links
🌼 Get the Creative Ideation Portal
🌼 Sign up for my weekly newsletter, Monday Monday and become a paid subscriber to join The Artist Way book study
🌼 Find all these links & more at marleegrace.space/commonshapes
More from Lukaza
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[0:00] Hello, and welcome to episode five. Today on the show, we have the artist, the curator, the storyteller, my friend, the brilliant Lukeza Branfman Verissimo, and I am so excited to share this interview with all of you today.
[0:25] Common Shapes is a podcast about practices, systems, and rituals for a creative life.
And I am delighted to share that it debuted at number 15 on the Apple Podcast Arts chart.
And that is because of you, dear listener. That is because you shared it on social media and in your own newsletters and texted it to your friends.
And thank you for all of the beautiful messages. I've gotten so many DMs and emails and texts from friends and strangers and students and readers who are listening to the show.
[1:08] And sharing with me how it's changing their practice.
And that was my truest hope, was that this podcast would serve as a way to become closer to your own process of art making and creation.
So, thank you for listening.
It was so sweet to see my podcast amongst big network podcast people and names.
And, you know, this is a self-published podcast, thanks to Softer Sound Studio for editing and guidance.
It's just me with no marketing budget, no big plan for rollout, you know, as a non-binary queer person, it was just such a gift to see my work and this container taking up space in that realm. And that is something that I have really worked to feel comfortable doing.
And so thank you for being on that journey with me and supporting the show and sharing it.
[2:18] The first four episodes of Common Shapes pair with the Creative Ideation Portal, which is a three-day guide that helps you vision your projects and become ready and willing to bring them into the world. So if you haven't already grabbed that, you can head over to marleygrace.space.commonshapes. You'll find all of the episodes there, all of the show notes and the creative ideation portal. And so the first four episodes walk you through the guide and just give you some extra support.
[2:58] I am so excited about today's episode. It is such an honor to share Luke Hayes' work with all of you. You're already familiar with their work if you've seen the art for this this podcast.
Luqueza also created the art of Monday Monday, my weekly newsletter.
And I first met Luqueza in 2019. I was hosting an artist residency with John Hansen, who's an amazing artist, perhaps most famously my ex-husband.
He also made the music for this podcast. And a few years after John and I got divorced, We had this wild idea to move back in together and facilitate an artist residency for nine months in Grand Rapids, Michigan.
It was beautiful for us together to host Lou Kesa and to get to know them and their practice.
And my hope is that today's episode really invites you into considerations around your own art making process.
[4:09] The importance of art at the table of activism and movement work, the importance of beginning on your own block and in your own neighborhood.
And I hope that it reminds you of the beautiful gift of being an artist and being a cultural worker and being a member of a community, and your role in it is so unique and so specific and may you honor it and embrace it and be a part of it, whatever it is for you.
So thanks so much for listening. Enjoy this episode of Common Shapes with Lucas Brafman Verissimo.
[5:04] Hello and welcome to Common Shapes. I'm here with Lukeza. Hi. So good to be here.
Oh, so good to be with each other. Let's just dive right in. Well, first of all, I want to just shout out Lukeza made the artwork for this podcast and the artwork of the Monday Monday Substack newsletter. So many of you are already familiar with their work in some of the the shapes that my offerings make.
So, Lucchesa, thank you for shaping the visual journey of the podcast.
It's so fun to see that text and shapes floating around the interwebs and worlds that you're creating. So, thanks for bringing me in always.
So, on Common Shapes, the sort of vision and hope here and hope here is to talk about our art practice.
[6:03] And the creative business art ecosystems that we weave together and separately.
And so I'd love to just really dive in and start with, this is sort of a beautiful way that you even phrased it right before we hit record.
I'd love to hear the shapes that you currently put your practice in.
And you're such a perfect first guest because you do so many different things and they take so many different shapes.
So I'd love to hear you sort of describe your current practice or how it relates, past, present, and future and the shapes that it's currently taking.
Yeah, I love thinking so much about shape also as this like continuation of these like vessels our homes or like compartments that we put our work in and around. I am a lover of the web shape. If the web is allowed to be a shape, a community of many shapes go into the web is one of the reasons why I love that formation. I think a lot about all these different kind of like offerings and type of works that share space and that there doesn't need to, well, sometimes it needs to have its own view and its own attention in different ways. But I love.
[7:30] Getting to be a practitioner of the web shape through my practice in the ways that my writing and poetry practice can share and feed and exchange and live next to and almost cuddle with things that are happening in my mostly visual arts practice. And that there's this constant dialogue and influence. And also, I'm thinking about the web shape is also this shape that supports the essence of a spider web is to catch food or nourishment or sustenance. I'm thinking about that shape also as food for these different components of my practice. So that might be curatorial or cultural work practices or activism work or creation of spaces that support, like.
[8:28] Folks on the margin. So, I don't know, I keep going back to the web or the net as the shape that holds my practice now because of all the different ways that it can hold and all the different ways that these different parts of my work get to be in dialogue. I have learned so much about the way that you talk about the web. And I love how you just described how all of the parts go together, like your poetry, your writing, the visual work, your activism.
And I actually want to start.
[9:05] Sort of in the past if you don't mind, which is talking about Nook Gallery, which is a space that you curated in California, in Oakland.
I was actually just referencing it today. I was at a local establishment here in Northern Michigan, and the owner of the space was talking about maybe wanting to have art, but it was like a very small corner of her space, And I could feel her wondering if that was like restrictive.
And I told her all about Nook Gallery.
And I would love to just hear about that project and how it came to be and your curatorial practice a little bit.
[9:49] Yeah, so Nook Gallery existed for five years in my apartment kitchen in Oakland.
There was a really beautiful built-in seating nook, hence the name.
And when I graduated undergrad, I was thinking a lot about, you know, what it means to be committed to being an artist and to have spent four years at an art school and then get spit out into this world that has spaces that are there to support and spaces that aren't.
And I just had a lot of questions and I knew that I wanted to be making work for the rest of my life.
And I was also thinking a lot about visibility and where and how we show our work and the agency of artists over the say of where our art gets to live and what spaces get to feed us.
And at the time, and still kind of to this day, Oakland is such a...
[10:51] Overflowing DIY artist space, less so now, but has a deep legacy of artist-run spaces.
And so, yeah, I was just really curious by that idea what it would look like to not only be an artist in the world, deciding on where my art would go, but also crafting and hosting and holding spaces for other people's work to be in. And, you know, I was influenced by a lot of of artists run spaces that were in storefronts and garages and out of people's cars and in backyards and in people's pockets and all sorts of shapes and sizes that really influenced me to want to be an artist.
And so, and I'm also, you know, at that time was, didn't have like the funds to rent a storefront or to, yeah, have a space that was like super expensive.
[11:48] To run this kind of like becoming project out of.
So I was like, what about a space that I already rent, which is my apartment?
And it's something that I think about a lot these days, like how can we start with what we have as the tools to give others rather than the need to start and make something new.
And so, yeah, Nook was kind of this like project space. We didn't ever sell art.
I mean, well, work got sold, but that wasn't the priority. It was more about supporting projects that didn't have any other space to be in and was really incredible to work with friends, and friends of friends and artists in the community to figure out also where my curatorial role came into that.
[12:42] Yeah, five incredible years of Nook becoming and forming itself in a seating-centered space.
Seating-centered space. Beautiful. Thanks for sharing about that space with us.
I think that was my first introduction to you was maybe seeing someone post about.
[13:02] Nook Gallery and then finding you as an artist. And it's just that space really, it does remind me and invite me to just look at every space that I'm in differently.
Like if I see a built-in cabinet somewhere, I always think of that.
I'm like, oh, that could be a little art gallery. Everything can be.
And there's like, we need the space, you know, like especially as space becomes such a problem or such an issue for artists to be able to afford and make work in.
And it's like, yeah, how can we turn this shelf on my porch into a gallery and treat it with just as much respect as we would going to MoMA?
It just gives me chills. It just truly makes me so excited.
And I've been thinking about that in my own home a lot.
[13:52] I'm like, is the front room the art gallery? Will the farm stand be the art gallery?
Will the little garden shed?
Like there's so many little spaces to turn into a little gallery.
Yeah, and I just want to add one more thing on to Nook is that I think another one of the reasons why I started Nook was also thinking about how do we start and create these shapes or these spaces with really deep intention and really kind of like clear understanding for like who these spaces are for, which I think is, you know, definitely a core theme in my work.
You know, like Nook didn't show everyone's work because not everyone needed to show in the Nook.
And Nook centered queer and trans and femme artists of color and folks who called themselves artists but had never had a show or artists who felt very artistly.
[14:50] And had a lot of shows but had never had a show where nothing was for sale.
And that was also a big influence that Nook had on my practice as an artist today is that we're out in this world and we're doing all these things and they're floating around, and there are wonderful parts to them.
And also as artists and as cultural workers, there has to be this clear intention of who this work is for.
And so that was deep in Nook's roots.
Yeah, thank you for sharing that. I think something that I talk a lot about when I teach and I'm always thinking about is like, what are my core values?
What are the core values of my project? and I love this sort of idea of like, not everyone has to be included, and that is part of the including.
It's like sort of like, what do we leave out is also part of what do we bring in.
[15:47] You are one of my most, like, artist-y artist friends. Like, I'm just, like, when I think of, like, an artist, I think of you.
Like, I'm just, like, Luke Haza is just a true artist. Like, you have such a prolific studio practice and so many publications and murals and prints.
And there's just so much richness in how much material you bring into the world.
And I'm curious if you have ever struggled calling yourself an artist.
[16:20] Like, what are the early moments of like, I'm an artist? Do you struggle with, you know, I loved even hearing you call it like a writing and poetry practice. And do you struggle to ever call yourself a writer? Because so, so much of your work is text-based. And yeah, I'd love to to hear about sort of identifiers, like what are words that you use that are empowering to identify yourself?
Does it ever feel like it boxes you in?
And is there ever the famous imposter syndrome around any of your creative identities?
I mean, all of that floating around always in our brains and our minds.
You know, I think claiming myself as an artist was maybe one of the easiest things.
I just have loved making work my whole life and it always felt like this space that I could go in that was mine, and that I understood the like.
[17:23] Vast language of art-making, like, and finding so much comfort in that space, or, like, literally nourished, like, thirsty, and then, what's the opposite of thirsty? Quenched? No.
Quenched. Dehydrated?
[17:43] Dehydrated, and then not dehydrated. Like, after seeing art, or like, like going to like an artist gathering and, you know, I feel really lucky to have grown up in Los Angeles, which is a city with lots of different kinds of art making happening and artists. And there was like an incredible visiting artist program at my local public school. And I got to like literally watch how my dreams were made before me and like space out in math class and like not understand a lot of the academic world, but like have so much clarity within art making in a way that still like quenches my thirst. And so, yeah, I don't know. Like I'm, artist just feels like the right role and the right word, although there are many long list of words that I now include in that artist word that I keep including and growing, but knowing that I could make work and art for the rest of my life was almost like my.
[18:55] Wings and the ways that I could imagine living and moving through this world.
Like, it seems like you don't really box yourself in. Like, there's so many different mediums that you're working in, even though some of the like integration of text or themes sort of stay consistent, which is maybe part of that's a huge part of your practice. But yeah, I'm curious if you're trying something new on what do you run up against in those moments of resistance or in terms of like flow?
I mean, I've been thinking a lot about the ways, and I feel like we've talked about this in the past, like the ways that people know our work. And then when you're like, oh, yeah, okay, cool.
I love that thing that you know about me. Yes, that's a part of my work. And also like, what about all these things that like, are harder to photograph, like, don't exist on social media, like are held with more hands or held in more secrecy and like what it means to then like choose those things that feel harder maybe for people to grasp and call your work.
[20:07] So I think a lot about that, like especially lately, like a lot of folks know my work in specific ways and what does it mean to now want to be doing a lot of writing and like where does that work exist within the understanding of my work in a larger audience but also, remain its own thing that is not understandable or that is like to be read only by myself and.
[20:38] A handful of friends. I think almost like in those moments I force myself to like literally draw a web or make a map of like this ecosystem that is my practice and that the things that that feed me and the things that bring me joy and the things that challenge me and almost like a...
A reminder that the confusion and the blur and the not knowing where to place these new becoming projects is a part of the web, which is humbling and also more confusing. But I go back to that shape, I guess, again and again, also as this tool for clarity of, yes, I could keep making these text paintings that are understandable and hang on gallery walls and get sold, but what if I wanna like make chapbooks right now?
And like, how can these chapbooks become like the wallpaper for those paintings to be hung on, or are they really meant to just be read by some and exist in their own space that also like feeds or nourishes other parts of my brain?
[21:56] That is a beautiful answer, which brings me perfectly to the next question, which you have already answered, which is this practice of sort of ecosystem mapmaking, which I love, definitely something I do as well.
And I think a question is like, how do you decide what is the next thing you're gonna work on?
So let's say you've just finished a project, or let's say you're working on a big painting in a space and it's finished, and you have the opening, like, how do you approach knowing what the next thing is?
Is it like journaling? Is it just intuition? You know, especially when you're working on lots of projects at once.
I'm even thinking about like, in a day, how do you decide what is the first thing you're gonna work on? Walk us through that process a little bit for you.
[22:52] It looks many different ways, but I'm thinking a lot about this month, like the last months before this month, I was in a very specific space, making my work in very specific ways, and now I'm in another state, state of mind, geography state.
And at the end of the day, it's like our work ourselves carry us to the next moment.
And also within that comes so much confusion and questions of how do you not only best use your time, but when does it make the most sense to make the specific work?
And I've been...
[23:35] Really finding it helpful to kind of like place bodies of work in chapters or containers or shapes as kind of this like, Guide to myself that like this work is continuing Always but like specific forms are held in, Last spring or like the new chapter is held this spring Almost like imagining putting things in folders or boxes like that is helpful for my studio practice just so it doesn't feel like a big soup all the time. Yeah, I'm someone who loves the studio. I think that's kind of maybe how I understood artists. I know that's like so stereotypical, but going to an artist's studio and seeing their world and their ways and and like a space beyond home, beyond institution.
[24:28] Or showing space that could just hold the flowing thoughts and ideas and loves of the artist's brain.
And so I've, yeah, that's just been like a staple key part of my practice.
Like I need a studio.
I like having select studio days or select times that I get to just kind of like focus in the studio.
I try not to bring my computer unless I have to. It feels like 80% of my studio is like admin work.
And I've learned to integrate that in many ways and look at the admin, you know, with not just frustration, but also like a, this is a ingredient.
And also computer is a head suck, kind of takes you away from other parts of the studio.
So I try not to bring my computer unless I'm like using it for research or reference images, but I'm a big lover of the printer.
Well, lots of different printers, but I love the Xerox printer.
I rather like print the article and bring it into the studio than bring my computer.
It's really hard to work in a space that doesn't have stacks of books everywhere, I realized.
I was away at a fellowship for three months and I shipped three boxes of books, which at first I was like, this is ridiculous.
And then I was like, you know what?
[25:56] I read half of those books and then I ended up checking out so many books from the local library, but just having words and stories and knowledge around me around me felt like these kind of like staple, like the walls or the paint that I need in a space that I'm going to practice in and with. Yeah, and then kind of like material shifts depending on the project, depending on the space. I bring my sketchbook and my planner everywhere, just because I'm such an analog person. And again, if I'm leaving the computer at home, like, and I happen to have a work meeting, like I might need to schedule something. Paper everywhere, lover of paper, paper is my guide. These days, I'm making paper, which is like a mind shift. When you rely on a material, but then you're making the material, what does it mean to call your roots your ingredients? I don't know. I could talk about the studio forever.
[26:58] I love it. I love you talking about the studio. Something we were texting the other day, and I was sharing about feeling lonely. And I love that you invited me to think of that as an ingredient. And I love how you use that word of just like we can bring it all in to the work, like and even thinking about like what's secret and what's private. It's like they can be ingredients for sort of our private creative discovery or what is someday for the public creative discovery. Yeah, I just got to go to our mutual friend Tamara Santibanez's studio in New York City, and it felt like being in an artist's studio is really like, it doesn't get old.
Especially when it's someone you love and you get to see their practice, I was just standing in in there. You can feel the ritual and the process, and I really hear you. I'm surrounded by many, many books and how that supports the practice.
[28:10] Okay, so you're in the studio, you're making your work, you're doing your projects, and the question that the artists of this world so often have is, how do you do it? How do you pay the bills?
How do you feed yourself with food?
How do you pay the rent? I know that you just mentioned this fellowship that you had, and you are someone I really look to who just does so many beautiful residencies, And I know that getting grants is a big part of your practice and then many other things.
So in the sort of like, if we put our business hat on for a moment, I'd love to hear about sort of that part of the ecosystem and, you know, both like, where do you find grants?
Where do you hear about them? How do you apply for them?
And then also where else does the money come and flow?
And just anything you wanna share on the topic of money and income as an artist.
[29:15] Yes, business hat is always on, you know, that's the thing about this practice.
It's like, can I take it off? Like, I don't wanna, can someone else do it?
Which I know like someone else could do it, does do it.
But it's funny, I was talking with a friend the other day and I was like talking about jobs and I was like, I've had a job since I was 13, 12.
[29:43] But yeah, I was just thinking about how financial survival has been a part of all of our, not all of our lives, but a lot of folks' lives from the age that you could legally work.
And how interesting it is to now be at a place at a place where I don't currently have a day job, but I'm at this moment where I'm realizing that, my work is my job. Job doesn't always mean financial, and financial jobs don't always mean, pleasure or nourishment work, and all of that is mixed. But I'm at a point where I'm just just thinking a lot about like the claiming of one's work as like your main income stream and how totally wild, weird, and wonderful that is.
So three years ago, I decided to move my life across the country and go to grad school.
And I had done a lot of residencies previous to that, But I was really thinking about this sustainable practice.
If I want to be an artist for the rest of my life, if I'm surrounding myself with artists, does it mean to reach and really work for the ways that.
[31:08] My work is the income stream. And I think that looks all different ways and could look a way that looks like this way for the next year and then totally change in the next year.
But I really was excited and I'm glad that I went to grad school and was also thinking about grad school, less of like the stepping stone to like more gallery shows, but more of this resource.
Course, like literally these two years of time where I didn't have to work a 9-5 full-time job and I could teach and be in pedagogy spaces that I was craving at the time and also get paid to do my work.
I think that looks many different ways, but I think that is oftentimes and maybe rarely a case for grad school, but I was really focused on how I could figure out a way to get paid to make my work full-time, and I've been able to kind of like test and lean into that in like one month or three-month residencies and fellowships, and I love teaching, and I love exchange and I also am totally frustrated.
[32:28] By the institutions that don't let us actually teach what we wanna teach or don't support or pay us a living wage.
And so what are other ways that I can be supported beyond those spaces?
[32:41] Yeah, it's hard for me to talk about like capital M money, but I think all of this is like, how do we re-approach these like money spaces If we know we have to get paid, if we know we have to pay for this and that, how do we also use these systems that abuse us in ways that are gonna sustain and support our practices?
[33:05] Because I think paying bills is real and there's really no way out of it.
And paying taxes happens, and not getting refunds, and all of this because our job is not understandable by states that are, and powers that be that are in broken systems.
And also sometimes I find it like challenging to only call it money talk, because if we think about like the ecosystem that we put our work in, it's like.
[33:39] Yeah, I want to live in this apartment that I can have Nook Gallery in, and I need to pay the rent there.
And also, if this university is going to move me to this place for three months and let me do my work, then things need to be readjusted. And maybe the anti-capitalist, anti-this-leads-to-this production person, like, is also hard to put it all into just money talk. Like, how do we talk only about money when it is pulling on so many other things?
I love that. I think, you know, something I have watched you do and something I think you just explained so well is, it's sort.
[34:26] Of like, you know, if we're, we're sort of working against you know, the like money magic, like we just manifest it.
It's like we live outside of that, but yet we're in this like grounded pivoting flow as sort of I think our maybe version of what can sometimes feel like maybe more of like spiritual bypassing or maybe like a privileged manifestation is more of just like, yes, I have to pay for these things, and so I exist in these systems, systems, and how do I do that in a radical, generative way? And I think you just explained so beautifully how to do that, and one of those ways is that flexibility, that like, oh, okay, I have this opportunity, I'm going to shift these things to be able to do that and sort of prioritize my practice in this way.
[35:23] You were just in New Mexico where you were doing this fellowship, and I would love to hear about the digital camera that you got, and the choice that you made to do some walking and some viewfinding without your phone.
And you are such an amazing documenter of the process. Even in my head when I think of you, I think of the process.
Like, yes, I own finished things that you've made. I have seen that you do indeed have art shows that are finished.
But like, when I really think of you, like you were saying, like the studio, I think of the studio and the mess and the process and the in-between.
So I'd love to hear about the documenting side of your practice and your digital camera journey.
I was like, your camera journey, and I was like, what camera?
[36:30] Your little digital friend. It's like so cute and little. I named it Tiny.
You know, like walks are part of this like sustaining ritual for myself, but they're also these like pedagogy tools that I teach around and that I, practice around and invite other folks into. And on one hand, I'm like, oh yeah, not everyone needs to see everything. Like back to that, like not every space is for everyone.
And also if we're kind of like reaching for these other spaces that we want to live and work and survive in that maybe we don't see right now but that we know are possible. It's like we have to.
[37:18] Show the blur and embrace the glitch and know that the pile that is overflowing with library books that need to be returned are those tools. And that whole in-between blurriness is also the work. So I'm excited to talk about the viewfinder practice and this new tiny tools in my life.
[37:45] So when I first actually got to grad school, it was in the height of early pandemic when we didn't have vaccines and it wasn't safe to be inside with folks, a lot of questions around sharing space.
And so I was actually kind of like called to the streets before I was called to the studio and learning a lot from activists and incredible trans elders that were leading so many fights at that moment.
And so I invited friends of friends and neighbors and strangers and artists in the area to go on walks with me, kind of like learning of the city through folks who are from there and have a history there and learning from their block or their ways that they want to guide me as like an invitation into understanding a place.
So, you know, walks are often a guide for me. Like if I'm feeling lost or having like an off day, I'll go for a walk.
And it's been helpful to bring and include the viewfinder tool, which essentially is just like a negative space cutout of a piece of paper as this kind of like extension of my eyes and heart and brain into like a slow looking practice that practices the work too.
So...
[39:14] Yeah, when I was in New Mexico, I was going on a lot of walks in my neighborhood and just being, totally in awe of the huge sky there and wanting to just look at it as much as I could. Like any opportunity to look at the sky, I was like, yes. And so, yeah, I was going on a viewfinder walks with friends and by myself and also like really like aware of this like sacred ritual that happens between like myself and this piece of paper and this landscape and maybe friends or maybe not, and just feeling so distracted by the phone like I'm so used to you know I love documenting the viewfinder walks too like the documentation is a big part of it for like compositions that maybe go back into the studio or just feed me and that I look at later. But I was like, I hate that I'm like getting so many texts while I'm on this sacred walk and that I'm like ending up like sitting down and answering emails. And a dear friend of mine, Lee, was like, why don't you just buy like a tiny digital camera that you can put in your pocket and hold in your hand and has like a wonderful large screen. And so it was such a treat to just be like, I have all that I need.
I don't even really need the camera, but the documenting is part of the practice. But.
[40:42] Yeah, I could just walk out with this camera that won't notify me if anything is happening.
It won't even tell me the right time because it's so old that it doesn't have the date or the time on it. And I have my piece of paper. And that's all I need. And I've been playing with film cameras too. And just, yeah, I don't know, a little bit more of these like reminders of like, what is the essence, the essence rituals that we come back to, to replenish ourselves with and play with, too.
[41:13] Beautiful. In terms of documenting and sharing the work, how do we tell the people that we've made art? And you recently moved your newsletter over to Substack. It is called Roots, Webs, Nets, Branches, Bulletin Boards, which is probably my favorite newsletter name ever.
And I just love, I mean, one of your recent newsletters was about the viewfinder as like a way of finding intimacy.
Tell me what it was called?
The viewfinder as intimate space. Hey, there we go. Thank you. Thank you.
So I'd love to hear about how do you tell people about your work?
How does it feel to tell people about your work?
And then what does that look like? look like? Is it just natural for you at this point to sort of share in the way that you do?
Or are you checking in with yourself? Let's start with the newsletter. I'd love to hear about the newsletter as a practice for you and how it integrates with your, the other parts of your work.
[42:21] Yeah, you know, the name of the newsletter are all forms of communication, like forms that we communicate or relate or share or broadcast. I love those like kind of like poetic and also practical form sharing space and in many ways that's how I think about the newsletter or even the sharing of my work like on Instagram or even an email or in a show like how is the practical and the poetic and the like informing and communicating always at the center. Let's see I've been And sending out newsletters probably for the last three, four years, previously on MailChimp.
And I think maybe when I started it, it was like, inform community about all the happenings of my life.
And I love that it kind of lived in the newsletter shape.
[43:25] And it wasn't on social media only, you know, like a lot of elders and beloveds in my life are not on social media, but are on email.
So it felt important to like, pull in like, multi generations of folks into the like sharing of my work.
And then it kind of like morphed into that, like informing plus like, sharing a little bit more about like a topic or a material that I was exploring or an idea or a little bit more writing about an upcoming show. And I think maybe at the same time I was thinking a little bit more about my like writing practice so that was kind of like immediate like, pulling in of the written material into this newsletter and sharing space.
[44:17] So I have roots in printmaking. And I say this just because I'm always thinking about how something is understood and the creation of the multiple. And newsletters were originally pamphlets where I think about my communist great grandparents who got the communist newspaper in in a paper bag for safety and all these different ways that we have used the printed multiple to communicate and live with and share our stories and inform and hold each other with.
And so when I made the switch to Substack, I was thinking a lot about like how this form has become this like connective tissue in my practice that this like informing and holding and inviting others into my studio, whether that be literally into my studio to have a meal or play a game of Boggle, or into the email box and how all these different ways are parts of being part of the conversation.
[45:24] It's sweet to be in this sub-stack world now. I think a lot about that whole network and how so So many friends and artists that I admire use that space in all sorts of different ways, and that is the coolest part of being in that space.
But yeah, I think it's this informing, gathering, bringing folks in, nourishing together that the newsletter.
[45:56] Can do, often does, sometimes does. Thank you. I feel like I'm just grateful.
I love the way that you always really thread things back to just the history of the ancestors, whether it's bloodline or chosen queer ancestors and thinking about the ways that newsletters and communication and informing have been with us for a really long time.
I think sometimes as artists, we feel like we have to like invent, invent, invent new, new, new. We're like, oh, I got to get a handle on the email newsletter. And it's like, no, we can really actually connect to those who have been doing these practices for so long before we were here. And they just might look different in the digital realm.
The newsletter is so powerful, you know, like, I think about like the incredible newsletter that Critical Resistance puts in and that folks incarcerated can subscribe to and how like we We can support the funding of the printing, of the receiving, and the newsletter is so many things.
[47:05] How can the newsletter not only spread our news, because sometimes our news matters and sometimes it doesn't, but also call in the news that we do want it to shine on, or the stories or the political movements that we are fighting for.
Yeah, I'm trying to learn about how the newsletter can kind of like shift and change and like, inform folks about upcoming projects, but also.
[47:35] Maybe be silent when it needs to be silent because we're doing work that doesn't exist in that way and And yeah, I love forms that communicate.
I love forms that communicate as well.
[47:53] This kind of perfectly brings us to this last question, and maybe really the question is almost like both sharing with us a little bit how you weave your values and activism work, and it feels so seamless to me. It's really inspired me in my teaching and quilt class to see the seamlessness and teaching sort of like the radical history of the form and the many ways that we can find our quilt ancestors, and just the way that you pay such close attention to elders and who came before.
And I loved the words that you use and sort of think about like illuminating, like what you illuminate.
And I think for artists who are maybe sometimes like new to the table of activism, we might say, might say, or who maybe feel a little bit late, or feel like they're catching up. I think we really saw that in sort of the year 2020, when a lot of people, I'll say maybe specifically white artists, were sort of like, oh, I wasn't thinking about a lot of these things before. But just for any listener of Common Shapes who is sort of wanting to, you know, use their privilege of whether it's privilege of identity or like the platform that they have to, you know, inspire more mutual aid and generosity and good between each other and between their space and those they reach.
[49:23] What would you say in terms of like encouraging words or like just how does that live inside your own body of work and practice and anything that you would just want to share for those listening? Yeah, well, I mean, I don't know. I feel like less knowledgeable in like answering the question of like, what should people do? Because I feel like it's like, do what is, happening on your block, in your neighborhood. Like, there are so many things that we can do, so many messes that we've made, and so many books that we've written to read and and do all of that, yeah, we're doing it all.
We're trying to do it all. And also like, what is happening on our own block and our own neighborhood and our own city that we're not paying attention to?
You know, I'm like, start small and then like, how does that like eye opening or like attention towards the here then like echo into the county that you're in or the city or the fight for the jail to be closed in the county over to you.
Like all of these things are in dialogue and also like, why aren't there any black folks in your neighborhood?
Like, I don't know, like, there's probably a reason.
[50:52] So yeah, I think about that a lot. I mean, I have community and homes in so many places, and so I'm also thinking about like, how do all those different homes, how are they in dialogue and supporting each other? And yeah, I think artists ask these questions that people don't want to ask or answer or ponder. And that is one of our luckiest roles, and get to ask these questions that then come with 10 million other questions to be asked, because why aren't we asking these questions? And we get to make it beautiful along the way.
I always think about Emery Douglas' work in the Black Panther Party and how, yes, they were serving free breakfast in their free breakfast and lunch program in public schools because they knew that kids had to be fed to go to school and fighting to put up stop signs and lights in neighborhoods where folks were getting hit just crossing the street to go to school.
And they were also had this incredible newsletter that was designed by an artist and an incredible important printmaker and that art was at the table and art is always at the table in movement work.
[52:08] And so that's the other like lucky thing about being an artist is that we get to ask these questions and these hard questions that no one wants to ask.
And we also get to have the making of our work of the crafting of a world that is possible at this table.
So yeah, that's like maybe some of the things that I'm thinking about with like movement and activism and our role in supporting figuring out to survive and live and then also the joys of being an artist. Yeah, and these like multiple roles that we all hold and that we don't all have to hold all of the roles I think is part of it to like sometimes it's like oh and then I have to do like this thing and this thing and this thing. And then I have to start this campaign that's.
[53:00] Diverting the money. Sure. But in this world that we're reaching towards, we don't need to make GoFundMes every month for our folks who have no money to get top surgery, because.
[53:13] We're re-shifting and re-crafting the ways that our support and our resources can get used.
So, yeah, I could talk about this also for hours, but I think the realization of the roles and the realization of what's going on in the block, what's going on in the neighborhood that we tend to just drive past and not think about.
Yeah, I mean, I'm also thinking a little bit about like our implications in these different systems of oppression and in the question and asking, Like, how is this work supporting, like, the liberation of Palestine?
Like, how do we come back to that and work hard for folks to get out of incarcerated systems?
Like, how do we not look away at these things that we know that our block is implicated, in all these systems, even if we can't see it?
So, yeah, I don't know how to sum that up. I think that's what I'm thinking about in terms of activism work and my role as an artist and asking these questions.
[54:22] You're so smart and awesome and brilliant and thank you. Well, maybe I can even thread it back of like, we forget that looking at the block or the neighborhood is part of how we look at the other things.
And I think that's what felt really important to me today to hear was like the implication of the local neighborhood.
[54:48] In the greater world piece of it all and how they are all interconnected, which brings us all the way back to the shape of the web.
And, Lukeza, is there anything else you wanna share today today with the listeners of Common Shapes. Did we miss anything?
I feel like we talked about a lot of things. I mean, I think this work is lifelong, and this work is messy, and there's a lot of clarity within it, and there's also more questions.
And yeah, may we be like porous sponges always, and read as much as we can get our hands on, Corita Kent says and follow the people who we want to follow and figure this out because we need each other and we yeah I don't know we're nothing without our friends and our neighbors and And yeah, so honored to be in this web with you and get a little bit of time to.
[55:52] Yeah, think about the things that I think about often, but that I don't talk about often.
Yeah, thank you. My last question is, where can our listeners find you and support you? I believe that they can become paid subscribers of the newsletter if they so can or able. And where should they follow you on the internet or anything that's coming up you want to share about? Just Where did the people find you, Lukeza?
Yeah, I'm on Instagram. My handle is bluekeza.
I've had it since... So good. Like freshman year of undergrad, but I just can't, it's there.
And my sub stack is lbvstudio.substack.com.
[56:39] And I have a show that's up currently that's up currently at the Center for Book Arts in New York City that is up until June 24th, which is a mural and installation and includes five recent publications that I've made over the past three years. And many projects always emerging, but you can find that on Instagram World or maybe on my sub stack. Beautiful. Thank you for being the first ever guest, on Common Shapes. It's been a pleasure to have you, and thank you all for listening.
[57:19] Thank you for listening to this episode of Common Shapes. Thank you again to our guest, Lucasia Branfman-Varissimo, who also made the art for this podcast. Thank you to Saltbreaker for our music, and to Softer Sound Studio for editing. You can grab the Creative Ideation portal at marleygrace.space slash common shapes. The creative ideation portal is a free three-day guide to support you envisioning your projects and bringing them into the world. It pairs nicely with the first four episodes of this show. I would love it if you could subscribe and share this podcast with a friend. It means so much to me to read the reviews and see the five-star ratings. Thank you for being a listener of Common Shapes.
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