Finding space for ourselves
On a year and a half of journaling workshops
Hello! I’m popping in briefly to share that registration is open for my workshop this Sunday morning at The Loop in San Gabriel, and I would love to see some of your friendly faces there. See all the details and RSVP here.
I’ve been leading these journaling workshops for almost a year and a half now, since my first at Discover Nikkei Fest at the Japanese American National Museum last February. Since then, I’ve become a regular teacher at Nellita’s Craft in Little Tokyo and hosted workshops at El Sereno Greengrocer and the community college where I’ve been taking parenting classes with Aya since she was a baby. All of these places are meaningful to me and have been the sources of some of my closest friendships. Being able to share my skills and learn from others in these community settings has given me hope — that I’m surrounded by creative people, that there is space for me, that we support each other.
Since having Aya, I’ve been able to seek out and find local creative community and take time to reimagine what the future of my career could look like. Sometimes it feels hopeful and promising, and sometimes I wonder whether I will really be able to manage creating a financially sustainable career built on work I love — especially on days like today when the cumulative exhaustion of three years of compromised sleep makes each thought feel like labor. But I think the effort is worthwhile, no matter where it leads. I’m lucky even to have the chance to try.
More upcoming workshops:
June 14 (Sunday), 11am-1pm: Intro to Cross-Stitch at Nellita’s Craft (RSVP here)
July 11 (Saturday), 10am-12pm: “Honor the Small Moments” Creative Journaling at Nellita’s Craft (RSVP link coming soon)
Also, starting in July, I’ll be hosting drop-in Write Together sessions at Nellita’s Craft on Thursday afternoons around 3pm. Save the date for 7/2 and 7/16 if you’re interested and I’ll share more details soon!
Journaling prompt:
Where/when do you feel there is space for you and your specific skills and interests?
One thing I recently loved:
Borderlands at the Huntington Library. The exhibit opens with “Book 13,” by Sandy Rodriguez, a 20-foot map of the United States painted on amate, a traditional Mesoamerican paper made from bark. The map shows current immigrant detention centers alongside the sites of residential schools, where Indigenous children were forced to live apart from their families, connecting these examples of racist violence across time. I was touched by the combination of this painful subject matter with Rodriguez’s handmade paper, hand-processed pigments, and papier mache animals, including the javelinas above. I felt the labor, imagination, and spirit required for each of these hand-crafted touches. Read more about the exhibit on L.A. Taco.