Why I Launched That Art Party
That Art Party started with a fantasy.
A year ago, I would wake up every morning with a dread of driving the 19.5 miles to my stable, yet stressful job. I looked around the office and saw that my amazing, talented, miraculous colleagues and I - Black and Brown folx specifically - were dragging through the halls like the walking dead: sleep deprived, hungry, constantly looking over our shoulder, dizzy from the whiplash of white supremacy. I was sick and tired of seeing us so unhappy and miserable from the toxic stress of capitalism.
But there had to be more than el maldito sufrimiento - right?
Of the many lessons the pandemic taught me, it proved that we can live differently, that we can slow down, and that powerful change can happen when we tune in to our breath and body.
In 2022 I connected with a coach, Dr. Jax Black of the Big Joy Theory. She asked me one foundational question that has changed my life: who would you be if struggle never entered your heart?
I took 3 deep breaths, maybe the deepest breaths I had ever taken, and I was transported to one of my earliest memories of pure bliss - dance. I remembered that dance was the thing that gave me community, that thing that allowed me to process feelings I didn’t know I had. Dance allows me to move and explore my body in ways transcend time and space. Art is expansive. With the help of my coach and my ancestral guides, I spent the better part of 2022 learning how to dance my way through life outside of the studio and how to breathe with more ease in my heart.
That Art Party is my way to share this light with the people I love. My message is clear.
Art, in all of its forms, has the ability to heal us.
It allows us to play,
it allows us to get messy,
It allows us to access our flow-state,
It allows us to express ourselves,
It allows us to process our feelings,
It allows us to feel those happy hormones!
Art and play is not only for white folx, it is not only for the elite, and you definitely don’t need credentials to enjoy it. Art and play is for you.
So I ask you, what if we spend more time incorporating a little art and a little play into our everyday lives? What would the world look like, feel like, sound like, if BIPOC adults ritualized art and play as part of our radical self-love?
