Tag: art

Blog, community

#BoycottBlackFriday By Supporting Marginalized Communities

The holiday season is hard for a lot of folks. With the recent push to #BoycottBlackFriday, I wanted to provide a list of places folks can spend their money and know the funds go directly to supporting marginalized communities. Some of these are fundraisers, and some are small, individually-run businesses that could use a boost this holiday season. These are all queer and trans, Black, Indigenous and people of color, sick and disabled, or otherwise marginalized people. Some don’t have family support. Some have children to support. Some struggle to work due to health issues. All of them need help.

I am asking in the spirit of community wellness and loving kindness: if you have the funds, please donate to these people and groups. rather than spend money this holiday season at the mega-corporations, make a conscious, ethical choice to support people from marginalized communities who don’t have the same resources. Your support could save someone’s life. It could enable them to eat, to stay housed, to get necessary medical care

Charities and organizations are at the end of the list, with individuals at the top.

Individuals

Aaminah Shakur: “I am an Indigenous/Black Queer Crip artist/poet/culture critic and full time student in an art history program whose work is about challenging the canon and bringing forward the lives/work of forgotten Queer & Crip POC artists.”
Shop: mkt.com/shakur-arts
Paypal: paypal.me/shakurarts

Sumayyah Talibah is a brilliant writer and artist, whose work has appeared in several anthologies, including Mourning Glory Publishing’s After Ferguson, in Solidarity. Buy a handmade, one of a kind piece of jewelry for yourself or someone you love this holiday season, and support her work!
Shop: sumayyahsaidso.com/shop
Paypal: paypal.me/sumayyahsaidso

Noemi Martinez, “a chronically ill Queer Chicanx single mama of crip children.”
Website: www.hermanaresist.com
Shop: www.etsy.com/shop/catrinacreations

Mallory: help a disabled woman and her children stay housed and away from their abuser.
GoFundMe: https://www.gofundme.com/malloryandkids

Jaden: “I’m a newly disabled/chronically ill TQPOC who recently was denied for disability. Really struggling to pay for groceries, medicine, and other bills. I’m not currently able to work.”
Blog: www.chronicillnesschronicling.tumblr.com
Cash.me: cash.me/$surviveandthrive

Chaz Vitale, “artist, activist, magic-maker,” is seeking funds for a vital and life-changing surgery.
GoFundMe: www.gofundme.com/chazs-surgery-fund
Paypal: www.paypal.me/ChazVitale

Olivia M: “I’m a queer disabled mixed Latina, and here’s where I sell my zines (mostly perzines).”
Etsy: etsy.com/shop/ParadoxNowCreations

Chloe Viening-Butler is a disabled artist and poet, heavily involved in disability activism.
Shop: https://squareup.com/store/viening-butler-studio

Alex Dehoff is queer & chronically ill. They run Ms. Andry’s Bath House, a feminist bath and body company! (They have a great line of fragrance free products, too!)
Shop: www.msandry.com/
Fragrance free: www.msandry.com/product-category/fragrance-free/

Elizabeth Adams makes metal and enamel jewelry and art.
Shop: www.etsy.com/shop/nightshaderosestudio

Allison: “Allison means so much to me. She is a wonderful fat trans lesbian who I have had the pleasure of getting to know this year. Living in the south as a disabled fat trans woman she is VERY isolated bc of these intersections. She deserves support.”
GoFundMe: www.gofundme.com/allisonsgoal

 

Charities and Organizations

Sogorea Te’ Land Trust is an organization dedicated to the return of lands in the San Francisco Bay Area to the stewardship of the Chochenyo and Karkin Ohlone indigenous peoples. It is an indigenous women-led effort: “guided by the belief that land is the foundation that can bring us together, Sogorea Te calls on us all to heal from the legacies of colonialism and genocide, to remember different ways of living, and to do the work that our ancestors and future generations are calling us to do.”
Website: sogoreate-landtrust.com/how-to-contribute/
Paypal email: sogoreate-landtrust@gmail.com

Daughters Rising: “I work for a preventative anti-sex trafficking/women’s empowerment project for Burmese refugee/ indigenous girls here in Thailand. We need funding for college scholarships and small business start-up grants.”
Website: daughtersrising.org/

Oogachaga: “Singapore’s *only* community-based (not sanctioned by Queerphobic government) LGBT counselling center might close due to funding cuts.” Donate to stop that from happening!
Generosity fundraiser: www.generosity.com/community-fundraising/support-us-supporting-singapore-s-lgbtq-community

Standing Rock: support the water protectors defending their land and sacred sites from the Dakota Access Pipeline, who are facing violence from pipeline workers, security, and police, while camping outdoors in sub-freezing temperatures.
Website: sacredstonecamp.org/donate/

The QTPOC Mental Health Fecebook page has been a resource for queer and trans folks of color for a over a year, and now they’re fundraising to create a website to host a searchable database of resources and articles to serve this historically unserved/underserved population, and provide even more resources than they already do.
YouCaring: www.youcaring.com/lgbtqiapeopleofcolorstrugglingwithmentalhealth-689882
Facebook: www.facebook.com/QTPOCsupport/

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Blog, Questions & Prompts, Writing from the Core

Writing from the Core Day 1

I signed up for a 21 day writing challenge being put on by writer and artist Lisa Hsia, called Writing from the Core. The purpose is to pick a topic that you’ve always had trouble writing about, and then write about it. Every day, participants will receive a prompt in their email to write about, free of judgement, to try and push past the blocks set up in our own minds about these touchy subjects.

When I signed up for this, I cast about for a topic to write about. What would be hard, but not too hard, that I feel like I need to write about, and that I could write about for this? Eventually, I settled on writing about touch: being touched and how I touch other people as a survivor of sexual trauma living with PTSD. Hard, right? But it didn’t seem too hard. (Check out that self-delusion…)

This morning, the first prompt arrived in my inbox: When did you first notice the pain? I had forgotten exactly what I planned to write about, and I went back to my initial email to check: touch, sexual trauma, PTSD. I put the topic and the prompt into a Word doc, and looked at them together.

Whoa, I thought, nope. That’s not gonna happen. That’s a terrible idea! What on earth was I thinking?! I can’t write about that.

And I saw it happening. The thoughts spun out instantly; I felt the fear and panic creeping in. And that’s when I knew I had to write about it, because that fear’s been holding me back. I’m going to do this. I’m going to conquer this fear, and write about this challenge, and I’m going to be open and honest and authentic. I’ll write about this, and I’ll be okay. It’s time to get started.

But first, I’m going to get a quart of chocolate ice cream. I need self care for the ride.

 

Is there something that’s been holding you back? Think about why. Then, make art. Draw or write. Create.