Art Update: Engaging Esoteric Texts
You are going to want to check out the Vlog this week. I'm at my anti-racist, queeriest best as I dig into some Rudolf Steiner.
Howdy Family, Comrades, and Neighbors:
This week’s been a doozy, and I feel on fire. On my birthday this year (in June), my dear comrades and family Dan & Tomas gifted me Chaos. At first, I was a bit taken aback by the gift, cause who really wants chaos? It’s that thing that swirls around you and makes you feel like you can’t hold on to anything.
Well…boy was I wrong. I am finding myself holding on to quite a bit, and as a result I am seeing connections within the chaos. Like how Alexander Hamilton, the one who has that famous musical about him, believed that our Commander-in-Chief is “not only for the protection of the community against foreign attacks. [It is also for] the protection of property against those irregular and high-handed combinations [of people] which sometimes interrupt the ordinary course of justice [as provided by the republican Constitution],”1 while also aggressively pushing westward US expansion and how his legacy of border violence plays out today along our borders with Mexico and Canada and also the borders between the United States and American Indian territories / sovereign nations. (Listen to this for more about Line 3, specifically.) And I got all this while casting a spell this morning trying to discern a bit about what it means to be anti-binary. (See below for the Q U E E E R S P E L L.)
I also had an incredible client meeting between Queering Dreams and Dandelion Arts Finance Training Program. Crystal and I will be supporting Dandelion in using our Applied Dreaming method to further generate community buy-in and finish up a report of what Black, Indigenous, disabled, trans, queer, immigrant, low-income, and POC artists and arts administrators in the Bay Area need regarding financial development. We are using peer-based pedagogies, including a Querying Circle, which is an iteration of the Question Circle Celi Tamayo-Lee, Mary Claire Amable, and I developed as part of #StickyQuestions with the Asian Art Museum. Crystal and I will be dropping another episode soon, so subscribe to our Queering Dreams YouTube Channel to stay in the know! (Our videos come with tools!!)
I’ve also got a new Art Update Vlog on how I engage with esoteric texts. It is a wild ride, and it’s probably one of the best times I’ve had making an art update yet. I curse. I practice sacrilege. I curse some more! Please watch & share it!
Finally, I still need some coin! Rent is due.
If you’re feeling generous & like my art, musings, and work, please leave a tip on PayPal or Venmo. Or go buy a t-shirt or tote or something for your wee one over at www.queerlycomplex.com. Or give a gift subscription to Jason Wyman Is Queerly Complex.
In Grief, Joy, Rage, and Love,
Jason Wyman
VLOG: Engaging Esoteric Texts
Rather read the transcript? Click here.
Q U E E R S P E L L: A Spell of Query on Anti-Binary
Image description: A QueerSpell design by me that queries Anti-Binary, which includes quotes from Democrates, Kate Bornstein, Night Song, and Lao Tzu / Stephen Mitchell, and Jason's father's pocket watch gifted to them after their father's death by their mother laid out ina a series of circles. Underneath the quotes are a skull, a gold bar, a flame, and two drops of water. Under all that is a large symbol signifying cycles and infinity. The QueerSpell is bound by place -- Yelamu, unceded Ramaytush Ohlone land -- and time -- September 30 2021 in the Gregorian calendar.
My dear comrade and family Ash Tré Phillips and I have been working on Q U E E R S P E L L S together, and it’s really helping me hone in on how I use spell work to set intention. This isn’t about a specific kind of magic or witchery. Rather, it is about how one can use cosmology, relations, and study to set intentions or reveal insights.
AND…just in time for the holiday’s…yes, Samhain is a holiday and it is coming up!…you can purchase a Q U E E R S P E L L for yourself or a loved one. Email me at jason@queerlycomplex.com SUBJECT: QueerSpell to find out more.
Queering Dreams Episode 4: One-on-Ones
Image description: “The process of One-on-Ones often reveals deep truth” in a black circle set against a background of colorful pixelated stars. Queering Dreams is on the bottom.
Queerly Complex Look of the Week: Symbolic Eye #1
Image description: A black t-shirt with the Symbolic Eye #1 Light illustration on it set in a white square with a black border. Above it is the name and price $30 in a white rectangle with a black border. Both are set against a pink version of the illustrated Queerly Complex banner.
Manifesto of Real Democracy: The Guide to Liberty, Equality—and Survival by Democrates, p 54