Thought Residencies

I'm Jessica Watkin and this is my eighth thought.

I'm craving nature. I'm craving putting my bare feet in the sand and dirt, water, grass. I'm really craving tulips because it's springtime. But I can't find any that are cheap enough and support a local business. So instead, I've done actually the first creative thing in a while and I've cut out small shapes of tulip bulbs, tulip heads that have sprouted and bloomed. And I'm trying to find ways to integrate them into the indoors. You're looking at a few of them now. We're finding our ways.

I'm Jessica Watkin and this is my seventh thought.

This pandemic has brought me two insights about myself: The first is a newfound grounding in my role as a "good" facilitator. It turns out I'm trusted in the community to hold space for artists, prod, poke, and ask questions, and use the answers creatively to find solutions. This is also how I define dramaturgy, so that's good.

The second thing is that I cannot make art from my own home. Or maybe I'm too quick to make that decision, or I haven't tried hard enough, or my brain is so full and tired that I can't imagine my own art right now. I have stories inside of me, but they're not coming out right now. And maybe that's okay?

I'm Jessica Watkin and this is my sixth thought.

I'm outside and it's damp and it's warm. Could that be how the whole world feels right now? I've been thinking about intuition, ritual, routine. How do we as a species find our own individual rhythms to carry out our lives? How much do we cling to these mundane rituals when the earth shakes beneath our feet? A dear colleague of mine uses terms from the weather to report on how they are feeling. Right now I feel like the calm before a storm, I've been having a month of storms and brief moments of sunshine. But every time I cling to its warmth, and that feeling tries to get me through to the next break in the clouds.

I'm Jessica Watkin and this is my fifth thought.

And I'm having a hard time arranging my thoughts today. So I am going to talk towards a definition of what Disability Dramaturgy is... because that's my thing. While I work with a fellow Disabled artist we focus on safety, energy, support. We normalize cancelled plans, build flexibility into our schedules, and meet virtually. We talk out our aggressions about ableism and injustice and everything else. We ensure we each have what we need. We find ways to create and exist that come from us and not from what someone else says is right. Which all have also been welcome invitations during this pandemic. And of course, we find ways to feel a little joy.

I'm Jessica Watkin and this is my fourth thought.

It occurred to me today while practicing yoga that I am so comforted during activities that take care of watching the time for me. Where it isn't my responsibility to watch the minutes tick by but I am supposed to just... be present. This is yoga classes. This is theatre performances. This is therapy and online meetings I am not chairing. If someone else takes care of keeping time for me I am easily engaged. Time has worked so strangely for me lately, but I am finding peace in the thought that even in this chaotic global crisis we are practicing collective care, if only by keeping time for each other like a metronome holding us together.

I made a rug last year for the first time, I hooked it, and I made it nonvisual and tactile. And I've been thinking about the future of tactile art: pieces that encourage and invite touch, post-pandemic. Will we consider each other differently? The proximity? The closeness? Or will we be finding a new way to touch, to connect in a newly normal way? I am finding a little bit of peace in that uncertainty; that there may be a new normal at all.

I'm Jessica Watkin and this is my second thought.

I've been thinking a lot about care, and how to actually take care of one another. I think this situation with Coronavirus has made me think even more, if that is possible, about how we have built the structures around us to take care of each other. And I'm stuck on this idea of carefull- not careful as in, "ooh I've got to be careful I don't wake Dad", or tiptoeing around, or trying to make something safe- I mean carefull as in full of care (with two l's). How do we make decisions and live our lives in a way that is full of care?

I'm Jessica Watkin and this is my first thought.

This is a weird and hard time for artists, and everyone, but I am hearing about hope popping up around me. The sky can still be blue after it opens with rain. People have started to listen and find ways to creatively support one another from isolation. As a Disabled artist and scholar I have had to creatively find support… theatre and academia are inaccessible spaces. We have been offered an opportunity to navigate the world a little differently, and as a Blind person I can tell you that it's not so bad.

It's Eva. This is thought number [thirteen].

I read this thing on facebook today that got me a bit frustrated. It was a post saying how versatile artists are, and how they're used to having multiple jobs and hustling to make ends meet, especially in challenging times. And the thought behind this was very well-intentioned and I believe it's true as well, but what frustrates me is the romanticization of that. Because we're forced to do that hustle, because often being an artist is undervalued and not seen as a job in Canada. There will be a significant amount of people - especially emerging artists - who will come out of this and decide the arts aren't possible for them. Precarity isn't romantic. I'm hoping that rather than being so impressed with how scrappy artists can be, we can out of this thankful that artists exist, because of the vital service they do for their communities.

It's Eva. This is thought twelve.

Today I was reading a play that I've been writing for the last year or so and I found it hard to hook into because I'm so consumed with the immediate moment. And I had to clock for myself that inside of this crisis my humanity is still existent. I'm still grappling with the same problems on top of this. So for me my desire is to not let this crisis consume me, and the art that I make, but how can it explode it? How can my plays not necessarily be about COVID, but how can they be about connection, need for each other? That's my big ponder right now, and it's hard, when something's slamming in your face. Daily.