go forth and make

you brilliant humans

Feb 1, 2021

Congratulations Everyone!

You showed up and did the thing. I hope you enjoyed the process and that you feel a little more powerful. We cannot control things, but we can control how we meet them. Creating space for making, creativity, and curiosity is, in my opinion, one of the strongest tools we have for processing, reflecting, and evolving.

You stitched, painted, collaged, drew, baked, photographed, cooked, built, organized, and everything in between. Collectively you created tens of thousands of works. Holy shit, right?!

As we wrap up, I have some gratitude to bestow, some invitations to offer, and some resources to share.

Thank You

First, THANK YOU to the amazing humans who offered up their time and brilliance to bring us the inspiring prompts. I love you Greta, Kris, Ellie, Jenille, MartinJon, Sandra, Whitney, Diana, Elena, Emily, Dixie, Thelma, Jill, Heather, Mariame, Gaylon, Mary, Sara, Quinn, Kat, Andy, Rebecca, DuShaun, Mindy, Samira, Omkari, Jayna, Lisa, Ruben, William, and Melissa.

Pay it Forward

Second, as you know I am working on launching the country’s first Craftivist-In-Residence program with the Fuller Craft Museum. We are instituting a sustainable and replicable program model that demonstrates the viability, power, effectiveness, and expansiveness of craft activism. The program provides a significant professional development opportunity to the artist and serves as a catalyst for dialogue and change around pressing issues of social justice relevant to local, national, and global communities.

If you found value in my work this month and you have the means, I would very much appreciate a donation to the Fuller Craft Museum to support this new initiative and a future craftivist. You can donate here. Please indicate it is for the CIR program. Thank you for paying it forward!

What Next?

Now, you have developed this glorious maker practice and I know some folks need a place to channel that to ensure they keep up with it (totally normal need y’all).

Obviously, my first offering is Badass Herstory. You have been reflecting and making for a month now. I would love for you to channel that power and those thoughts into this craftivism project. It is VITAL that your voice be included, and your story shared. I firmly believe that the way to be a better human, friend, conspirator, and activist is to truly know yourself. What a better way to dig in than through this project? All the details are here for you.

I host workshops and social art-making gatherings every week. You can find the full list here and reserve seats. I would love to keep hanging with you! We have A LOT of fun.

Final Challenge

Lastly, I encourage you to make something that demonstrates what this process meant to you and what you will take away from the past month! HA! Surprise…I am offering up one more #MakeDontBreak assignment. Take it or leave it like everything from this adventure.

I will keep the prompts here so that you can access them whenever you like but I will not be sending out any further emails, as promised. If you would like to receive occasional emails from me (usually with presents) you can register for my substack here.

The slack will remain active for folks who want to stay connected and OF COURSE you can still use the #MakeDontBreak hashtag to share and stay connected.

Again, you are awesome. Over 4,500 people made tens of thousands of creations over ONE MONTH. We had five Zoom hangouts, created a Slack community, hosted a free legal workshop and involved 31 amazing activists and artists. All of this while we lived through a US insurrection and the most tumultuous power transition that we’ve ever seen…during a global pandemic. I am going to call this a win for all of us.

Got an Idea?

Oooh also, I could use your help. I’m going to have to leave Austin at the end of March and I have no idea what to do next or where to head! Got ideas? Solutions? Connections? Should we be planning shit together? Hit me up!!!

I can’t wait to see what you make next! Thank you for being a part of my beloved community. I am so grateful for all of you and everything you are bringing to this world.

I’m going to go take a nap now.

Shannon