Greetings

Farmer’s Market, New Albany, Mississippi

Welcome to the What’s Good Project. This has a been lifetime in the making, so for real, welcome. I’m glad you’re here.

What is What’s Good, you ask?

What’s Good is my combined attempt to listen to folks, make art, and shift my brain (and maybe other people’s brains as well). Culturally, it seems that we are addicted to negativity. Myself, I’ve always been a glass-half-empty kind of person. Scanning the horizon for danger, much to the trying patience of my husband. Looking for holes, flaws, possible disasters to prepare and rally against. (In academia, we call this criticism. Let me tell you, while *maybe* necessary for evaluation, it’s an exhausting way to live one’s life.)

I grew up in Mississippi, a place full of pain and of joy and a place where we make art about all of it. We tell stories to explain, justify, protest, celebrate, process, heal, and laugh. Stories become methods of teaching and ways of knowing ourselves, of uncovering truths and discovering shared humanity. Listening, something we don’t seem to do all that well these days, is an act of deep respect. This project is about giving visuality, in the form of art and sharing, to the stories of others. For me, it’s a needed lesson in listening.

It’s also incredibly important that What’s Good is not a Pollyanna approach to looking at the world, that I don’t deny or gloss over or dilute any of the pain that has happened or continues to happen in communities.  I’ve found that when we look at what’s good, it’s usually in relation to what’s not good, that what’s good is a result of folks trying to make what’s not good, better.

As an artist, making art about my own experiences has never been my bag. Making art about other people’s experiences? Hell yes.

I’d love to hear your experiences, and if you’re willing, to feature them here. Thanks for listening.