Week 1, Message from Cat

Dear Sparrow,

Though we’ve never met, I feel a quiet joy in reaching out to you, as one artist to another, as two strangers who speak the same secret language.

Lately, I find myself steeped in questions. In this world so full of fear, sorrow, and upheaval, I wonder about the place of art. Can it truly matter? Can it reach through all this noise and grief and touch a life, change a life? I want to believe it can. I need to.

And yet, some days, I feel foolish. While people suffer and bleed, I’m thinking about my aging body, my husband’s silvering hair, the way time writes itself into our skin. Still, we are alive. I wake and feel my pulse - proof of life, of persistence. It’s all so stark, so visceral.

This awareness doesn’t weigh me down; it sharpens me. It reminds me to love, and to live.

I watch my son with his girlfriend: young love, bright and blooming. My own love, at 54, is different. It is deeper, tempered, weathered by truths I have learned over the years...or maybe truths I forgot. It carries the ache of knowing what can be lost.

I long for beauty. For meaning. For something that will reach beyond myself and touch others. Maybe even make a difference.

Isn’t that what we hope for, with our art? That somehow, it might hold someone’s gaze long enough to resonate? Impact?

With wonder,
Cat

54 Years Old in the Morning My Husband Age 54

Week 2, Message from Sparrow

Dear Cat, 

Your writing is so lyrical and honest, and hit me so soulfully and direct. Your punctuations on the passage of time resonate with me so deeply in this moment of my life. I'm coming to you a mere 20 years younger, 33 years old, female, feeling at a deep crossroads in my life... faced with a different kind of awareness of my mortality. I often feel like a woman's timeline is so starkly different from a male's... like the runway for grace and possibility is a lot shorter... like this decade is the zenith of a woman's societal potential... her proof of concept. I feel different in my body being made aware of this reality and knowing that I'm in limbo with a tough decision to make. 

With the weight of the world on one's shoulders... I ask myself which way makes the most sense at the merciful crossroads in my life. A year outside of grad school asking myself... do I choose stability and slowness away from any major epicenter of art... no less expensive but with less distraction... or do I choose to be in an epicenter, with a robust community, but with a pause on the long term building of my life post youth, post craving to be in 'the middle of it all.' It can feel like an inner rebellion happening...against need and want..... asking..."can I craft an honest life outside of societal norms, independent of age, independent of real life concerns like long term financial planning...outside of picking one place to live and feeling cemented there...outside of convention and tradition that tends to find us in romantic partnerships....the edging up on decisions for "we" vs. "me." I apologize if this thought stream feels weighted or even trivial given your position. 

I re-read your first message, thinking about the constants in one's life that seem to override the passage of time.... constants like love, tested and tempered... family.... our bodies... while changing...they remain a constant vessel for our complexity of spirit and thought. 

I ask you... as a Sparrow... being called to nest.... after foraging for so long....have you any words for how to embrace the stillness in life? I think of so many variables that it takes me out of the moment...namely....have I made the right decision....being some place quiet yet so busy in my mind?

Despite it all, I still hold on to the power of art....our capacity to express so as to keep our spirit alive....to allow it to breathe, deep healing breaths. With so much happening externally in our lived worlds personally, nationally, and globally.... it remains a balm in our society, when not over complicated. I see art as a conduit for connection to others... and ultimately that connection is essential for a healthy life. To share, be seen, and be held...to evoke and perhaps provoke a radical shift in our ideas around possibility. Art always gave me the courage to dream....and now I'm asking it to give me the courage to simply trust and be. 

As a close, I loved the images that you shared. I see so much beauty even from just a glimpse. I believe in the sanctity of this exchange... do share more on what's come through for you these days...

Warmly,
Sparrow

Week 3, Message from Cat

Dear Sparrow,

You’re asking a Jewish mama here. Maybe you meant to ask the artist, or the middle-aged woman, but whether you knew it or not, the Jewish mother answered too. The one who wants you to do well, be successful, make a good living. What can I do...she is embedded in me. 

I don’t know you well enough to say what’s right for you, but I can tell you what I’ve learned. The quieter life is tempting...I do think about it often. But the truth is, I would push you to stay in the center of it all. In the middle of the chaos, the tension, the discomfort. Because that’s where the energy is. That’s where things happen, and where you have to make yourself show up, speak, connect. And as women artists, we have to push ourselves toward that edge, toward the places that demand something of us. Not just because it’s thrilling or inspiring, but because choosing what’s calmer or peaceful might not leads us to the kind of impact, visibility, or connection we want.

But this might be right for me, and wrong for you. 

The honest life you speak of can absolutely exist outside societal norms. But it cannot exist outside of reality. There are costs to every path. Health, finances, relationships, pressure, time, they don’t disappear. They just shift forms. The question isn’t how to avoid them, but how to carry them and keep making art anyway. Or make art about them.

I had to leave my country. Leave my language, my people, my oarents, my comforts. I came to New York, where everything is harder, more expensive, and more intense. But also where more is possible. I came here because being an artist doesn’t only mean making work. It means making a life around the work. A context. An audience. And yes, a livelihood. Those things don’t always come easy to women, and certainly not to women after a certain age.

What might be good for our mental health is not necessarily the same as what might be good for our career as a female artists. This is something I have struggled with in the past, and for me, the creation of the art is one thing, but to be able to have an audience, to be able to make a living of my work, had to be here, I had to make it work here. As the famous song says, if I can make it there, I'll make it anywhere. 

But... Every journey is different. For each of us, the goals are achieved in different ways. You have to create your path, to reinvent what's possible, to carve your way in the unique formula that is right for you. And so I gave you some answers, and immediately took them back.

I am attaching a photograph of me at your age, thirty-three, back from the hospital, after giving birth to my twins. I had to go back to work 4 days later. I hope my words did not stress you, dear Sparrow, until soon. 

Cat

Week 4, Message from Sparrow

Dear Cat, 

Forgive me for arriving later than scheduled. I needed some extra time to drop down into the space our conversation calls for - outside of tasks and into intention. Things picked up like a storm and so I fought for a clearing. I'm here, present and well, I might add. 

Your instinctive maternal response was welcomed and I appreciate the sincerity of your words. 

I'm holding on to all of it as I've continued to re-read your message several times now. It hits like a poignant balm, dressing a few wounds I've picked up from several unsurly communities in grad school, narratives I've subconsciously inherited from family, as well as my own internal push and pull - absent of others' impressions and more so beholden to time (which is the reality I'm rubbing up against). 

My timeline for independence and possibility started later, being that I graduated undergrad at 27 and grad school at 32. I was dissuaded from my calling as an artist for so long until I finally said yes to me at 24. I sometimes lament not having that traditional trajectory of time because it rears itself as urgency in the present. I wish I could surrender the emotion of feeling "against time." 

There were of course a few touch points in particular that reverberated the loudest for me in your message:  "a life around the work" and "to have a context." This is to say thank you. This can't gain that in a vacuum. 

I realize where most of this internal stirring brews from me second-guessing my compass and not knowing how to work with paradox. There is always a give and take...however indecision is the worst act of self betrayal (so I'm learning). To make this even clearer, I long for vibrancy in a place like New York compared to where I live now, in the Bay Area. However, despite my traveling spirit and yearning for newness...beneath those desires I'm still struggling to be seen and properly use my voice. The barrier to the City has always been finances....I'm a woman of color without familial support although blessed with many spiritual inheritances - endurance being one. The amalgamation of the city does not intimidate me - it's namely that I am in a phase of my life and practice where I want to build structure and have resources independent of location. I'd move in an instant for the right opportunity and/or having a proper foundation before departing. 

The irony is, I feel the resources will come if I ask through a soul contract to use my voice. I've shied away from properly using social media and the like, tip toeing in and out, yet the proof points show that when I show up things happen. 

In a sense, it's a fear of being seen and a question of direction. Which is pretty paradoxical being that I mostly work within self-portraiture. In every action, I'm working to craft the self-portrait that is my life. Right now I've been suppressing myself similar to my early adult life that I alluded to because sometimes choosing the calling means losing something...like a partner you love because their options might not be as fluid as an artist's. One thing I do know is that I no longer want to toil for my art, that was my 20s till now - check to check. It taught me ingenuity and grace under fire....but no lasting harvest can be reaped from conditions such as that. 

I'm choosing to speak Cat, to find my birdsong and attract. I must close this loop.

Did you ever struggle with this?

More on you:

I apologize for my absence and for rushing in like this. I've  unintentionally held the floor for a while now and am stepping back to clear it for your response. I want to hear more from you. Where are you now, what are you feeling, how is the family and the summer season moving through you?

That picture of you at 33 is so beautiful and I enjoy hearing your story from that time in your life with the wisdom of where you stand today. Keep it coming, I can handle it. 

I'm certain I can offer more. 

I've attached little glimmers of things that asked to be noticed when I was seeking grounding.

Thank you,
Sparrow