I'm taking my niece to watch TADC finale on Sunday. Because I'm her cool 'Aunt'.
Then I'm gonna grab some food with her and my bro, turn my ass right around, go back to the exact same cinema, and watch Backrooms. Because we're living in a glorious era of indie horror directors, nobody else wants to go with me, and I'll be damned if I miss it.
Also bought Iron Lung on youtube within 3 hours of its release. Very excited for a rewatch as I was one of the unlucky ones with a shit audio mix in my cinema. That plus my audio processing issues meant I missed a bunch of dialog. Can't wait to finally watch with my beloved subtitles 💕
I being a certain flavour of 'no medical professionals listen to you when you present with typical and common symptoms of PCOS and/or Endometriosis' that doesn't exactly go down well at the pub.
Rambling about 'gatekeeping' in the craft community
I'm a crafty person. I knit, crochet, spin, all those things. I'm self taught and have been doing some of these things for over a decade.
Mastery is a very important value for me. I am very about learning new things and growing my skills for its own sake.
So I get along really well with other crafters who share similar values. We care about what we're doing, take it fairly seriously, and want to be taken seriously as artisans.
Not everyone feels that way about their craft. Some people it's not that deep it's just a fun and relaxing thing they do in their spare time. They may not be particularly good at it, and that's ok! They're getting what they want out of it.
Some people are purely in it for money, and I don't like those people. They're usually not very skilled, they're just good at making it look like they are. Look out for 'simplicity' marketed as high brow, or 'high demand' used to excuse poor quality.
So, when we talk about 'gatekeeping' in the craft community. What I commonly see is a false dichotomy of 'beginners' vs 'experienced'.
And actually, I don't think that's what's really happening. What I actually think is happening, is a mismatch of values in action. Regardless of the skill level of the people involved.
People who do not value skill and mastery (in themselves or others) vs. people who do.
I have met so many beginners who take themselves very seriously and are passionate and trying so many different things and quickly surpassing many of the more experienced crafters I know. And I've met so many people who don't take things too seriously and will likely always be at a beginner level. They're not the ones calling things gatekeeping.
I know many beginners who are disabled and neurodivergent who are in this same category. They're not calling out gatekeeping.
In my opinion, the people I see talking about gatekeeping in the craft community don't seem to take skillbuilding and mastery very seriously. They tend to see skill as something they are owed, rather than something they have to earn.
They often weaponise their own backgrounds and identity rather than having any meaningful arguments. (this doesn't go down well in groups of skilled crafters who are multiply marginalised).
The people I see doing this are overwhelmingly white Americans in their early 20s.
The idea that those individuals are being gatekept out of crafting traditions that are hundreds/thousands of years old is so funny to me because of how freely accessible the resources are. How many of us taught ourselves. How diverse and accessible the resources have become over the years. How many people will sit down and teach you FOR FREE because they care about sharing the craft so much.
This community doesn't gatekeep. We're desperately trying to keep our crafts alive.
There are very few teachers left for things like bobbin lace, for example. My partners' teacher has been teaching for free out of her local library for years just to make sure it's passed on. And they're pretty much her only student, but she does it anyway, because that's how important it is.
I've seen people who teach these crafts get very frustrated with online discourse about gatekeeping. We're literally giving you all the resources time and hands on learning you could ever need, and it's slapped out of our hands by an adult child screeching that they can't do it perfectly immediately so we're gatekeeping.
These people are very emotionally immature. Don't take their claims of gatekeeping seriously. There are ways to work around accessibility issues, and multiple ways to learn things if one doesn't suit.
Crafters want to teach you. They want to help you learn. Please actually hear us when we say that.
Becoming skilled at a craft requires commitment and patience. It will chew you up and spit you out if you come at it with an expectation of mastery being placed gently in your hands without putting any work into it.
So if that's what I'm supposedly gatekeeping, I'm ok with that.
Holy shit, I've been trying to put this exact mindset into words for months. This is absolutely perfect.
FWIW, I'm neurodivergent; I'm also self-taught.
I can knit, crochet, and spin to a relatively advanced level now. I work hard at my crafts by practicing and learning at every opportunity I have. All of my skills I have built through free, easily available online resources and practice. But it has taken years to get where I am now.
There is no gatekeeping, we want to keep these skills and traditions alive. The information is out there, we have more guides and resources now than we have ever had before!
ok so, I approached my local library with a proposal to donate a mural as a way to A: build portfolio/gain practical experience and B: give back to a beloved public institution. The director was very enthusiastic about it and i've been working on it since the beginning of March. Come with me as I endeavor to paint what is in all honesty an excessive amount of birds
I wanted the birds to look like they were actually in the space so first thing after doing the draft was to do a lighting study
after that I covered the walls in letters in lieu of a projector/vr headset bc i have neither of those :) Then i take a picture of the section of wall and superimpose the lineart over top of it so I can pencil in the lines
et voila
and that was a whole week on it's own so next comes the paintin' >:)
my chains are broken i am FREE. although i did have a great deal of fun with this, the barring on the wings itself took me like four days and i am READY to move on
this was a week and a half of continuous work so please excuse me for getting a little emotional in the bg 🙏
BIRD NUMBER 10!!! The Male Mallard Duck, Anas platyrhynchos
the male and female ones are gonna be posted separately bc they're taking a lot longer lol but yea! super happy i was able to capture the iridescent green of the head, i found metallic green and blue paint at a craft store that really made his head POP. it looks better in person i promise
ALSO!! As this is the 10th one, BIG announcement. The end is in sight!!!!! I plan to finish within the next 3 weeks and there will be a small dedication ceremony/ unveiling happening at the library to commemorate its completion on the 16th of May. If you live in the Western New York region and want to check it out for yourself shoot me a dm!
Also thank you everyone for your kind words and support throughout this whole process, it's been a genuine treat thinking there are potentially thousands of you out there cheering me on while I paint this 🥹
we're movin right along with bird numero 11!! The lady Mallard!! Anas platyrhyncos
the 16th is looming in the distance so i'm trying to get thru these as quickly as i can so i can have as much time for the GBH as possible. i still need to do the names next to all of them so i've got about a week and a half to finish everything which is GREAT because i have adhd and nothing gets my ass in gear like a fuckin deadline, let me tell you
power couple that they are, here's bird number 12 and 13,
the Northern Cardinals, Cardinalis cardinalis
and NOW that they are complete, ITS GO TIME, in the next five days (library's closed for mother's day 😭😭) i need to have the GBH fully rendered, the names of the birds vectored, weeded, masked, applied to the wall, and then painted, plus additional cattails throughout. I may be able to get away with just getting the GBH done in time for the unveiling and then just have the names and cattails added later, but i'm gonna really try to get it all done in time. BUT, i have a plan. Part of why i take so long on these is because i really am just figuring it out as I do it lmao. there have been many a time where i am sitting on top of the ladder googling "how to paint birds" but I think if i take the time tomorro to do all that figuring out how to approach it beforehand, this will go a lot faster. I may also recruit some of my artist friends to help with the placing of the names... hrmm we'll see.
Anyways, shout out to the librarian who tracked down exactly the thing i needed so i could figure out where to place the highlights in my birds eyes, ur the real mvp
thank you to everyone who reached out or got excited about this project, it genuinely gave me the fuel i needed to keep going. In total, the 480+ total hrs it took me to cover this wall pales in comparison to how long its expected to spend on there, hopefully imparting a sense of beauty and love for the natural world to the next generation and here's hoping i'm only getting started with these.
what companies who sell you anti aging stuff don't want you to know is that if you're chill about aging, your perception of attractiveness changes as you get older. there is no "wall" where you suddenly become ugly and unfuckable because in my experience what actually happens is you get into your thirties and suddenly realize that people in their thirties are hot as fuck and the "flaws" that the beauty industry wants you to panic about are a feature not a bug, and based on the std statistics in nursing homes I don't really expect that trajectory to change.
Nah fuck that, I love new hires! Here, lemme show you how to do these things I've spent years perfecting. Here's a trick to help you remember this awkward bit of info. You're stressed from all the new tasks? Let's take 5 and I'll show you how the coffee machine works.
If you're nice, I'll even show you where our building's ice machine is that hardly anyone knows about. New hires are great, all I ask is that you want to learn and you try your best!
I love nonfiction that I simply cannot relate to at all. "it's easy to get addicted to buying fast fashion! I used to spend thousands of dollars on it a year!" okay. you're a space alien.
"survey finds that the average person in the UK only wears a piece of clothing 7 times" what are you talking about. what are you fucking talking about. who are these people and in what world are they average.
Someone from work pulled out some photos from up to a decade ago.
In one i was wearing a dress I'd just worn the day before. The work clothes did get a bit of a break during covid. But if I like something, it gets worn until it falls apart.
The renters' rights bill recently became law. One of the many improvements is that landlords LEGALLY cannot discriminate against tenants receiving housing benefits (commonly referred to as DSS tenants). If you ask a letting agent or landlord if they accept benefits or DSS and they say no, REPORT THEM TO THE LOCAL COUNCIL.
Benefits discrimination is against the law. It is sometimes called 'no DSS. Find out what benefits discrimination is and what you can do abo
Please note that not all of the renters' rights bill applies to the UK as a whole, which is why the link is for Shelter England as it is the most comprehensive I could find. However, the anti discrimination rules are at least GB wide and DO apply in Wales and Scotland. I cannot find confirmation for NI, but will add to this post if I can scrounge up some info.
vaporwave
pixelskylines
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turnnoffyourmind
