here are some things i believe:
– we are all creative
– we create constantly
– we are called to create
– we are called to create not by something divine and without but by something divine and within
– [i used to believe that] creating is deeply human; [now i believe] creating is a calling larger than us and is rather deeply animal
– things such as the doodles we draw on a work call or the made-up songs we hum washing dishes are art
– if you could compile all the little art of one’s life, you would see a version of them you wouldn’t access otherwise
– we miss out on a chance to be known when we do not share our art or do not make it in the first place
i admittedly wield a loose definition of “art”. art to me is anything we make that comes from below the level of ‘should’. that is, a) we need to make it (i.e. no ai), and b) some part of us needs to feel drawn to make it.
i make art like this mostly at night, alone. that’s when i need the most help sidestepping The Terror (as Tonie calls it). so i keep my hands busy, and i make art to send my thoughts and feelings into the ether; in so doing, i slough ’em off, and i improve my chances of being seen, somewhere in the universe.
i really enjoy seeing my friends. but even with my favorite people, i find it difficult to truly share my life or understand theirs. we can talk, or we can go somewhere and share an experience; we can sit in silence. but none of these let us do what i really wish we could: exchange indices of our hearts/minds/memories/senses–that is, somehow take a snapshot of the entire experience of being alive and being us at any given moment and gift it to each other. if i could, i would cover the walls of my house with thousands of these snapshots in thousands of frames.
my hunch is that sharing the things we make can get us closer to fully sharing our lives with one another. maybe the notebook page i covered in panicked Sharpie and tore up at 1 am–when i remembered i will die and suddenly needed to know if i’ll go to grad school and also if i am good–lets you into my world in ways that catching up at flour can’t. i don’t know, but it’s plausible.
more and more these days i want to crawl into other people’s lives. feel how their backs feel when they walk and listen to their minds wander in an elevator. i want to peel back my skin and curl my friends into my flesh, where they can see out my eyeballs. i want us to see each other–and through seeing, love each other–as we really are.
which brings us to friends museum. i had a germ of this idea knocking around for a few months (‘what if i could get all my friends together and we could look at all the cool things we make?!’). then ingrid had a show & tell party, which was amazing. i left so chuffed at the talents and interests of her friends, many of which i never would have learned of if she hadn’t created that space. it got me revved up to carry out friends museum, a space for us to see those soft hidden parts of each other.
i want to be clear that the purpose of this event is not to impress. i expect we will be wowed at our collective talent of expression; still, the intent behind sharing our art is to see each other better. to help us be humanly seen so we can sleep and laugh better. if you were to exhibit the most technically brilliant landscape of all time, i hope we would appreciate it for its view into your perspective before anything else. ‘why this place’ and ‘why these colors and strokes’ before ‘man, you can really paint!’
these are my motivations for hosting this event. you could have totally different motivations for participating in it. maybe you’ve been needing an outside-yourself reason to finally try watercolor. or maybe you just love a themed gathering. i think that’s awesome. whatever brings you here is awesome.
thank you for being here on this page, for being here on this earth, for being my friend, for being each other’s friend, for entertaining this idea at all. this will only be what we make it; i feel as certain as one can about the unknown that we will make this project a beautiful one, and that we’ll love each other a little better in the process.
-me, eliza
aug 18, 2026