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I’m so honored to have been included in LaTonya Yvette’s Community series. I’ve loved LaTonya’s work for several years now (since the release of her first book, Woman of Color), and am constantly drawing inspiration from her words and images. I can’t think of community without thinking of The Last Waltz and the women I watch it with, year after year.

To read the piece, click here.

The last prompt of March Ensemble is “turn it upside down”. The first thing that came to mind was Upside Down by Diana Ross. I think I was in high school when I first really got into this song? I’d never seen the music video, though, what a treat. I decided to create something like the music video, and also like the name of the prompt. What could be more “upside down” than a white lady taking a picture emulating Diana Ross? And then, why not just put it upside down, literally, like some bizarro mirror image. Like the “upside down” in Stranger Things, or some extra wrong “tethered” from Us.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Po0BbGMSX4g

Instinctively I thought, “Diana Ross must be an Aries”, but really I probably just knew that somewhere in my brain that never forgets people’s astrological signs. March 26! She just had her 77th birthday. I thought about who would be the Diana Ross of our generation, and Lana Del Rey was actually the first person who came to mind. Talk about upside down. But for real, what other artist now would have a line in a song like “respectfully I say to thee I’m aware that you’re cheating”? Diana Ross isn’t angry when she sings this, she’s just stating a fact, and also stating she doesn’t care because the love that she gets “instinctively” from this lover is worth the cheating that is also happening. Sounds like a Lana Del Rey song to me, but don’t tell Diana Ross.

So I put together this image, working with that I have (as I’ve done with all the March Ensemble prompts), a printer/copier and some scissors. I like working within limits. I can’t worry too much about the quality of the print, because this printer/copier is all I have. I can’t worry about getting my picture to look exactly like Diana Ross’, because I’m working in bed before my children wake up. I can’t worry about making something too profound, I don’t want to overthink or take myself too seriously. Then again, I think all these works people have been making for March Ensemble are profound precisely because of the limits. Freedom Under Law, as an old friend of mine used to say. At the risk of sounding too sappy, March Ensemble has been life changing for me. It’s been something to open my brain, push me to make for the sake of making, think about things differently, experience a part of my brain and psyche I haven’t really tapped into for awhile. We’ve pushed through the waters of Pisces, into the fire of Aries throughout the ensemble. The symbol of the horns comes back to me, like the first piece I made for March Ensemble. Sick, sad song. Maybe if you turn a sick, sad song upside down you get a Diana Ross bop. The sign of the horns protects Diana Ross and I from the Evil Eye.

Until next March!

I check the March Ensemble prompt every morning, but some days don’t resonate with me, or I’m too lazy, or I know I won’t have enough time in the day (even to think). This morning I loved one of two prompts given; Exist for Love. THIS RESONATES. I truly believe I exist for love. I wonder what you are doing if you’re NOT existing for love? What else is worth existing for? I had all these thoughts about ways I exist for love, or things I love. Simple, mundane, everyday things are how I exist for love. The first cup of coffee, damn. I walked downstairs to get that cup of coffee, just past 5am, and the moon struck me right through one of the many windows on the south side of my house. Moonstruck. We just had a full super worm moon in Libra, damn. I took a morning walk with my daughters and kept noticing the way the sun hit the moss on the rocks in the woods, damn! This stream of consciousness tiny piece came to me tonight, while my husband put the girls to bed. Like Lady Lamb says, “and if you’re crying by the moon, in the sun you better LIFT UP THAT CHIIIIIIN!”.

first cup of coffee

light on moss

desire

blood on the tracks

laughing

sex

birth

stepping before knowing where your foot will land

choosing love over fear

The moon exists

for love

I thought a lot about the moon while I looked up at it before the sun rose, and I remembered my dream of two moons. What does the moon exist for, besides love?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-ZPWP12Z4iI