My son is now old enough to watch a lot of fun, grown up stuff. But, he’s still just 13. I asked my husband if we could dial it back a little. He has the rest of his life to watch and relate to grown up stuff and only a short time to be a kid. I want to include shows and movies starring 13, 14, and 15 year old boys who aren’t emulating adult narratives. I’ve asked my husband to rent Malcom in the Middle from Vidiots or Videotheque. I can think of many movies for this age group that star girls, and we watch these too, but I’d like to add more teen boy protagonists. What have you seen that fits the bill?

Motivational housecleaning tips are fun. I love them. I eat them up and try them all out. But I don’t give them because these tips generally assume that a female reader is the one who should be doing the job. I would never assume this about you. This is why my tips are about lightening your load or making housework easier in some way.

It’s great when things are clean, but it’s not something we should always be thinking about. Motivational cleaning tips accumulate in our minds and make housework a constant pressure. They seem to assume you’re procrastinating, that you just need a push to be less lazy and have a clean house. The problem is usually time, energy, equal division of labor, and lack of a good framework, not motivation. If you’re the only one doing the housework, please do not set a timer on yourself.

Who motivational cleaning tips are for

Motivational cleaning tips are fine if you live alone. My favorite is: Tidy the kitchen while you boil water for tea. I just did this because I have been alone for a few days, and the mess is my own. Maybe that’s why it only took 4 minutes to get the job done. When I’m on my own I take a break from the schedule and bounce around more. But the pressure eventually trickles back in, and I return to the schedule because it relieves me from thinking about housework.

The problem with pressure

If you signed up for Neurospicy Housekeeping, odds are pressure doesn’t work well on you. It’s even unpleasant for diagnosed neurotypicals. If you feel a vague, constant pressure to clean and follow a million housekeeping tips, you will never want to do housework. It’s as if all of your energy goes to coping with constant low level pressure. There are so many tips, following you around and weighing on you. Even if you complete one or two, you feel no real relief.

The solution

The solution is to exorcise all the tips. Define the tasks. Pick the ones that matter, distribute them evenly among all members of the household, and let go of the rest. Only clean the kitchen while you brew your tea if it’s your task and its designated time. It’s either time for the task or it isn’t, and if you miss the time, it will come around again.

I’ll help your household define and divvy up the tasks to create your Housekeeping Chart in future posts (and in my book in 2028).

These paintings show the same location about a decade apart. I painted the one on the left as a new mother, using paints I found at a garage sale. During that time, I had to paint whenever I could using whatever I could find. There wasn’t time to plan and shop for materials. Today, this painting is flaking away because of this. My early work focused more on specific objects, like pipes. Then, I transitioned to “roof lines,” compositions found where buildings meet the sky. This painting combines both object focus and roof lines. My recent work, right, utilizes complex compositions that include sky, building, ground, and even people. To be honest, I find the complexity daunting, and for my next body of work, plan to zoom in again. You can see how the building changed over the years. The vent pipes are gone, but the covered skylight was still there. If I remember correctly, it used to be a toy factory, and then it became Withrow Bros. Today, this is the location of LA River Studios.

Thank you for reading. My book comes out in 2028. Follow my work here:

If you prefer, read on Substack.

Click here to see my rat doll sewing pattern.

Keep reading:

The post The problem with motivational cleaning tips appeared first on Diana Kohne.

As our child grew older, our living room experience shifted away from drawing and doing crafts or homework together. The coffee table was always dusty. I began to dream of doing a yoga video on the living room floor. My son grew taller than me, and it became rare to find a spot on the couch. We’d opted for a record player and piano instead of a La-z-boy or loveseat, which only left the piano bench to sit on.

I began to envision a moveable living room. One where we could sprawl out when the couch was taken, and things could be pushed aside to accommodate a yoga mat. Despite protests, I decided to go for what would make me healthier in the long run.

Clearing out the coffee table

Most of the board games were for little kids. I tried to sell these, but no one would buy them. So they went on Buy Nothing. The other games went to the top of my son’s closet. He has no closet door, so these are in view and accessible here.

I removed the paper, art supplies and remote control basket to a rolling cart. I like that we can roll it all over the house, wherever we might want to use markers or crayons. The cart also solved the problem of there being no place to add a piece of furniture to store these things.

The only constant that remains from the old coffee table is the bill basket. It sits on a lightweight end table.

I re-listed the coffee table on Buy Nothing. The person who gifted me the table 6 years ago liked the post. The day the coffee table was picked up, another buy nothing-er delivered a yoga mat to my door. That evening, I pushed aside the end table and the pouf and stacked the floor futon into its tidy square. As my husband cooked dinner I completed a yoga video. The dog growled at the yoga class on the screen, and sniffed my head and toes during corpse pose. My son blew on my face or tickled my feet from the couch while I tried to imitate what they did on screen.

Bringing it home

I don’t think homes need to be updated much. Matching or newness isn’t something I value, but, I do think our rooms need to adapt along with us. Initially, the other members of the household resisted change. They were used to the coffee table. I suspected it was the thought of going through everything that bothered them more than an attachment to the table. Respectfully, I put it on the back porch so we could change our mind. The moment the table left, we began to fill the new open space. We actually played a board game. A day later I asked, should we bring the coffee table back? No one missed it.

The rolly cart, the old end table, the pouf and the floor futon all came from the garage. Each has a history. The end table belonged to my husband’s father. I sewed the pouf by hand a few years ago, and stuffed it with a comforter. The floor futon was for young grandchildren to sleep over on at my grandparent’s house. Moving these things into the house also breathed new life into the garage, which is also my studio space.

Do you have a space in your home that feel stagnant and dusty? What else could it be? What could you bring into your space or move out that would change how you use this room and live your life?

The post Goodbye Coffee Table: Changing the living room set up appeared first on Diana Kohne.

Conserve your energy when you share the load

Sometimes, there are tasks that aren’t covered by our chore charts or scheduled clean times. Tasks that, for whatever reason, ADHD or the patriarchy, you are the one noticing and tending to and the person you live with is not. Notes allow you to distribute the labor with minimum extra labor, and they’re effective. Here’s why notes help those who struggle with housekeeping and other executive function tasks:

Dopamine motivates

The little note with a task is just effective for how some brains work. Many of us are chasing dopamine, and we can’t get this from a chore chart that never changes. But notes are always different, which makes them unexpected. This makes them more interesting, and the things written on them more likely to be done. I asked my husband how he feels about the notes and he said he likes it because it’s different every time, and he enjoys crossing tasks out. This actually makes completing the task more rewarding than if I’d asked in real time.

The note nags

My husband noted that he doesn’t forget what I’ve asked because the note is there to keep reminding him. When we have a verbal or signed conversation, the words vanish instantly. They are only a part of memory of the past. Recalling the past and assigning it weight in the present is a pretty complex mental task, and some people are not wired well for it. But a note stays in the present, reminding every time it is seen, until the task can be completed and the paper composted.

Notes ease the load

When you’re the unlucky task master of the house, and you rely on conversation to ease the burden of your tasks, you’re actually adding two tasks to your load. 1. Remembering the task. 2. A conversation about the task. Broaching the subject and describing it and seeking the confirmation that the other person understands and accepts it often takes the time and effort that doing the task ourselves would, which doesn’t ease our load. Like our partner, notes are not perfect, but, they take less energy from us.

A note can sidestep an argument

What’s more draining than expending your energy to ask for participation in what should be shared labor? Getting into a row about it. It’s human nature to balk at being given a task. When it comes in via a note, that initial resistance or annoyance is a private thing between the reader and the paper. The paper is the messenger, and so the paper gets the blame. When the messenger is you, who are probably tired from doing things you wish they would notice, you catch that initial glimmer of resistance, and things usually go downhill from there.

How to use notes in your own home

You may want to let your partner know you will be trying notes to help with the division of labor. My partner is used to me trying new things all the time. You know your relationship, and whether to spring it on them or give a heads up. You can even let them know in a note.

Keep notes convenient

Keep sticky notes or other small pads with pens and pencil in a few places in the house. This way, one is nearby anytime you notice labor that needs to be allocated.

Any paper will do

I use a cute little notepad, like a sticky note, or actual sticky notes, or scrap paper, depending on where I am when inspiration strikes.

Place the notes where they will be seen

At our house, this is the place at the table where my husband eats or on his laptop keyboard.

How to write the notes

Keep the notes very businesslike, because this expends less of your energy, and also, keep them neutral. Notes are for dividing the unexpected labor, the stuff that isn’t on chore charts. However, sometimes, you will be writing down your partner’s forgotten responsibilities. Annoying as it may be, write it simply. If they respond to the notes, it will be less annoying.

A look at my notes

Yesterday I wrote “1. assemble large dog crate. 2. take photo & text to me”. Last weekend I wrote “1. sweep porch. 2. shake out porch tablecloth” and later I added “3. sweep kitchen & back room.”

But are notes equitable

No, probably not. Ideally, I wouldn’t need to write notes, and my husband would notice the tablecloth needs shaking (or even better, washing) and he’d think to list the dog crate on Craigslist. The fact is, as a society, we’re still in transition. Notes are a part of that transition.

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These past few weeks, I’ve been getting on top of my inboxes. I’m on the other side now, living at inbox 5 (meaning 5 emails or less in each inbox), and ready to share how I did it. Once things are broken down, they’re a lot less daunting.

Here’s how declutter your inbox:

Schedule email times

I started with one hour in the morning and one hour in the evening. Granted, I started that week between Christmas and the New Year, when time almost pauses. If you can’t devote quite so much time, you can still make big progress. Note that these time blocks aren’t just spent looking through email. You also use this time to do the tasks necessary to allow your to delete an email or never receive one like it again.

Start Anywhere

The top of the inbox, the bottom, somewhere in the middle, or a different place every time. There are 3 categories of email:

1. Junk.

2. Informative emails.

3. Task oriented emails

Open each email. Ask: Is this junk, information, or to do?

Junk Emails

Junk is pretty recognizable. This include spam as well as ads and other emails that you don’t really need in your life. The only question to ask about this type of email is: Can I Unsubscribe to prevent more of the same from coming in? If yes, take a moment to unsubscribe before you delete. If it’s Spam, or the sender’s email address is overly long or not from who the email says it’s from, don’t bother unsubscribing, and just delete these.

Information Emails

If it’s info, ask yourself: Do I need to keep this? If no, delete. If yes, decide where to keep it. I have 6 email folders in email program: Receipts/Tax, Family History, From Family & Friends, House Files, Online Accounts, Work. You may need different files. As you move through your info emails, categories will begin to appear.

To do (task oriented)

Let’s first focus on the most cluttering type of task email:

newsletters and causes

The inbox is best reserved for unique emails, not recurring ones that arrive on a schedule. Often, emails from our favorite causes pile up for years. How much time and energy can you or I devote to a cause whose messages have been piling up for months or years? You are more likely to find the space and time to participate when you’re no longer overwhelmed by your inbox. To get on top of your inbox, you must unsubscribe from everything, even things you care a lot about. When your inbox is tidy, you will have the mental clarity to truly contribute. You will go to the website for your pet cause and take other, possibly in person actions, outside of your inbox. Social media is a good place to receive regular updates, but the email inbox is not.

When you encounter a newsletter:

1. First, unsubscribe.
2. Copy the sender address.
3. Paste this in the email search bar
4. Delete all the emails from this sender. There may be pages and pages of newsletter emails to delete!

Other Task Prompting Emails

When you open an email that ask you to do something, ask yourself: am I going to do this? If yes, you have 3 options:

1. Do it now, during your email hour, then delete it.
2. Add the task to your calendar and delete the email.
3. Add the task to your to do list and delete the email. Never add tasks that will take less than half an hour to your to do list. Just take care of these during email time.

Getting Close to Inbox 5, or whatever

After a few weeks of AM and PM email hours, your inbox will begin to clear out. When you reach only 100, then 20 emails, it’s downright exciting. This adds to the motivation to address those final emails that feel the hardest to tackle.

I personally find inbox 0 impractical. I aim for inbox 5. If you have a certain kind of job, maintaining 20 emails in your inbox may be more realistic. The objective is to pick a number, and use your email hour to stay at or under it. That’s right, you can now graduate to one email hour. This doesn’t mean that you can’t check your email through the day, as you may need to for work. The objective is to have a set time each day to make sure you maintain your mailbox. You may not need to spend the full hour on your inbox either. I personally combined my email and social media hour, and I set my Task Timer for each, so I don’t get lost online, and I get back to my real life.

The post Inbox 5: How to declutter your email and keep it that way appeared first on Diana Kohne.

Limit Internet and App Access

Remove web access. Iphone doesn’t allow us to delete Safari, but we can disable access. I find that the difficulty of figuring out where in settings I need to go to enable Safari is enough to keep it off my phone. With some actions, my fingers seem to have a muscle memory, but this is not one of them. The phone also allows the app to be re-enabled with a code. This possibility allows for more levels of self security.

Disabling Safari worked great until I went back to school. I needed web access sometimes while on campus. So I used the iPhone time limits options. By default, the apps that I waste the most time on have reached their time limit. I have to select “Ask For More Time” and enter my password to ask for more time. It’s annoying enough that it keeps me from wanting to browse the internet more than necessary.

I also keep time wasting apps off my phone completely, or try to delete them when not in use. I use Facebooks to access a couple of groups. I do not keep the app or messenger on my phone. I only access these at the computer. When I’m really good, I use my bookmarks tab to access the group links specifically. This helps me to not fall into doomscrolling whatever the algorithm tries to give me on my personal feed. I also delete Instagram from the phone between posts.

Establish Set Times for Digital Activities

This year, my New Year’s Resolution is simply to follow set times for specific digital activities. My email times are from 9-10am and 5-6pm. My social media and other app time is from 12-1. Then I thought, what if I could take it further, and ensure that I don’t lose track of time when I’m spending my focused hour?

Use a Timer to Encourage Focus on a Specific Task

Setting a timer before doing a task is a way to set an intention, to be deliberate about how we will spend the next 5, 15, or 45 minutes.

My first thought, and the simplest, is to keep an egg timer with me at all times. But, it isn’t practical for me. Maybe it will work for you.

I thought, surely my computer has a timer function. But, it doesn’t. I’m a luddite with an old OS, and so my clock doesn’t have bells and whistles. I decided to create my own application. This allows the timer to feel more like a gentle focus tool, rather than a countdown. My Task Timer has time selections buttons. It also has an optional place to write my intended task. I just typed “update blog” and set the timer for 5 minutes.

When the set time ends, this pop lets me know my task time is complete. Now I can start a new task or select “My computer time is complete” which is just there to remind me to rejoin the physical world. The timer app still stays open for next time.

If you have a Mac, you can use my Task Timer too. I offer it free the first couple of weeks of the new year to help you keep your resolutions on track.

I also created a Task Timer with Log for anyone who needs to keep track of their time, like for invoicing.

The post How to Be Mindful with the Time you Spend in the Digital Space this Year appeared first on Diana Kohne.

A Few of My Favorite Greens

Pine Needles

Now that 1 in 8 Americans will be without food assistance, we’ve got to ward off the diseases of olde more creatively. We can prevent scurvy with a cuppa pine needles. Simply gather, rinse, steep and strain.

Common Mallow

This plant is related to okra and to the name marshmallow. It can be added to soups and depending on how much you use, will help thicken it. I like to use the young greens in salads. As the year wears on, the leaves can get a little fuzzy, which isn’t detectible in soup. The seed pods called “cheese wheels” can be gathered when green to snack on or to add a little crunch to the salad.

Invasive Mustard

In my area, there are 2 kinds of invasive mustard. Black mustard has fuzzy leaves similar to a radish, and the other, Mediterranean Mustard, has slim, shiny leaves. Both have the telltale yellow flowers. The first type is excellent steamed and stewed with butter. How large and fuzzy the leaves are determine the cooking time. The thinner variety has leaves that taste similar horseradish. They give salads a spicy kick.

Crane Weed and Henbit

These weeds are often seen together, and neither are native. Crane weed is named for its long root, which I see as a crane beak, but the namesake may have a different meaning. Henbit is in the mint family, and its slightly fuzzy, rounded leaves look it. Both leaves can pad out a salad without adding much of anything, aside from nutrition.

Alyssum

These little white flowers appear all over Los Angeles in the cooler months. They’re in the broccoli family, and the taste is no surprise. I find it a little more mild though, and pleasant. Interestingly, when smushed, the buds smell like honey! The flowers make these yard salads beautiful.

Chickweed

Now, you should not forage chickweed unless you’ve been taught by an expert, as it grows with a plant that is nearly identical looking, and toxic! Chickweed does not have a white sap, like the toxic plant does. Inside chickweed’s stem is a single stretchy strand. It is my favorite backyard salad green, so I mention it here, so you can go learn about it from an expert.

Dandelion and Sow Thistle

In my yard, at least, the only dandelion look alike is also edible, and, personally I prefer the taste of sow thistle. However, there are many dandelion lookalikes. The good news is that none is very harmful in small quantities. The Practical Self Reliance Blog has a wonderful post covering many, many dandelion lookalikes.

Sour Grass

I’ve read that you only want to eat sour grass in small amounts, as the oxalic acid that gives it it’s tang can prevent calcium absorption. The occasional tang mixed into a yard salad feels like the right amount for me.

Responsible Foraging

As most of these weeds grow in my otherwise native yard, we’ll be nutritionally set until the summer. The Black Mustards grows in a local wilderness park, and by foraging it, I do my part to help keep invasive species at bay. I recommend foraging weeds and leaving the natives for the wildlife. Also be aware of where you forage. Your neighbors may use pesticides and herbicides in their yards, and so, foraging can’t be done safely everywhere. Perhaps, we should all pause chemical use in case we need to eat or share our weeds.

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We can stop making things worse. This 5 week challenge has simple, actionable steps. Baby steps, even, to transition your life to a sustainable one. Originally, in the form of an online course, I will provide them here in a series of blog posts. Welcome to week 1.

Week 1

Each week I assign several actionable tasks to address the areas where we pollute the most. By the end of the month, you will have the tools to lower your carbon footprint and stop supporting climate change. Thank you for participating in my climate challenge. I would say that you’re helping to save the Earth. The fact is, the Earth will keep spinning along without us. You’re helping to save us.

Give your wallet a carbon free makoever.

Step 1: Idenifty major Fossil Fuel funders in your wallet

On Arpil 6, 2022, a group of scientists in Los Angeles, CA handcuffed themselves to the CHASE building in Downtown LA in a plea to save our planet. Why did they choose CHASE?

CHASE is the number one supporter of fossil fuels. That’s right. The number one funder of climate change.

First, let’s look at popular banks and their contribution to fossil fuels.

“JPMorgan Chase lent over $195 billion to gas and oil companies.

For comparison, Wells Fargo lent over $151 billion, Citibank lent over $129 billion and Bank of America lent over $106 billion. Since the Paris climate accord, which 195 countries agreed to in 2015, JPMorgan Chase has been the world’s largest investor in fossil fuels by a 29 percent margin.”ı

• JP Morgan CHASE
• Wells Fargo
• Citibank
• Bank of America

What about Bank of the West?

Nearly all banks use greenwashing in their marketing, especially Bank of the West. It is possible that strictly in US, Bank of the West does as it claims. However, their owner, BNP Paribas, is the biggest funder of fossil fuels in the European Union.

Next, let’s take a look at truly green banking options.

sources and further reading

ı

https://www.forbes.com/sites/davidrvetter/2021/03/24/climate-chaos-ngos-name-top-banks-who-put-38-trillion-into-fossil-fuels/?sh=7defe22f5533

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/mar/24/big-banks-trillion-dollar-finance-for-fossil-fuels-shocking-says-report

Step 2: Choose your favorite convenient green bank.

• Online Bank
• Local Credit Union
• Local Bank

Online Bank Account

The online bank Aspiration is incredibly easy to set up, and it’s part of their mission statement not to fund fossil fuels. I moved my money to an Aspiration account before I decided to open a credit union account. If you don’t have time to research your local credit unions now, you can open an Aspiration account immediately.

Credit Union

Credit unions exist only for and because of their members. They are member owned and tend to invest their money on the surrounding community. Credit unions are non profits, and they pass savings onto their members in the form of higher returns. They invest in the local community, not fossil fuels.

I wanted a location I could ride my bike or walk to, so I used Google maps to find credit unions near me. You can do the same by clicking here: https://www.google.com/search?q=credit+union+near+me

Green local bank near you

Bank For Good is an organization that makes it easy to find a local bank that does not support climate change:

Mighty Deposits makes it possible to search for banks that do not fund fossil fuels, and that support causes you are interested in like investing in low income communities.

https://mightydeposits.com

Which banking option and location did you choose?

Step 3: Open your new bank account

In about 10 minutes, you’ll breathe easy knowing your money no longer supports fossil fuels, the number one contributor to global warming.

Couldn’t decide? Simply open an Aspiration account here. You can always move to a credit union or local bank later. Right now, the important thing is to stop funding climate change.

Now, go to your chosen credit union or bank’s page and open an account.

Even my small credit union made it easy to open an account online within minutes, and Aspiration’s format was even faster. See, I opened my Aspiration account first so I could quickly move my money away from CHASE.

Step 4 Move Your Money

You are almost done with this week’s climate challenge. Wow. You will no longer be a financial backer of climate change. Be proud.

IMPORTANT: Keep a cushion in your old, global warming bank account to pay your bills for a couple of weeks. Consider moving savings first. Naughty banks do not want you to leave, so they will take the full 3-4 days to transfer your money to your new account.

In your global warming bank account, you will need to go to Transfers > Add an External Account 

Here you will add your new account and routing numbers. If you opened an Aspiration account, they will be under your name on the top right > settings > account info.

Your old bank may take a few days to test and acknowledge your new account. Once they do, transfer your money using the Transfer tab on your new or old bank account.

If you opened a credit union or local bank account, they will be able to help you with this process. Or, do it yourself. All you need is your account and routing number.

Congratulations! You no longer invest in climate change! 

The post Climate Challenge Week 1 appeared first on Diana Kohne.

It’s the newly emergent artist conundrum: to get into shows, you need a resume; to have a resume, you need to be in shows. I started my career as an artist thousands of miles from where I attended art school. I had no connections in town. Here are some of the things I did to meet peers and start showing right away.

Don’t knock the internet.

When I first came to town, the only art show applications I had access to were on Craigslist. The first shows I participated in were through calls for art. I hung larger than life nudes at a comedy show. I met an energetic young woman who put on shows at bars and clubs and house parties. Maybe more people should throw an art filled house party. I made my first sale, 7 paintings, in a Venice home. My only real advice is to avoid non established “opportunities” that require you to pay to show.

Follow the spaces you want to show and keep and eye out for ways in.

As I became more familiar with the Los Angeles art scene, I stopped scrolling Craigslist and found other places to watch for opportunities. I joined mailing lists for all kinds of spaces around me; high end galleries, libraries, coffee shops, retail shops that also display art, and neighborhood art walks. This approached added several lines to my resume.

Galleries often host events for charities, and these charities seek art donations for supporters to bid on. Catching these events and donating art for a good cause added 2 galleries to my resume. I recommend supporting operations who give the option of taking only a 50% commission, and who return unsold work. You can decide what cut you want to give, but we have to be careful not to devalue our work along the way.

Start an artists group.

Having an artist group makes you more likely to get the entry level opportunities you apply for. Unconventional spaces seeking art don’t want to coordinate with multiple artists because it’s time consuming. So they’ll opt for the artist group. My art group was able to secure a regular space in a business along an walk and once, we were able to quickly fill a last minute vacancy in a gallery because we had the work ready to fill the space. As a group we efficiently handled everything for the spaces we showed in and we even spackled when we were done. We were called Circa Artists. Having a cool name helps, too.

I really wanted to be a part of a show at a beautiful local library, but my work never fit their calls for art. One day, the city hosted an art fair, and artists who were a part of the fair were invited to hang one work in the library. I submitted my artist group to host a booth at the fair, and we all got a nice new line on our resume.

Put on your own show.

I’ve hung more group shows than I can count, in spaces like hair salons, real estate offices, warehouses, and recording studios. Fellow artists who are just starting out are glad to have an opportunity to show, and are usually happy to help hang and bring some booze for the reception. While living in Atwater Village, I put a show together for artists I met in my neighborhood called “Atwater Village Artists”. It hung for a month at the local wine bar, and Will Sasso even showed up at the reception.

Visit the places you want to show.

You’ve heard this one. But here’s the difference. Don’t just attend openings. Look out for events and find ways to support the space. Attend a portfolio review. Purchase gifts from their shops. Retweet them. Attend figure drawing session. Bring your friends along.

Things you can put on your resume that you may not have considered.

If you went to art school, did your class hang work in a campus gallery? This show can go on your resume. Did you put paintings up in your aunt’s office? I once hung a painting at my dentist’s office. The line on your resume might not get you into the Gagosian, but early in your carreer, a record of relationships and evidence of shows shows gumption, and that’s not a bad thing. It will get you into the next show. Eventually, you will be curating which lines you keep in your resume.

Teaching an art related class is another great way to beef up the resume. It may not be an art show (though it could always lead to one), but it establishes you as an art professional. You can teach online through venues like Skillshare, or, through a barter system like Tradeschool LA. I’ve added things like judging an art walk and speaking about creativity in business to a business 101 class to my resume

Don’t assume you can’t get into something or that you’re not ready.

Looking back, I can see where my assumption that a gallery owner or a curator wouldn’t consider me yet prevented me from showing in the spaces I wanted to sooner. While you shouldn’t expect something from or annoy an art world professional you look up to, don’t let your own assumptions keep you down. I had a couple of opportunities where people were interested in my work, but I told them I wasn’t ready, and would reach out when I was. By the time I was ready, one place had retired, and the other person had forgotten me entirely! I still kick myself. My earlier work wasn’t yet where I wanted it to be, but people responded to it, and looking back, I can see that it was good.

My unconventional art exhibition journey enabled me to get to know the city in a way I never would have otherwise, which informs my art making today. It also introduced me to so many of LA’s underground visual artists and to alternative exhibition spaces, where my work has historically sold better. I know how hard it is to create and sustain an art career by one’s own bootstraps . Fortunately, the people you meet along the way become your contemporaries and over time you rise together.

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I found Pongo on my local shelter’s person to person adoptions. He’s neutered and micro chipped and is such a good and kind of goofy bunny. We soon added Narvi, who I found on Craigslist. Her family’s new apartment wouldn’t allow them to keep her, so I let them know they could bring her here to live with Pongo. Pongo has been overjoyed ever since. They have built a warren together and spend hours snuggling and grooming one another.

When I built this bunny tractor I didn’t yet know that they would be able to free range all day, but it’s still useful at night. We lock them up and keep them safe, and they can still snack and sleep on natural ground. The bunnies make excellent lawn mowers and have had no health problems. They also get plenty of hay. Our “lawn” is not really a lawn. It’s the natural vegetation, or “weeds” that grow naturally here like dandelion and mallow. Even the actual, invasive weeds I have identified are rabbit friendly, like henbit, with it’s pretty purple flowers.

I built the rabbit tractor out of materials I already had on hand. The only things I bought were hinges and hardware cloth. You need to use hardware cloth (with half inch holes) and a quality staple gun with very long staples to protect the bunnies or chickens from raccoons. Raccoons are incredibly strong and dexterous.

Constructing the Rabbit Tractor

I spent some time studying the materials I had on hand and thinking about my project. The night before I began, I made this sketch. Some things change during building. I decided to put 2 canvas frame doors on the top, rather than one on the side.

First, I attached long 2x4s to a sturdy old redwood drawer using screws. Those canvas stretcher bars on top of the drawer here will make the doors.

Here, the tractor is on its side, and I have filled out the frame with 4 long pieces of wood. One piece wasn’t quite long enough, so I extended it with a metal plate I had on hand (bottom right).

Next, I stapled on the hardware cloth and screwed boards over the top and sides to extend the sheltered area. The shelter is a few inches above the ground to protect the bunnies during rainy time, but also, to provide a small roost should I ever get to use it as a chicken tractor.

I attached my son’s old training wheel with some unnecessarily strong braces that came with IKEA curtain rods.

I covered the bottom with larger fencing so the grass can still come through the bottom. The hutch is on its side and Pongo is inspecting it. Bunnies like to inspect whatever we work on.

Narvi inspects the new tractor handles.

When they want to go home, they hop down the ramp inside the tractor. It took a few weeks, but now we are settled into a routine. Around 5pm, the bunnies tell me they want to go home by sniffing around their hutch. I lure them in by giving them rabbit crunchies and fresh hay, fresh water and litter box. The little box isn’t necessary, but they like it, and it makes it easy to collect and apply the fresh fertilizer they make.

If you look closely, you will see that we put Pongo’s house inside the little protected area of the rabbit tractor. And we built a ramp so the bunnies can climb up the doors and step down the ramp to go home at night. We lure them with rabbit crunchies and fresh hay and are usually successful.

They still have room to hop around in there, and it’s much larger than the cage many rabbits spend their lives in. Besides, it’s only for the evening.

During the day, they have the whole yard and their warren.

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