showing up

Mutable earth: the craft, inner circle, art

Kelly Reichardt’s film, Showing Up, is about a close-knit artist community in Portland, Oregon.

There is a safe, pastoral magic to the setting where performers, sculptors, artists, and makers of all kinds come together. There are handmade onesies and pastel garments. Everyone looks like an artist.

But the film is also about the daily grind of showing up. Showing up to your job when you want to work on your art. Showing up for your art when you’re exhausted from your job. And the crux of the film is about showing up for each other even when it makes you sad, jealous, or insecure. When a major character misses a friend’s show it is a shattering lapse and the slow repair work stretches beyond the edge of the film.

What does it mean to show up as a writer, artist, or community member? It can mean boosting and sharing the work of others, it can mean witnessing and celebrating important milestones, and it can mean calling in with love and compassion. All of these things create space for a community to thrive.

I have been asking myself the questions that live with me all the time. How can we build community outside traditional spaces? How can we be thoughtful as we do it? How can we avoid reproducing the worst aspects of the spaces we are rejecting, keep the best parts, and perhaps alchemise something new entirely?

While I don’t have answers to all of these questions yet, I think they might be found in showing up. For the work, for each other, and for ourselves.