Hello,

Jordan here. Welcome to The Correspondence, a monthly newsletter that’s part documentation of my art practice, part journal, part exploratory space for ideas and conversation at a slow, grounded, lingering pace.

Where’d this come from?

Recently I read The Digital Workplace is Designed to Bring You Down, a New York Times Magazine interview with Cal Newport, a computer-science professor at Georgetown and author of Deep Work and Digital Minimalism. The points he makes around work, technology and the digital ecosystem we all swim in, specifically that the current pace and methodology is decidedly unproductive and detrimental to our more expansive well-being, prompted a significant response internally.

 ’SHIT, HE’S RIGHT! *&^(*&%(*&!!KLJH()&!’

My immediate thought went to the hours I waste on Instagram daily, scrolling through other people’s work at a 1.75 second clip per post or story, completely disregarding seeing the work, what it’s communicating, the energy it gives, the small moments of power, joy, humor, grief artists are releasing into the world. 

Art’s not meant to be experienced that way.

So, here we are, my experiment in slowing things down, pumping the brakes, taking the time to linger, allow myself processing time after seeing, share from my chest the internal process of what it is to make art with you. 

Full admission: this is also partially borne out of two self-interested grievances of mine in art spaces. 

1. No one asks questions about how people feel when they’re really connecting with a work. See: bell hooks on Basquiat’s exhibition at the Whitney in 1993. I’m here to ask.

2. Digital spaces are the primary place most folks find and discover new works. It’s way too loud, way too fast and doesn’t give us a chance to connect with work in a meaningful, fulfilling way. This space is an attempt to swim against that tide.

So you know what you’re getting yourself into, I’m envisioning a range of topics, series, points of discussion:

• Upcoming shows and info, including stories about what it’s like to find your way into the art world in a new town

• The inner and material process of painting

• Places, things, people, books, music I’m finding inspiration from

• Journal snippets from past and current lives

• Questions I’ve been psychologically processing

• Experiments in where the mind wanders

• Other shit that pops into my brain

— Break for water and a stretch —

Ok, here are a few things we can dive into together.

A Moment on Canal Street, 2017

New Orleans, 

lights, jazz from the deep,

weightlessness is in the deep, 

letting go and what it feels like to allow myself space 

to recognize and be aware of the fear, sadness, 

reputations, transfixed on the lights, 

while I try and find that they’re not for me, 

listen, listen, listen….

‘He who has ears, let him hear.’

Does it get old? and I just want to dance, 

because if the only truth is music,

drop, drop, drop, drop, drop…

But you put your things in all the boxes, 

keeping them apart, make sure they’re separate, neat, tidy and full of chaos,

While my things are on the table, integrated, all pieces intertwined and whole(Y)

Final question: what shape is your subconscious when you visualize it?

Draw an image, write it down, send it my way by replying to the email and let’s chat on it.

My aim with this is to create enough space and time to begin a collective conversation with you about art and its implications for our lives in a way that lets the conversation trail off when it needs to and lets those ideas, those feelings that come up find their home. And if you feel like others would enjoy joining the conversation, you can shoot them the sign-up link here.

Thanks for being along for the ride.

Jordan