Hello everyone,

Jordan here. It’s been a few months and quite a bit has happened since we last spoke. I turned in the keys to my art studio back in July, spent several weeks in Thailand & Laos with my wonderful partner Gia and have a few things rattling around my inner world: a new project, a terrifying emotional process and an art show.

Let’s get into it.

…it’s about panic attacks in the bathroom, vomiting from the experience of looking at your own image, the real one, the one you hide behind jobs and mortgages and summer vacations to San Luis Obispo.

I’ll be showing paintings at St. J Wine during December ArtHop, Thursday, December 7 from 5pm-9pm in downtown Fresno. The works cover the first three years of my artistic practice and the topics I wrestled with during that time period: a move to Minneapolis, my relationship with my hometown, discovering new heroes, George Floyd, infidelity, uncovering threads of white supremacy in my upbringing, simultaneously yearning for home and needing space & time away, following the pathways of Mennonite ancestors in southwestern Minnesota, allowing deeply-rooted emotional ideas around judgement of self and pursuit of perfection to emerge, a return to California, opting in to an internal growth process that’s been immensely difficult and hauntingly real.

Truthfully, I don’t see the work as “good”, whatever that means when people interact with art. What it is: authentic, real, true to my process, skill, emotional & spiritual processing at the time. It’s me and I’d be honored if you’d come check it out. Work will be for sale.

It also happens to be my birthday that week (Monday the 4th is my actual birthday), so plan on some birthday boogie, dancing, pretending to like wine for an evening, etc. from 9pm-midnight.

Last but not least: I’ve put together a playlist to accompany the show that feels just right.

We’ll see you there.

The New Project: Wijbuh

My sister Anika & I have always leaned on music, a tradition we were born into with a confusing mixture of Pentecostal gospel music, harmonious Mennonite hymns and the Golden Age of contemporary Christian music: David Crowder, Sonic Flood, Michael W. Smith, Carman. You know the ones.

An aside: at 17, I played drums on a worship album with the Reedley Mennonite Brethren youth group band entitled Everything Personal. Because, with God….everything’s personal. Whoops.

After recognizing that the daily painting practice had become more a chore and obligation than an expression of freedom, I felt the need for a creative project that covers experiences beyond Very Serious Painting™️, so Anika & I have been working on a house music project called @wijb.uh.

The name Wijbuh (pronounced wee-buh) is derived from the Old World spelling of our surname. Plus, the ijb looks cool together.

Think dance music with snippets of James Baldwin interview audio, melancholy collages of sound, Mennonite harmonies, gospel funk, the suffocating feeling of judgmental small towns, big rhythm vibe from siblings who attended a high school that didn’t allow dancing and yet, somehow, made it to the Grammys stage with Madonna. See: 4:11, bottom right corner.

You can follow Anika & I’s journey on Instagram here. Once we’re ready to release some tracks, you’ll be the first to know.

The Part Where I Ask for Help

Just before our trip to Thailand & Laos, I resigned from my day job doing digital marketing & event work with a local Bay Area restaurant group.

Work & finances is a particularly difficult block for me and, specifically, asking others for help in securing work. There’s real irony in the fact that I completely reject the individualist, pull-yourself-up-by-your-bootstraps mindset bullshit, don’t expect anyone else to adhere to it but liberally apply it to my own situation.

The internal spin that I enter when engaging the job search is exhausting: my work experience has been full of dysfunctional workplaces in which leaders take advantage of others and I’m not interested in joining an organization like that while at the same time internally, there’s some small old church lady saying “Don’t talk too much about yourself or your multi-hyphenate abilities or the projects you’ve completed that you’re proud of, you’ll come across as cocky and arrogant”. It’s a place full of stuckness, caughtness with a healthy dose of fear, embarrassment and resentment with myself that leads to inaction.

So, here’s a try at changing that story to a new one.

What I’m Looking For

• People-centered work, an organization that values integrity and the well-being of its people deeply including compensation and workplace culture, a place that does not believe in limitless growth and hires for competency with reasonable expectations for work productivity

Hard No, Thank You

• Graphic design, professional sports, tech businesses with founders/CEOs that have a messiah complex, no on-call hours, religious organizations, orgs that run as if there are fire drills every 5 minutes

Here’s my resume. If you know of openings in the Bay Area (or remote for that matter!), have experience in the HR/job search area or have an off-the-wall idea, shoot me an email or let’s grab coffee.

I appreciate the listening ears.

My aim with The Correspondence 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