When I create a world for others to enter, I challenge myself to build a space that is both assertive and deferential, both declaration and invitation.

First, these materials are personal. They hold the stories of my own search for narrative and aesthetic resonance. The worn wood I found and carried particular distances, the shapes of light were given through bright windows I passed, the painted words came with the sudden sharpness of specific love. The objects here tip in rhythm with my own body’s height and lean—my own desire to feel held in what I create.

Perception and identity are indivisible—our own histories and embodiments instruct our seeing. But perception is not entirely subjective. There is still and always some shared ground, a parallel responsiveness that must be reckoned. So, second, I build as an offering. There are rhythms here for everyone, originating in my own intention but still beyond what I have authored. To succeed, this space must be vaster than my own vision.

In this particular historical moment I am trying to hold my own lens in a compassionate tension with the lenses of those whose beliefs shock me. I am trying to give rage a rest. Rage lets me make myself different from the problem, lets me wall my own self up on the right side of things: a critical distance. I want to build faithful to my own reference point but in a way that does not depend on othering, on toning my own clarity against one I call outsider. I want to learn an accountable generosity that is not naively permissive, yet still expands into the reality that none of us hold an absolute truth. So, what is the shape of this space?

Find your place in here, find the angle your body needs. Let the light surprise you, its tilt and lean, its launch. Be held, be known in your own ground. Then be more.

-Sarah E. Brook