Feed Your Head

About three years ago, in the Spring of 2021, I escaped Elon's Twitter fiasco before it started. I left used the time saved from not being tethered to Twitter to do art, volunteer, and return to school to get an art degree. Then in the Summer of 2023, I joined Threads. At first, Threads was like Twitter in the early days, but the 2024 election cycle turned Threads into a fun house mirror of tribalism and disinformation. Just because Threads is not as bad as Twitter, that is a very low bar. So, I am forced to escape the Internet again and be mindful how I am feeding my head.

This time around, I have multiple tasks to do. I am undoing the damage of several years of bad habits, eating, drinking, and lack of exercise from depression from witnessing so much current history and loss of family and friends. The 21st century took two sets of parents and other people I know. I am returning to the better habits where I ate only healthy super foods that are largely plant-based. I am exercising every day, I am changing my relationship with food, drink, and activity for my health and my ability to be able to travel and do all the things I want to do.

I am embarking on this on the eve of becoming an empty nester as our son is going off to University. It is an exciting time and we should celebrate this milestone by taking good care of ourselves.
We are not only mindful of what we are feeding our bodies, but what we are feeding our heads. For me, I had to get away from feeding my head with depressing news, bad faith debates with people determined to misunderstand me. I need to find a way to find an offline community and offline activities that feeds me healthy content. I not only want to change my body, I want to change my mind and habits for the next chapter of my life.

I finished the Spring 2024 semester with another A+ in art History. I returned to college in the Summer of 2022, and have a 4.0 average as a Fine Arts and Art History double major. I started as being primarily Fine Arts Studio major and got more and more into Art History. I wanted to celebrate doing so well in college that I went with a friend in Vegas to go to see Dead and Company at the Sphere, go to a video art installation, enjoy Cirque du Soleil LOVE, and check out Mickey Hart's popup art gallery. This was a great launch on this Summer.

My goal for this Summer and the rest of my life is to change my habits. I quit my wine membership and put that money into upgraded membership to the SFMOMA to get reciprocal membership to other museums like the Berkeley Museum, San Jose Museum of Art, the Crocker Museum, and others across the nation. I am committing to regular visits to museums to feed my head with all kinds of art forcing me to get out and walk through galleries and think about the art I see and let it inspire my own art. I am hoping this Summer I can make it down to Los Angeles to see museums. I have a bucket list for me to go to London and to the Tate Museum and to spend time in New York to go to many museums.

There are stacks of books to read, so I am determined to make reading books more a part of my life. Before social media, I read far more books and I need to get back to reading. Right now I am reading, "The Creative Act: A Way of Being" by Rick Rubin. Reading this book is really helpful in stirring up motivation to reorganize my art studio and do art.

My local library helped to set up my iPad to get free access to magazines, newspapers, article, and videos. My goal is to read more and more about art and artists. I added HOOPLA for TV and Movies and LIBBY for Magazines, Books, and audiobooks. The other day, I listened to a chapter of the book, "Ninth Street Women" which introduces artist, Lee Krasner only to be rewarded next day to see her work, "Polar Stampede (1960)"  in person.

There is a youtube playlist I made with documentaries about art and artists. I watched a Mark Rothko documentary that made me google "Mark Rothko Near Me" and SF MOMA and Stanford University popped up. So, I will be visiting Stanford this Summer to make a pilgrimage to see more Mark Rothko.

So this is becoming a Summer of Art and Adventure where I am feeding my head in the best possible way.