MY ARTWORK!! Or, How I Put the Arts in MasadArts

Pictured is one of my sushi stationery sets -- little kits for creating offline mail that look like boxes of takeaway sushi!

Happy Cyber Monday, and welcome to the MasadArts art department.   

While I wouldn't say I'm well-prepared for this day or season, I have updated my artwork portfolio, and it's in three albums: 

• Stationery (greeting cards in several formats, gift tags / ornaments, keepsake books, sushi stationery sets…) 

• Jewelry (earrings, pendants, friendship pins…) 

• Miscellaneous (wrapped pomegranates and candles, juice bottle cap tea-light holders, eyeglass cases…)

My work is mostly handmade, and made mostly of vintage / recycled / found / thrifted / gifted etc. materials.  And I do take commissions, personalize, customize and so on. 

I invite you to enjoy, Like, comment, share, shop, etc.



Also, my Aunt Pat in Boston is also an artist, and offers lessons, paintings, photography, greeting cards, hand-painted eggs and more. 

Shalom, on this Thanksgiving Day / Day Of Mourning

Shalom. Rest, cessation, peace, harmony, wholeness, completeness, prosperity, welfare and tranquility. On this Thanksgiving Day.

I am thankful to be spending today at home with my wonderful spouse, our dogter, and my mother-in-sin and law. I am mindful of my privilege that makes this possible. I am also struggling today, for a variety of reasons, and thinking of those who struggle in ways like and unlike mine.

Native people, many of whom are observing the 49th annual Day Of Mourning -- including those in Plymouth in my home state of Massachusetts, where today’s high will be 23 degrees and the low 14.

Trans people, like myself, who are transitioning from observing the 20th annual Transgender Day Of Remembrance (TDOR) just two days ago.

Fat people, like my spouse, most of whom will experience an intense increase in fatphobia today, even in some of the most radical spaces.

People who are in two or more of these communities, including Two Spirit people. People who struggle with this Day for other reasons. People who struggle every day.

May we all have a meaningful fast and feast, however we define those things.
May we be comforted by the Addams family credo. Sic Gorgiamus Allos Subjectatos Nunc -- We Gladly Feast on Those Who Would Subdue Us. “Not just pretty words.”
May this day next year find us in a better place and a better world -- and may we each do our part in creating it.

Amen!

Today is the 20th annual Transgender Day Of Remembrance (TDOR)

Today, Tuesday, November 20th, 2018, is the 20th annual Transgender Day Of Remembrance (TDOR).

In 1998, the murder of Rita Hester, a Black trans woman, in my hometown of Boston, led to the creation of this Day. The other known trans people murdered in my home state of Massachusetts are Denise Pugliesi, Georgette Hart, Diane Carter, Monique Rogers, Debra Forte (the aunt of a trans colleague), Chanelle Pickett, Monique Thomas, and Lisa Daniels. I also remember CJ Garber, the trans son of two colleagues (one of whom has since passed away), who died of an overdose.

At that time, I was 22, and living in Boston, as I always had; born there in 1976, I had been out and about for several years as a trans person and advocate.

In 2018, at least 22 of my trans siblings have been murdered in this country, and the great majority are Black trans women. Christa Steele Knudslien (in my home state of Massachusetts -- a colleague there and a Friend here), Viccky Gutierrez, Celine Walker, Tonya Harvey, Phylicia Mitchell, Zakaria Fry, Amia Tyrae Berryman, Sasha Wall, Carla Patricia Flores-Pavón, Nino Fortson, Gigi Pierce, Antasha English, Cathalina Christina James, Keisha Wells, Diamond Stephens, Sasha Garden, Shantee Tucker, Vontashia Bell, and Dejanay Stanton, Londonn Moore, Nikki Enriquez, and Ciara Minaj Carter Frazier.

Also this year, Roxsana Hernandez, a Latina trans woman, died in ICE custody; Nicole Hall, a Black trans woman, was found dead in Dallas; SJ Brooks, a trans person of color, was killed by a mountain lion in North Bend, Washington (and was the partner of a colleague).

And well over 300 trans people have been murdered elsewhere in our world, and the great majority are Latinx trans women.

Too, many of my trans siblings have been lost to suicide, and the attempt rate in our community is over 40%.

And there have been trans deaths that haven’t been reported, and reported ones where the victim has not been identified as trans.

At this time, I am 42, and living in Gaithersburg, Maryland (Montgomery County, next to Washington, DC), where I moved in 2014 to begin living with my spouse Julia, who is gender nonconforming. I still hope, pray and work for tikkun olam, world repair. But on days like today, the world feels especially broken, and so do I. At the same time, I am mindful of my white and other privilege, even as a Jewish trans person who is nonbinary and queer.

November is Trans Month and also Native Month -- and this Thursday, “Thanksgiving” Day, is the 49th annual Day Of Mourning -- and we must remember the Two Spirit people who have been taken, including Jamie Lee Wounded Arrow last year.

May all of my trans sisters, brothers and other siblings’ memories be a blessing, as we say in Judaism -- and one that calls us to act, especially at trans justice’s intersection with racial, immigration and economic justice. May we continue schlepping towards tikkun olam, world repair, at the intersection of LGBTQI+, climate, racial, immigration, spiritual, fat, disability, and all other stripes of the rainbow of justice. May we never forget that white supremacy has always included cis supremacy and transphobia. Amen!

(The photo is mine -- I set it up and took it at my home a few years ago.)

#TDOR #TDOR2018 #TransDayOfRemembrance #TransWeek#TransMonth #WontBeErased #TuesdayThoughts #TuesdayMotivation

TODAH RABAH to everyone who worked on Yes On 3 for Massachusetts' trans rights law!

On this seventh anniversary of the first #TransLawMA’s passage, in this Trans Week in Trans Month, I want to more formally say todah rabah, many thanks, to everyone who worked on the second Trans Law MA -- and the #YesOn3 campaign that kept it law! Thank you to Freedom for All Massachusetts, Mass Trans Political Coalition (MTPC), and the many other trans and allied groups and individuals!

On this day in 2011, Massachusetts passed a trans rights law that included gender identity and expression in its anti-discrimination laws around housing, employment, education and credit. In October 2016, they passed another, that added public accommodations. Opponents of the second law gathered enough signatures to put it on this November’s ballot, as Question 3, and tried to convince enough voters to vote No and repeal the law, but thankfully failed.

I’m an Election Judge for our county (Montgomery County, Maryland), so on Election Day I was working from 6 a.m. to after 11 p.m., and most of us aren’t allowed to use our phones or the internet while we’re serving, talk about politics with anyone, or leave the polling place. It was very difficult to wait and pray, hoping that I and everyone else had done all we could, and that the Massachusetts voters would do as they should. I really didn’t know what would happen, and it was so hard to be alone with that for so long. It was so good to get on Facebook late that night, see that it was indeed Yes On 3, and text my spouse Julia who had already seen that.

I was born in the Boston area in 1976 and lived there until 2014 when I moved here to Gaithersburg -- to begin living with my Julia, who has always lived around here. I came out as queer and trans in high school, began by working to pass Massachusetts’ LGBTQ student rights law, and continued my work through the trans rights laws -- primarily by co-leading the faith campaigns for them, as co-chair of the Interfaith Coalition for Transgender Equality. (And I have lots of stories...but many of them start with “back in my day” and end with “get off my lawn”, so we’ll save those for later.) I moved to Maryland in what turned out to be the last few months of their trans right law’s campaign, and I worked on that -- the Fairness For All Marylanders Act passed in October 2014. Its opponents tried to gather enough signatures to put it on the ballot in hopes of repealing it, but failed, largely thanks to Equality Maryland (since merged with FreeState Legal into FreeState Justice) and the Maryland Coalition for Trans Equality.

I’ve been thinking about my history, and the history. Back through the trans organizing I was part of, and before. Back through the history of Massachusetts and Maryland. Back through the thousands of Native people who lived on those lands for ten thousand years before colonists arrived. Back through all the trans people who were among them, as we have been among all peoples, always. Back through all the secular and spiritual histories and mysteries of my people to the first person, the first human, created both/neither/other than male/female, man/woman.

I’m remembering and mourning those who died waiting for this day -- especially as the twentieth annual Transgender Day Of Remembrance is next Tuesday November 20th. In many ways the #TDOR journey began with the Massachusetts trans community’s response to the murder of Rita Hester, a Black trans woman, in Allston/Brighton in November 1998 -- and her murderer has yet to be brought to justice, which is still not at all unusual. So many trans people have been taken by murder and lost to suicide, before and since Rita. At least twenty-two trans people have been murdered in 2018 in this country alone, and the great majority are Black women. May their memories be a blessing, and blessed be the True Judge, as we say in Judaism.

And I’ve been thinking about the future. How will we heal from witnessing many of our fellow Massh...erm, Massachusettsians struggle with voting Yes, or voting No? How will we recover from the loss of resources -- the millions of minutes and dollars? How will we help the two-thirds of Yes voters continue to progress, and reach the third who voted No? How will we continue to work with the faith community, who is mostly exempt from these laws? How will we move beyond the limits of laws to liberation? And how will we be more intersectional? November is also Native Month, including the Day Of Mourning next Thursday November 22nd (Thanksgiving Day) -- how will we be better partners with Two Spirit people?

We still have so much work to do, for trans justice and all justice -- how much more so liberation -- in Maryland, Massachusetts, the rest of the country and the world. May we continue schlepping towards tikkun olam, world repair, at the intersection of LGBTQI+, climate, racial, immigration, spiritual, fat, disability, and all other stripes of the rainbow of justice. Never forgetting that white supremacy has always included cis supremacy and transphobia. Amen!

💚💚💚

#WontBeErased #TransMonth #TransWeek #TDOR2018#TransDayOfRemembrance #TransformTheVote #FridayFeeling#FridayMotivation #Friyay #FridayReads #FlashbackFriday

80th anniversary of Kristallnacht

Shabbat shalom. On this Erev Shabbat that is the 80th anniversary of Kristallnacht, Crystal Night, Night Of Broken Glass, November Pogrom, a Day Of Fate. Hundreds were killed and injured, thousands taken to prisons and concentration camps, and dozens took their own lives; thousands of synagogues, cemeteries, schools, homes and businesses were damaged and destroyed, in Germany, Austria and the Sudetenland of Czechoslovakia. May their memories be a blessing, and blessed be the True Judge, as we say in Judaism.

My family wasn’t directly affected -- in that by 1938, they had been in this country for at least two decades, the Jewish side having left Ukraine due to the pogroms there.

Tonight, tomorrow, always and in all ways, may we find, create and share more shalom -- rest, cessation, peace, harmony, wholeness, completeness, prosperity, welfare and tranquility. Schlepping towards tikkun olam, world repair, at the intersection of climate, racial, immigration, spiritual, LGBTQI+, fat, disability, and all other stripes of the rainbow of justice. Never forgetting that anti-Semitism has always been an inseparable part of white supremacy.

Shooting at the Tree Of Life * Or L'Simcha Congregation last Shabbat

Shabbat shalom -- on this #ShowUpForShabbat, this first Shabbat after the mass shooting at the Tree Of Life * Or L'Simcha Congregation last Shabbat. May their memories be a blessing, and blessed be the True Judge, as we say in Judaism. And refuah shlemah, full recovery, to those who were wounded and survived, in all senses.

Last Shabbat I was Election Judging at Early Voting here in Gaithersburg -- my spouse Julia's hometown, symbolized by the Forest Oak, which passed away in a storm in 1997 when they were 295. And I was wearing the pendant on the left -- one of my engagement gifts from my Julia, who gave it to me in April when she proposed. And as always, I was wearing it partly because that makes me feel safer -- safety being a feeling and fact that continues to be challenging for me, even with my privilege and location, especially as a visibly trans and queer person. As havdalah approached, a voter commented that it was especially appropriate that I was wearing a Tree Of Life on that particular day. Half-expecting what I would hear, I asked her why she sounded sad when she said that, and that’s how I found out about the shooting. Election Judges here are generally not allowed access to the internet while serving, and our workdays are usually at least twelve hours. For most of the rest of my service as an election judge, I wore the pendant on the right, as well as Tree Of Life earrings.

I’ve only been to Pittsburgh once, many years ago, but I did stay in Squirrel Hill, and my visit was part of a Jewish journey (not that the rest of my last forty-two years haven’t been). Here on Facebook and elsewhere, I’ve been learning about my other connections to Pittsburgh’s Jewish community. And about the racist shooting in Jeffersontown, Kentucky, that almost included a Black church. And of course the hateful attempted mail bombings, and oh so much more.

Tonight, tomorrow and always, may we find, create and share more shalom -- rest, cessation, peace, harmony, wholeness, completeness, prosperity, welfare and tranquility. Schlepping towards tikkun olam, world repair, at the intersection of climate, racial, immigration, spiritual, LGBTQI+, fat, disability, and all other stripes of the rainbow of justice. Never forgetting that anti-Semitism has always been an inseparable part of white supremacy. ✡️🌳🔯