A moment to exhale
and unclench your jaw
A lot is going on right now. In just the last week, there was an attempted assassination of former President Trump; Judge Cannon threw out the classified documents case against the former President, former President Trump announced that JD Vance would be his running mate, we had the RNC Convention, more officials are publicly calling on President Biden to drop out of the Presidential race, he has covid, Senator Bob Menendez was convicted of bribery and corruption. It is, in short, a fire hose of news.
Sarah and Beth are on vacation, and we're trying to let them have this break as much as possible because it's unlikely things will slow down in the coming months.
For today, we wanted to send some gentleness your way, encourage you to take a deep breath, exhale, unclench your jaw, and remind you to feed your soul a little with the people and things that remind you why our politics matter.
To get us started, Beth shared a few pictures from her trip:
Crystal Kemp is an Executive Producer of Pantsuit Politics, and I (Maggie) noticed on Instagram that she shared a beautiful painting in her home. She responded that she’s an art collector, and I wanted to hear all about it. As part of our summer exhale, I thought her story was a beautiful example of what I would call “little p” political action.
Here is the story of how I became an art collector.
A couple of years ago, I started following Elisa Valenti (@elisavalentistudio) on Instagram. I found her through Emily Ho (@authemmie), who I found through you. (All roads lead back to the Spice Cabinet)
I love Elisa's work. I love the beauty, bravery, and empowerment—the call for others to see all of that in her paintings of "real, luscious bodies."
I would like her posts and even marked her as a favorite account to help the algorithms. (With the nude paintings, she gets put in Instagram jail from time to time -- which is crazy....) But I never visited her website or looked beyond just admiring her work on social media until I was visiting with a friend who was about to move out of state. I stopped by her house as she was packing up all her things. I commented on how much I had always loved the art she had in her home and asked her how she determined what to buy. She told me how she had found some of the pieces, and I told her about Elisa. I told her about what Elisa paints and some of her background.
My friend looked at me and said, "Crystal, invest in a living artist."
Something clicked in me: Invest in a living artist. Not just buy art—invest in the artist. I love her art. Of course, I want her to be successful. Why had I never considered investing in her? Why had I only seen it as spending money on something I did not need—even though I would really like to have it?
Well, the very next week, Elisa released a new collection. Instead of just liking her posts, I commented on one of the pieces and shared one of her posts. Elisa messaged me to thank me for sharing, so I asked her for more information on one of the pieces. She sent me pictures of the underpainting, and I fell in love with the piece. It is called "A sheltering presence we cannot touch but can always feel."
I ordered in March. It was scheduled for an exhibit in Los Angeles in early April, so it did not arrive in Arkansas until late April. Then, there was the decision to frame it or not. I decided to have it framed, and when I got home from work on Monday, my husband had it up. I've found new things I love about it every day this week.
Elisa is moving her studio and having a sale, so this week, I made another investment in her—and, let's be honest, an investment in myself. Adding art collector to your resume is a good thing, right?
Link to Elisa's website:
The one thing we want you to know this week…
We are booking speaking events for the fall. If you are interested in getting Sarah and Beth to speak in person or virtually, please contact us as soon as possible via our website or by emailing us at hello@pantsuitpoliticsshow.com.
The one thing we made this week we can’t stop thinking about…
We are a little quieter on our Premium Channels this month due to Sarah and Beth’s summer sabbatical, but we shared a conversation with two of our members, Mike and Flannery, who serve as election judges in Minnesota. They reflected on their experience and whether or not you are interested in working the polls yourself; this conversation will help you feel really good about the process and importance of voting.
Copyright (C) 2024 Pantsuit Politics. All rights reserved.
Where is she?
https://open.substack.com/pub/emilyalexandraguglielmo/p/my-first-public-blogpost?r=2mtps5&utm_medium=ios