"there will come a time when you believe
everything is finished;
that will be the beginning."
- Louis L'Amour
well darlings,
i have some news to share about the future of this project.
we received direction from the environmental assessment company this week indicating that anything porous in our old apartment must be disposed of as it can't be effectively cleaned.
this includes all of the inventory i had listed for sale on my website and prints that i had been planning to list this fall. hundreds of dollars worth of watercolour and print making papers, notebooks, embroidery fabrics and threads, and various supplies that i have gathered over the past fifteen years will be thrown out this week.
we are taking essentials, keepsakes, and other irreplaceable items that can be salvaged and cleaned and leaving the rest behind.
after taking some time to sit with and cry about this, i arrived at the decision to end lemonbutter creative. i have been deeply heartbroken by many aspects of this experience and i feel that i need to let go completely of this project as it currently exists and allow myself time to grieve, to rest, and to dream about what might come next for me creatively.
i am so deeply appreciative of everyone who's been with me on this journey. when i started this project in 2017 i was looking to reconnect with my artistic practice and create an additional source of income as i began my transition out of front-line poverty work. it has been a joy to share my art with you, to participate in community based grief/art projects like heARTspace, and to raise funds for local mutual aid projects.
i move through the world as a creative, as someone who takes what's available and transforms it into something meaningful. i will continue to do that whether this project exists or not, as i shared in my previous post, these days my creative practice is an exploration of what i can make to support myself and my community to be well.
lemonbutter creative was named to honour my grandmother, who died in January of 2017. when i started this project later that year, i knew that i wanted the name to remind me of her. Nora Lucy Hartford (later Eccles) was born just after the Great War, came of age during the Great Depression, and married my grandfather mere days before he landed on the beach at Normandy on D-Day. She was fierce, resourceful, and always making something with her hands. she was deeply committed to volunteering in her community, until her late 90s she was a weekly volunteer at a local elementary school, and each winter she'd drop a huge box of knitted mittens, toques, and scarves at the local shelter. my granny's spirit and ethics have guided so much of my life and this project was one of the ways that i keep her close.
"lemon butter" is the name she used for the lemon curd she would make from sugar, butter, egg yolks, and lemon. though it was by no means a luxury, to her it was the most delightful, indulgent treat in the world. i can still see the way her eyes lit up when she'd ask if you wanted some lemon butter - almost as though she had offered you caviar -- before spreading it on cheap white toast or a biscuit she'd baked that morning. while she the difficult years in her life had shaped her into a person who could at times feel distant or cold, what i prefer to remember is that she had this magical way of conjuring simple ingredients and pleasures and making them feel divine.
.
in my first somatics class with Dare Sohei at the beginning of the pandemic he told us:
"our ancestors absolutely carry the medicine of how to proceed without certainty."
i have held these words and my connection to my ancestors close over these past few years while navigating this time of great uncertainty. so while this may be the end of lemonbutter as it currently exists, i am also experiencing it as a beginning.
for now, my website is closed, and i won't be updating instagram during this time either.
i am beyond grateful for the consistent financial support that has been provided by all of you over this past year and a half. i'm currently a little over 6 months away from fully owning my shiny gold teeth (what a dystopian thing to say), and i am looking forward to being free from the large monthly payments next summer.
if you're willing to stick around a little longer i'd like to send out one last gift later in the winter as a token of my appreciation, and then i'll be closing this part of the project as well.
i'm allowing myself as much time as i need to rest and recover from the pain and trauma of this experience, and when i'm ready to share my work with the world again, i promise you'll be the first to know.
with love and gratitude and solidarity and rage,
sarah kate