Mishmash

Hope is a Mother Bird

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“Hope is a Mother Bird,” Jerome Stueart, (11x 15) watercolor, mixed media on paper.

When I saw that Sen. Bernie Sanders was going to go back into rally mode, and go across the nation, teaching people how to fight oligarchy, I was filled with hope. I’ve also been watching Rep. AOC give instructions and insight over instagram, Youtube, and other social media. Reps Chris Murphy, Jasmine Crocket, have also been trying to help people make sense of what’s happening and give us a game plan of what to do. I hear Pete Buttigieg is possibly going to give weekly talks about what Democrats are doing right now.

All of this is to HELP US—because we are the power in this situation, but we don’t know our powers. We need help to find out HOW to make our voices heard even as votes are happening to take those powers away.

Fight oligarchy. Call your representatives. Join rallies. Educate yourself through these people and other organizations. We can be taught how to fight back. It’s not too late.

This bird–the same bird that flew onto Bernie’s podium in 2016–it’s back. It’s bigger. It’s ready to fight. It is HOPE and HOPE FIGHTS.

This bird in the painting felt so much like it was sitting on a nest– parenting us, helping us hatch. The people, for a moment, when I was sketching, looked like a whole mass of eggs. We are being educated, taught how to fight, and reminded of the powers that we have.

Let hope hatch in your heart.

Falling into the Wrong Hands

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“Falling into the Wrong Hands,” Jerome Stueart, 11 x 15, watercolor, mixed media on paper.

Steady now! We have to call our representatives. We have to rally. This incompetent dismantling of our foundations, the very structure that keeps America working, makes me and the rest of the American People ask—wait, no one can stop them at all?

Republicans refuse to go against Trump, except for a small few.

Pressure them with phone calls. Tell them to keep their cold, dead hands off our programs!

In OHIO— Mike Turner can be called here:

Representative Mike Turner, Please Hear Us

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Honorable Representative of Ohio’s 10th District, Mike Turner,

I’m urgently writing you a public letter today because we need your help. Republicans have a chance to stave off the worst damage of a Trump, Vance and Musk presidency, but that chance is slimming. With each new cabinet member approved and sworn in, the American people lose more and more safety, security, and any potential to stop the long term consequences of Trump and Musk’s actions.

Right now, most Republicans are allowing Trump and Musk to fleece the American public. Unelected people have all our financial data, our most sensitive data. Through inaction, Republicans are helping to dismantle programs that Americans need to survive. USAID helped American farmers, American people. Now Medicare, Medicaid, and the Affordable Care Act are set to be cut. We need these programs. Millions of elders, families, and disabled people rely on those programs to survive. Right now, Republicans don’t seem to care.

Mike, we need you to stand up against your party leadership. I know, that seems like career d3ath, but there is nothing to gain by holding out till later, or allowing this to happen unchecked— it will all be gone if you and others do not stand up now. Everyone will remember your inaction.

You were the chair on the Intelligence Committee. You protected us then. Protect us now. They booted you off the committee because they wanted to hand the Ukraine and Europe to Russia. Trump is a backdoor President to allow Putin to threaten Europe unchecked.

YOU can stop him.

Be strong. Go against your party right now. Block their votes so their candidates for cabinet positions cannot be approved. If you don’t, there might not be anything to save later. Even if it it upsets your party, please stop what is happening in Washington.

It doesn’t matter if we are Republican or Democrat or Independent, what is happening is affecting the structure of the United States and is dismantling it to allow Trump and Musk to have absolute power. Please step in. Or there may be nothing left in the aftermath, and you will have no power to act.

Quick, please, while there’s still time. Act.

Yours, Jerome Stueart, Dayton, OH
__________________

Folks, Call your Representative or Senator. Mike Turner’s numbers are on this painting. Make them hear you. Let him know you need his support now, or he won’t have yours. We must have someone in there fighting for all of us. And really, if Congress doesn’t stop Trump, it will become ineffective to stop him in the future.

Call your representative:

Mike Turner 937-225-2843 (DAYTON OFFICE)

Mike Turner 202-225-6465 (WASH DC OFFICE)

Prints ship this week!

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Thank you for your patience as Squarespace releases your payments to me this week so I can fulfill your orders. It has been a long two weeks waiting for this to happen!

As you may remember, on every item in my store there is a note that says that they can’t be shipped until Feb 17th at the earliest. This was because I am a new business with Squarespace and they have a policy to delay transferring funds to new businesses till two weeks after we connect our bank accounts with them. But tomorrow marks 2 weeks and I should be able to access and transfer all the funds to FinerWorks to fulfill your orders.

At that time, you will receive an email telling you when your print has shipped and when you should receive it.

Let me know if there are any problems if you don’t hear something by Friday, Feb 21. I will do my best to answer those!

Thank you again for your patience,

Yours,

Jerome

Prints for “The Gulf of Empathy” available

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Prints of “The Gulf of Empathy” are now available at my SQUARESPACE store, follow the link below. Spread the news widely wherever you see the painting online. I will too!

Thank you for your patience! And for your immeasurable kindness and loving comments about my work, and for those who have slipped me coffees through ko fi. You are beautiful people.

NOTE: There are only 5 items available at this time— an 8 x 10 or 11 x 14 print of the painting, or packs of 5 x 7 cards—a 10-pack, 25-pack, and 100-pack.

Because of constraints, nothing will be shipped until after February 17th.

After the 17th, things will ship normally as they would anywhere else. There’s just a wait time for the newness. I won’t be able to ship your items until the 17th.

As I mentioned, part of this will go to charities that support or defend the LGBTQ community and the Immigrant (documented and undocumented) Community.

Thank you again for supporting artists.

And thank you again to Bishop Mariann Edgar Budde and her sermon during the Inauguration that prompted this painting. Her bravery is a model for us to speak out, use our platforms and our gifts, and protect others as much as we can.

If you know of places that could use this link—places where you posted the painting before– please let them know. I will do my best to get it everywhere I can too.

http://jeromestueartart.squarespace.com/store

With great love,

Jerome Stueart

PS. If there are glitches in the shopping experience, let me know and I will fix them as fast as I can. I am the only person monitoring this at the moment. Thank you!

Solsticed

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SOLSTICED

Solsticed, verb, adjective.

Come be solsticed.
We were solsticed.
Solstice me.

When you become the fire
and the fire becomes you;
you ride the night of the moment.

You are now flame. Rise.

En-embered, fly away into the tree
canopy of space.

Let yourself go with the smoke.
You are the last exhalation
of darkness, gasping for light.

You are the light shimmering to begin, excited, frantic, unable to contain yourself.

Glow, shake, shimmy.
Become sparks.
Become the stars.

Jupiter welcomes you into the heavens through ecstatic branches.
Light the night, light the world,
with Joy.

— Jerome Stueart, Dec 21, 2024

3. Blue Jay Spy (Autumn Woods)

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Craek collected rings. Gold inlay, brass, silver, it didn’t matter. If it shined in the sunlight, and was left out on a balcony, or next to a window, he would be pulled in.  He couldn’t resist those rings.  He had his ring collection stored high in an oak tree.

As a spy for Princess Kaera of Brightsun, Craek had helped stop the War of the Valley before it started by relaying the battle plans of the other two sides, had blabbed on the behaviors of three awful suitors seeking the hand of the Princess, and, less than 5 hours after the royal kidnapping, Craek found Little Prince Nessian.

He was given the highest honor of the King after that, as well as a small treasure of shiny, sparkling rings—but, of course, then the entire Kingdom not only knew of his bravery, but of his spying. 

So, that job was over.     

When he was ready, after training the next group of spies, he took his leave and retired to his nest of rings in the Autumn Woods. 

He was content to bring occasional news of the Outside Word to the group.  More and more, though, he stayed at home, mesmerized by his treasures.

“Promise me, Sir Craek of the BlabBlab, you won’t forget us as you travel from kingdom to kingdom.” 

He could not. Their love was the shiniest thing he’d ever had.

Tonight, though, Craek couldn’t forget the Princess.  Perched over an encampment of orcs, he saw the seven Brightson Ruby Rings around the neck of one of the orc soldiers.

They’d lit a fire, massacred several small rabbits from a local warren.  Now, the soldiers chewed without speaking, pulling the meat away from the spit with their tusks, . 

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7 Ways Tarot Can Inspire and Revive Your Writing

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7 Ways Tarot Can Inspire and Revive Your Writing

Learn how a simple deck of divination cards can unstick your plots, deepen your characters, and surprise you by unblocking your thoughts, building your intuition, and releasing your storytelling skills from tired patterns.

11am-1pm EST OR 7pm-9pm EST
Sept 21 or Oct 12, 2024

$30

Grab your favorite deck and join us in two weeks! Or, if you don’t own a deck, bring your questions, story blockages, character conundrums and we will do the spreads for you!

Tarot Decks have been used to guide seekers for hundreds of years. Why couldn’t they be used to guide writers? We write about lives, about choices, about being human. With 78 cards, there is, at the very least, a lovely randomization to the process, but at its most potent, tarot cards have wisdom in them to guide you along your writerly way too.

I’d like to show you ways you can get insight on stories, and how you can get insight into YOU as a writer.

Maybe you are stuck on a chapter and you can’t get through: Why am I stuck in Chapter 7? What is happening in my head that makes me stop here and not move on?

Maybe you are having trouble with creating complexity in your characters— there are spreads that will give you some beautiful complexity to characters you don’t want to have too flat or simple.

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A Fat Lot of Good That Did: How an Art Studio Opened My Eyes

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Jerome Stueart

(TW: this essay contains frank discussions about sex, sexuality, body image, religion and being queer.)

(a previous version of this essay originally appeared in Fat & Queer: An Anthology of Queer and Trans Bodies and Lives, ed. Morales, Grimm, Ferentini. Jessica Kingsley Publishers, 2021.)

I had a little art studio for one year. A place for all my paints, my canvases, my artistic dreams. A place to be alone, to create masterpieces, to rock out to music, to be myself, to grow and learn.

Then, a year later, the art studio was completely erased, as if it had never been there.

All the walls were taken down; the room became a much larger gallery. You couldn’t find it if you didn’t know where it had been. If you didn’t know my window, you couldn’t see any fingerprint of where I had been.

While the studio was there, that brief year, it changed my life. It gave me a better understanding of my body — something I had never really seen before. It gave me back my sexuality — something taken from me by evangelical churches. It let me see myself as a work of Art — something I never would have believed.


While I struggled to create art, the studio worked on creating me.

For decades, Front Street Studios in Dayton, OH, had used an old Singer Sewing Machine factory as living space for artists. A set of imposing red brick buildings, some two story, some three, with giant fifteen foot windows, sat next to a very active set of railroad tracks, with a river not far away. Over a few decades, the old factory had gone to seed, become unlivable, a place for drug deals and fire hazards. A few years before I got there, it was taken over by new management. The new owners cleaned it up, bought out whoever was still there, and turned it into studio spaces for artists, with open studios twice a month where people from Dayton could come through, wine in hand, and visit your studio and buy your Art. The new owners brought in live bands outside, sold burgers and hot dogs on those open studio days. You’d never have known the place was abandoned and trashed just a few years before.

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Summer & Fall 2024 Writing Classes

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NOTE: Some of these classes are COMING SOON. I will post to the main page when I’m going to run a specific class.

I have three online classes currently taking participants (as of October 1st):

1. 7 Ways TAROT Can Inspire and Revive Your Writing— OCT 12 2024
2. Bear Witness to Your Body: A 31-DayWriting and Art-Making Journey towards
Body Positivity —- OCT 2024
3. Leaping Back In: 31 Days of Writing Exercises for the Fearless— JAN 2025

Thank you!
__________________________________________________

Welcome to my Summer and Fall 2024 class offerings.

Below you’ll find classes that are 3-Hour Seminar classes, 30 DAY CHALLENGE CLASSES, and MULTI-WEEK courses.

Some are for writing Science Fiction and Fantasy, but a few are aimed to stretch different writing muscles like: Body Image Art-making, Spiritual Memoir, Using Tarot for your writing, and even writing exercises to warm up for bigger projects.

I’ve divided these below into ONE-DAY 2HR classes, 30 Day Challenge classes, and Multi-Week courses. Some are marked “Coming Soon.”

ONE DAY, 3 Hr ZOOM Workshops

These short classes, filled with tips, exercises and information can teach you something to bring into your writing practice.

7 Ways Tarot Can Inspire and Revive Your Writing

Learn how a simple deck of divination cards can unstick your plots, deepen your characters, and surprise you by unblocking your thoughts, building your intuition, and releasing your storytelling skills from tired patterns.

11-1pm and 7-9pm EST ZOOMinar, Oct 12

$30

These Sacred Objects:

Giving Life and Meaning to Everyday Things

A writing workshop exploring the meaning and importance we give things, and how consecrating those objects change, heal, and empower us. Bring your Sacred Objects to class.

COMING SOON

$30

Writing Flash Fiction as Monologues

How do we naturally tell stories? We kinda speak in monologues. Storytellers captivate us for a few minutes. It’s a powerful way to craft flash fiction. In this class, we will examine scripts, plays, memoirs, musicals, 1st person stories, and modern monologues so we can glean techniques that strengthen flash fiction with a strong voice that will carry your reader, and surprise them.

COMING SOON

$30

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