Update on my text

I also wanted to let you know that I have no self control and have continued rewriting my text in the interim.

Both sections.

Oh, I see that we are synchronized in cross emailing again.

I am pretty close to being ready for you to look at it.

I hope that this will be the last round of edits. I feel differently about this version, like I have finally encompassed the project’s more nerdy, formally complex side, and balanced it with political critique.

I hope you will agree.

I will email you when it is ready ready. I need a day or two longer to tidy up one or two sections, but overall, I feel settled.

Thank you for your endless support with this aspect of the publication. I wouldn’t have gotten here without your reviews.

Also, when I was just emailing with █████████ ███████████, my grant officer at the CCA about requesting consent to publish our emails, she mentioned that she is looking forward to reading the publication! This is a bit scary. █ ████ ████ █████ █████ ██ ███████████

x

Dear Lauren,

Good to hear that there is interest in the publication!

I am curious to hear more, but also nervous…

Thank you for the extra time / deadline. I will “submit” the text by Monday.

I also have a bit of news to share with you. As you might have noticed, I shared my text with a couple of people who have experience working in artist’s run centres. I did this when the text was chasing down the cca operating funds issue. One of the reasons I cut this section was because I just do not have the expertise to speak to this. Anyways, I shared the text with my friend Michelle Lacombe, who is one of my oldest friends, an incredible artist, and the sole employee-director of Viva! An artist-run performance art festival in Montreal. Before working at viva michelle worked at articule. She has been involved on various boards, and has always identified as both an artist and a cultural worker, and has been a staunch, committed advocate for marginal practices and their place within artist-run culture. So it made sense to reach out to her for fact checking when I was drafting the paper.

Michelle took a while to get back to me, and when we finally talked about it a couple of weeks ago, we were having a really spirited conversation about the project and my text. During our conversation I realized how important the testimony of someone in the position of having worked in an artist-run centre is to the presentation of the project. I had initially wanted to involve a writer with that experience, but sort of let that thread drop at some point with all of the challenges to finding writers who would commit. Anyways, I am sure you can guess where this is going. During our conversation I spontaneously asked if Michelle would maybe be interested in contributing to the publication, and she said she would think about it. I expected her to say no, and I didn’t want to get your hopes up for another dead end, so I figured I would wait until things were sure one way or another.

Well, so Michelle said yes!

I am very excited about this, and would be happy to talk it through with you. This will be the very very last change to the lineup. I promise! I am hoping that her text will be ready in a rough form by the end of January… eeeep… I am sorry for being such a terrible collaborator, but I hope you will understand.

Also, I am attaching a publication with a contribution by Michelle on page 109 of this pdf

I have to reiterate that working with you continues to be amazing, and I don’t want to fuck that up. I really hope that you can see this addition as benefiting the publication, but also please let me know if you have any concerns about this.

Wishing you safe and calm travels, and I look forward to hearing from you soon.

Warmly, 

Josh