tanner-wayland

[tanner-wayland]

conception, collaboration, creation ♻️

[tanner-wayland]

the question is not what you look at, but what you see

[tanner-wayland]

speak your mind, but ride a fast horse

[tanner-wayland]

blaze the spliff

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worried that thing you put in your art or writing or game or music is too self-indulgent, too self-referential, too niche for anyone but yourself? fear not! you can do whatever you want forever. and you should.

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we’re all quite mad here

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brightening up good ole dreary london

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Auguste Rodin: Two Hands (1909)

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my restless roaming spirit

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hell n back

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whimsy is the art of creating something out of nothing

[tanner-wayland]

THEN:

Phoebe had just hopped over the gap and onto the tube before the doors shut. She spotted me with ease and took the seat I saved for her at my side. I didn’t even have a chance to ask when she had raised one of her hands in my face while the other began tugging her sketch supplies from her knapsack. “Elena wasn’t in class again today, you’re going to have to get over her, Tan.” Her headphones were in and her nose in her sketchpad before I could reply and I was effectively dismissed. It didn’t stop her from elbowing me in the side after I mumbled a few choice words about what I thought of her attitude. My sister liked to believe she had a monopoly on pain and suffering so she didn’t know just how deep this fresh wound went. I began to swipe through my phone, opening my text thread with Elena Lahey. Scrolling to the start I watched our relationship unfold. She had gotten my number from Phoebe, asking for some left over supplies I had for a project she was working on. From then we talked about art, movies, music. She started talking to me about her family. I started talking to her about mine. We talked about our fears and dreams and everything in between. Elena was the first person to ever truly listen to me. She heard the things I didn’t say in between the things I did. I was lucky to know true love as my first love. The further down I made it in, the thread, the tone of our conversations had changed. She was distant. Hollow. Novels we would send back and forth turned to a few sentences until it was like pulling teeth trying to get even a few words out of her. Then it was nothing at all. It’s been a week since she’s responded to me. A week since she blocked me on any app I could think of to contact her. She hasn’t been in school in just as long. I drove past her house a few times and it was always dark. She had gone full ghost. Weeks turned to months, months to years. Eventually, enough time had passed that Elena was more than just a ghost. It was as if she had never even existed in the first place.

NOW: “You’re fucking late.” I called from my desk in the corner of the studio space I share with my sister. There were boxes all over the place and half finished projects on top of all that. We hit the ground running since we opened in LA a little less than a month ago and getting organized keeps getting pushed down the priority list. I heard Phoebe swear as she tripped her way through the front door and looked up only to catch her flipping the bird in my direction. “And you’re ugly.” She responded in typical younger sister fashion, but she wore a smile as she carefully wove her way across the space to sit opposite me at my desk. “What’s the word? What’s next?” We had just finished a commission for a local theater that needed some set pieces made. It was one of our favorite types of projects, despite the headache this particular one had provided. Phe and I were meeting today to weed through our offers and finalize our start conversations and contracts for the next gig. I clicked through the windows open on my screen to find my email to dig into our options when something I’d usually delete as subscription nonsense caught my eye.

New DNA Relative Found - 23 and Me

Our mother had gifted both Phe and me these for Christmas a few years ago as part of her ancestry obsession once she officially retired. She spent the entire holiday meal using a metaphor about scooping neapolitan ice creaming being comparable to scooping to DNA before making us spit in the tubes before dessert. I got emails like these all the time but the preview of the email under the subject made my heart race and I clicked instantly. Meadow Lahey - Daughter: 50% DNA Match, 26 Segments

What the fuck. 

[tanner-wayland]

dirt in the wrong hands, art in the right hands

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an apple a day

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"Because I always feel like running, not away, because there is no such place..."

-Gil Scott-Heron