Leaning on Art

Looking back at 2025, I'm struck by how essential art became, not just as my intention for the year, but as a necessity.

The year was full creatively: building and installing pieces for BERHTA's opening and World Pride, curating wellness experiences and art lounges, designing interactive set pieces, props, and costumes, choreographing a surprise performance for sailors on a cruise and DC's top drag queens for a wedding, and from producing my own events to collaborating with friends across disciplines. Nearly everything I made this year was created in relationship.

But 2025 was also tough on our community. Political disappointments weighed heavy. Many friends were laid off. People gathered to protest, to grieve, and to protect one another. In the midst of it all, I leaned on art. Intentionally at first, and then out of necessity. I didn’t realize just how essential art would become this year.

Everyone needed art. Not just for distraction, but to be in community. To enjoy music, dance, and creativity, and to heal through the gathering. To release the weight of the world, or briefly escape into a better one. Art plants seeds of inspiration and reminds us that things are rarely black and white when we honor different perspectives.

So I found peace in my art.

There are ways of living and doing, and there is an art to those ways, in the rituals we return to, the disciplines we refine, and the spaces we hold for one another. I’m grateful for the practices that keep me open-minded, grounded, and resilient, tools shaped by movement, discipline, and community. They allow me to heal, to hold space for others, and to keep learning the art of community from community itself.

Reflecting on 2025 has become an act of envisioning. As I look toward 2026, I carry forward what this year taught me: that art is not optional in times like these. It is vital.