Letter from the Editor 🖤

Pausing Paid Tier & Open Call for Member Exhibition

Dear Neurokind,

Some changes are on the horizon and I wanted to send a personal update including the reasons why.

This year my creative ecosystem has become greatly unbalanced - I’m sending too many emails and not making enough art.

Because art is essential to my self regulation and is my primary tool for processing the world this has been… dangerous to my mental health.

All of my careful plans “not to overdo it” in 2024 were scuppered by life. This Spring I caught COVID which was compounded by chronic illness and began a cascade of events piling up deadlines that previously felt spacious. Over the summer my mother suddenly lost the ability to walk and is still recovering from neurosurgery. And I’m also moving into the first year of properly home educating my kid (due to lack of proper accommodations in our local school systems.)

Along with all of this life chaos - Neurokind has been particularly challenging to curate due to corrupted images submitted to the Open Call. Instead of simply curating issues I’ve been sending emails tracking down images and information about various works.

I’m dancing at the edge of burn out and I’ve been here often enough to know the signs.

Neurokind, as it stands, is not sustainable for me.

I’m making some shifts, but first of all I’m pressing pause on paid subscriptions.

I had hoped to use those funds for a print publication, but we did not meet our goal. My zine prototype turned out to be untenable for lots of complicated reasons (like costing $18 to ship overseas.)

We just don’t need more money than we’ve already raised. As it is, the funds that came in thus far have been allocated to cover expenses and also put toward hosting a virtual retreat in February of 2025 (more on that below.)

Before we wrap things up I will be publishing a final issue and member exhibition of Neurokind.

But I need to expand the timeline into 2025 for my mental health.

Next month I’ll be launching Entwined: Creativity & Motherhood an Anthology. A book that I started writing postpartum - nearly five years ago - and transformed into a collaborative anthology after COVID times.

sarahdshotts

A post shared by @sarahdshotts

Past experience tells me that crowdfunding is a huge drain on my energy and I will need an appropriate reset period afterwards to avoid completely shutting down.

Then, it will be the holidays.

Hence, our final issue of Neurokind will come out in the early months of 2025.

Sometime between January and March. The final deadline to submit work for that issue is still September 1.

Because of the technical issues you must now submit via email.¹ The new submission process is outlined below.

Open Call 2024

I will also be curating a member exhibition.

If you are a member you can submit work for that exhibition below. Again, you will be submitting your work via email. You must submit work specifically for the Member Exhibition. Submissions to the general Open Call will not be considered.

You’re invited to submit work on any theme (not limited to weaving). The member exhibition is open to anyone who was a paying contributor to Neurokind for any length of time.

Member Exhibition

Finally, I’m excited to announce that we will have a Virtual Creative Retreat in February.

This will be free to attend and will include workshops from our Artists in Residents and others. I’ll share more information in January.

The retreat will be called:

The logo is commissioned by artist

Gracie Klumpp

and gives the feeling I hope to provide during the retreat.

Beyond February I will be pressing pause on publications and exhibitions for Neurokind.

Thanks to those who submitting weavings for our collaboration.

This is the heartbeat of Neurokind that will live on. This project perfectly aligns with my vision of making more art and sending fewer emails. I’ll continue curating this project and perhaps host other analogue collaborations in the future.

So far we have 6 weavings.

Ages of participants range from 3 to 77.

I’ll keep collecting weavings until we have enough to bring my vision to life. (Let me know if you’d like to participate. More information below.)

Book Giveaway!

Before we go I want to shout out autistic author & therapist Steph Jones who wrote The Autistic Survival Guide to Therapy.

I’d like to support her by giving away this copy of her book.

Enter by leaving a yellow heart emoji in comments. [Giveaway closed. Winner has been contacted.]

I will ship worldwide with Neurokind funds.

I have personally benefitted from Steph’s mentorship in setting boundaries and am hugely thankful that she is putting her expertise as a neurodivergent therapist to good use.

That’s it from me. I look forward to reuniting in 2025 after I’ve had some time to recharge. I really appreciate your support.

It has been my honor to hold this space even if it’s been for a short time.

-

Sarah Shotts

P.S. If you want to hear more about my personal creative projects (including my upcoming anthology) subscribe to my personal Substack publication The Compost Heap.²

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1. If you’ve already submitted with the web form there is no need to resubmit, but I’ve changed the process to make things easier to myself.

2. Compost Heap Illustration by

Gracie Klumpp