Served With Love

This semester Arden, Mack, Jordan, and Edna, through our bi-weekly discussions, found that we all shared a deep love of food. We all love cooking, and Edna even worked as a chef at some point. We also found our discussions to continue to reflect upon our shared and unshared dualities. We all had different experiences through dress, careers, and relationships, allowing us to show up as different versions of ourselves. We shared stories and laughs over meals we prepared and decided that for our artist project, we wanted to host two dinners that represented two different versions of ourselves: one that was comfortable to us and one that showed another side to us that we did not share as often. 

The dinner party experience was joyous for all of us. The first dinner was Arden, Mack, Jordan, Edna, Phyllis, and Jess, and we had delicious dishes prepared by all of us. We learned that age doesn’t define when you stop learning and evolving. It also taught us age does not define your relationship with sexuality. Further, all you need to create a community is the right parameters; a real community is formed through a commitment to showing up (and good food). You cannot plan how a community will take shape, but through committing to staying connected and being intentional, a loving community can take shape. 

In the future, we plan to print our artist book to be shared and exchanged through our shared and separate communities. Through communal meals and the creation of this work, we aim to bridge the personal gaps between generations of LGBTQ+ elders and, through our conversations, engage in the act of radical joy. Our project submission is digital pages from the book, images, and poems that are a snapshot of what will be in our physical book and a reflection of our shared experiences at the dinner.