Ginny Sims

Jon Spayde (for ACC): Speaking of England, a main strand in your work is a very idiosyncratic take on Staffordshire pottery. What does that tradition mean to you?

Ginny Sims: It all started from seeing reproductions of the 18th- and 19th-century sketchbooks of the workers from the Leeds pottery factory. I went to the Victoria and Albert Museum in London to see the originals. You could see the dirt and grease on the pages where they had turned the pages, and they were so worn. The handwriting was exquisite, and the drawings were fabulous. 

Seeing those books made me cry. And it got me interested in factory ware, not mainly the pottery itself, but the whole history of its making. Then I went to the Staffordshire pottery locations—the six towns that make up Stoke-on-Trent, and these other sad northern industrial towns in England, where I was looking around thinking, This is like Detroit. This country has failed these people. 

And so when people associate my work with Staffordshire and English history, I hope they know that I’m really trying to critique this capitalist, colonialist past and using that aesthetic to show how capitalism fails society.

--In an interview/profile for the American Craft Council: https://craftcouncil.org/articles/the-queue-ginny-sims/ 

Holly McNish

This is how much faith we have

of course we do not think it's all men

fuck, if we did, do you imagine we'd be here now

opening our doors to the plumbers or the taxi cabs

hugging our fathers and our uncles

letting kids play in the parks

attending classes with male students and male teachers

inviting boy friends round for dinner

dating strangers, getting married or divorcing

giving birth to baby boys we sing to sleep each night

with lungs full of lullabies -- if we actually thought,

yep, every single man, do you think we'd be so stupid

to live amongst them in clothing made of cotton,

bother nursing them in sickness, donating kidneys

in such unequal numbers, attend protests for their protection

visit gravestones every month to place fresh flowers

cut at angles to absorb the water best,

walk down streets clutching only tiny keys for safety

in the hope, that despite the news we all hear

every single day, that this man will probably be great 

 

from Virgin (2026) published by Little, Brown UK.  

majestictortoise

 

 

via @iamthirtyaf (instagram) 

Howard Zinn

Revolutionary change does not come as one cataclysmic moment (beware of such moments!) but as an endless succession of surprises, moving zigzag toward a more decent society. We don’t have to engage in grand, heroic actions to participate in the process of change. Small acts, when multiplied by millions of people, can transform the world.

Even when we don’t “win,” there is fun and fulfillment in the fact that we have been involved, with other good people, in something worthwhile. We need hope.

An optimist isn’t necessarily a blithe, slightly sappy whistler in the dark of our time. To be hopeful in bad times is not just foolishly romantic. It is based on the fact that human history is a history not only of cruelty but also of compassion, sacrifice, courage, kindness. What we choose to emphasize in this complex history will determine our lives. If we see only the worst, it destroys our capacity to do something.

--"The Optimism of Uncertainty," Sept. 2004. (https://www.howardzinn.org/collection/the-optimism-of-uncertainty/) 

Howard Zinn

The future is an infinite of presents, and to live now as we think human beings should live, in defiance of all that is bad around us, is itself a marvelous victory.

--Excerpt from Howard Zinn's A Power Governments Cannot Suppress (2007), City Lights Books.  

(Darcie says: I took this photo on March 6, 2026 at the Jazz Center Gallery for the Arts. It was posted on the community bulletin board.)  

 

Ken Sakata

Beauty is not found in the actual object itself but is the experience of perceiving it. Beauty is the perceptual event.

https://substack.com/@frontofficeco/note/c-174483545?r=4nxn&utm_medium=ios&utm_source=notes-share-action

Sarah Polley

After four weeks, I feel this intense vibrant and presence all the time. After six weeks, I never have headaches, brain fog, confusion, dizziness, or fatigue anymore. I am myself. I am back. I can do anything I did before and more. Because now that "run towards the danger" organizes my life, I found that I jump into tasks that scare me, the ones I have always avoided. 

Run Towards the Danger (2022), p. 244. 

Dale Earnhardt, Jr.

At UPMC, Dale was also able to learn about the link between his two concussions and the persistence of his symptoms.
 "I felt like I was at a concussion mini-camp. I was looking around the room and thinking, I felt so alone before that. I felt like I was this one individual in a city of hundreds of thousands, with this issue. "When I walked into UPMC, I was like this is where I need to be. There are people getting treated, and they're putting a smile on people's faces. They're helping them understand what's going on," says Dale.


After weeks of hard work and support from Dr. Collins and team, Dale recovered and reported feeling better than ever. 
"With the care I got at UPMC, I was able to return to my old self. The rehab and the things that they put me through got me back to doing what I love to do." 

Dale soon returned to the track. In fact, he won the Daytona 500 in February 2014 after completing his treatment at the UPMC Sports Medicine Concussion Program.
 "I was very lucky that my injury was something I was able to recover from. And I felt like Pittsburgh really accelerated that. They gave me the ability to get better than I would have alone." Dale would continue his NASCAR career until retiring on his own terms in 2017.

Carrie Fisher

Sometimes you can only find Heaven by slowly backing away from Hell.

Carrie Fisher, Wishful Drinking 

The Beths

I thought I was getting better

But I'm right back to where I started

And the straight line was a circle

Yeah the straight line was a lie

Guess I'll take the long way

'Cause every way's the long way

I don't know if I can go around again

—The Beths, "The straight line was a lie" (2025)

Jo Hutton

People who cope best with stress usually have these four things in place for their nervous system (often without even realising.)

They move. Not just spin classes or runs, but also walking round the shops, Dancing in the kitchen. Any way of letting the body use up its energy.

They soothe. Big sighs. Blankets. Swaying. Music. They take time to switch off and get comfy.

They connect. Humans aren't meant to do life alone. We survive in groups. Feeling cut off is stressful — laughing with friends, cuddling family, bonding over hobbies is medicine.

They express. Through art, talking honestly, writing, standing up for yourself. Bottled feelings don't disappear, they sit in the body.

You won't always manage all four. Physical limitations or life circumstances might make one harder than the others sometimes. But they really don't have to be big gestures, in fact keeping it small is often best.

So grab, a piece of paper. Divide it into four boxes. Write down what works for you in each. Keep it simple. The smaller and easier the better.

And get started.

https://substack.com/@johuttonyoga/note/c-147943682?r=4nxn&utm_medium=ios&utm_source=notes-share-action

Neko Case

Being with good humans who have a common goal also bolsters my secondary immune system that processes and disarms the evil of this world. We make art and music together; a sword that rips through the manufactured body of hate that is forever these days trying to block out the sun, isolate us and eat us alive. We will not lay down our lives to it. Never.

--from her Substack newsletter Entering the Lung, "No News Is Good News," Aug. 18, 2025.  

Briana Ní Loingsigh

In the Irish language, we are not our emotions. We are not sad or anxious. We have sadness or anxiety on us.

To say I am sad, we say tá brón orm - there is sadness on me.

I am anxious, tá imní orm - there is anxiety on me.

The language recognizes these as passing states, not permanent fixtures of who we are.

https://substack.com/@foghlaimeoir/note/c-145061577?r=4nxn&utm_medium=ios&utm_source=notes-share-action

Barbara Kingsolver

Even by Kingsolver’s standards, Demon Copperhead’s success was “of a different magnitude”. As well as the Pulitzer, she became the only woman to win the Women’s prize twice. Her sales were in a “new stratosphere”. She tells me she has given much of her income away for years. “Material success came gradually. So I had time to learn how to draw a cap on what we need as a family and what we can do with the rest.” So, when “that first royalty cheque came in and our eyes all popped wide open, I thought: ‘I could do something significant with this.’”

--The author being interviewed about a recovery center she has funded with her book sales.  

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2025/jul/05/the-damage-is-terrifying-barbara-kingsolver-on-trump-rural-america-and-the-recovery-home-funded-by-her-hit-novel 

 

Sonya Philip

You can make something that might not be the realization of everything that you've ever wanted, but it still serves its purpose. It's still functional, and you made it, and that's fantastic. And maybe the next one will be closer to what your ideal is. It's...yeah, absolutely a never-ending process of building upon things and working not toward perfection but toward just what you want.