OUR GROUP OUR THOUGHTS: What is the Culture We Are Making?, TRIPOD participants

OUR GROUP THOUGHTS: WHAT IS THE CULTURE WE ARE MAKING?

TRIPOD participants

TRIPOD has given me an additional voice to create. When I look at a photographic subject, immediately, I want to write about it, or write a story. Learning from the students is a joy for me. I get their ideas and concepts and we also share thoughts and ideas. In TRIPOD it is a two land highway. We get to change lanes that may also affect our ultimate objective...and it’s okay. TRIPOD is a community of different cultures, financial status, ethnic backgrounds, and generations which allows for a well rounded group of folks. I love it. Who wouldn’t love the camaraderie? TRIPOD has allowed me to hold and operate a $2,000 camera to take fabulous photos. I am ready for the big time. —Anonymous

Sometimes my words are few and far between my voice often cut by anxiety or fear but please don’t mistake silence for apathy i am here, i am listening with gratitude and with love it seems like fate that i would end up here i found community in the time of isolation and people who make me hopeful to someday go out in the world again —Sarah Lucey

I appreciate that we don’t pretend in any sense. A “good student” pretends that they only exist in the confines of the classroom—another brick in the wall. Our rule-breaking individuality (Andrea) brings about our togetherness. —Nick Vonk

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I see Amina imagining pink skies for us all to feel the glow.

Norman mourning his cousin and his country through a screen, still showing up. Reminding us, “This space is the revolution.”

I see Victoria reaching Lyric: “You were born for this.”

Andrea says, ”This space is sacred. It transcends.”

I see us seeing us. Showing up. Slowing down. Being here for it. All of it. I hear us saying, wait, we got you. We love you. Love you, family. Fingertips to lips to the air.

I see Devin, once nervous just to enter the room, now learning how to run it. “That’s my teacher,” Amina drops in the chat. “I’ll share,” Ciani says. Tariq: “I’m here eating and paying attention.” —Rachel Wenrick

I appreciate everyone’s willingness to be present, to listen, and to be together. I have never felt like my opinion doesn’t matter, and we all value one another and our experiences. We all deserve to share our stories and be listened to, and WR continues to genuinely support each other in this time of distancing and isolation. I have never felt more close to people than I have now with WR. —Anonymous

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OUR GROUP THOUGHTS: WHAT IS THE CULTURE WE ARE MAKING?

TRIPOD participants

I have always believed in trinities. The way water can be solid, liquid, or vapor. The way we can be one thing and many things at once or shift through forms to survive the condition we find ourselves in. To freeze or flow or evaporate in time and space. To be welcomed into a universe that sees and understands that we must occupy moments in eternal flux, because, easy or hard, rough or smooth, it is our nature to be transformed. This is how I feel about TRIPOD. The way it stands in triple symmetry, blessing the overlapping trinities of our intertwining natures. What else is a TRIPOD, but a thing designed to support a visionary element? The way we are all cameras and visionaries and though we can tell certain stories as freestanding elements, sometimes we need something to stand on. Sometimes we need to lean on something other than ourselves to bring the world into sharper focus.

Especially in these strange times, when I get weary and want to lay myself down, Friday comes, the sacred TRIPOD eases open, giving us more legs to stand on. —Andrea Walls

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I find writing to be very liberating. It allows me to learn, think, and share. It allows me to minister truth, something I call “Food For Thought,” and TRIPOD/Writers Room makes that all possible. It’s a place to grow and learn about others and their culture, their race, struggles, and their victories. A place to learn the truth about each other, not the fabricated stories that have been shoved down our throats, causing fear and division among us. A place to meet new and exciting people, who become friends, people who become family. It’s a place that generates Love, Understanding, and Deliverance, which promotes strong healthy people because it clears up all the isms and schisms we have had about each other. TRIPOD/Writers Room with all its diversities has opened up the world to us in an exciting, sometime shocking way. We get a chance to come together as we experience the ups and downs of the world we live in and have an open forum— a place, meeting, or medium where ideals and views on a particular issue can be exchanged. We comfort one another. It’s a place where we can pull strength from each other. —Rosalyn Cliett

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OUR GROUP THOUGHTS: WHAT IS THE CULTURE WE ARE MAKING?

TRIPOD participants

I am appreciative that gratitude and gratefulness is a posture of our collective. Sharing space while co-constructing both the process and products of our project through so many elements of writing, storytelling, architecture, design, and research is truly remarkable. —Ayana Allen-Handy

I am appreciative of an understanding glance, the space to feel upset, and a space to not feel judged. Our time is a quiet respite, a point of reflection, where I am reminded there is more to life than just what is in front of me. —Patrice Worthy

Writers Room shows me that I am not alone, that I hold potential and that there is no condition or high-strung contingency to take part. —Anonymous

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I appreciate the community and feeling connected in this time where there seems to be so much division and distancing.

I appreciate the ability to be exposed to and be part of such a talented group through this form of creative and genuine expression—a form I have long underappreciated myself. —Uk Jung

I thought about my gratitude towards youth and upcoming designers. There is such a spirit of revolution in the air and that we are trying to break the barriers of what is considered the normal. I am thankful for being in a time where we actually might have a chance to change things for the greater good—on so many scales from architecture and urban planning to how we frame our minds about each other. —Rachel Jahr

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OUR GROUP THOUGHTS: WHAT IS THE CULTURE WE ARE MAKING?

TRIPOD Participants

Dee says, “Negativity sells,” and she’s right. But why? In my classes now, we study how stories are made. What makes a reader read? Often, we hear, there must be tension, where’s the drama in this, more conflict—a conflict is what drives the story forward.

And I wonder: why?

I think about the last year of Writers Room, gathering every Friday, still gravitating towards each other, and all the years before this one. When I think of Writers Room, I think of all this love, all this light. And I want to tell you about the way Mallika always has a step on Nick, and how I’ll never think about tea + cheese the same way ever again. Or how Amina, mere weeks after meeting for the first time, was willing to share an image of her windows, where the light comes through. You should know: Dominique, driving between states, calls Norman and Victoria during her long drives. They’ve never met in person but their voices close the distance between them. And in my mind, I always hear Norman say, “This space is the revolution.”

I see us looking at each other, striving for contact even when our eyes can’t meet. Across screens, cities, time—calling out, “You go next.” “I think you want to go next.” “I’ll go if you go.” It’s what we’re always saying together: Come on, be here now.

Can’t the story be grounded in love and light? —Lauren Lowe

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What I appreciate most about this space and the work we do here is the fact that I feel comfortable showing up as my whole moody, complicated self. I often struggle with the need to project the energy of some happy warrior, or worry that if I enter a space with a cloud over my head everyone will notice and cast me out. The thing is, at WR, whether folks notice my cloud or not, I am never judged or feel the need to put on a front. I am able to enter the space as I am and exist fully in whatever capacity I can manage.

That culture, that environment lifts me up, pulls me out of my head and out of the rain. It allows me to contribute in community and in ways I can’t begin to imagine when I am isolated or self-isolating. When I say “contribute in community” I mean I am inspired by the thoughtfulness and compassion of everyone here. I am inspired to conspire and co-create worlds that don’t exist yet. Worlds I cannot imagine when isolated or selfisolating—not just because of a lack of imagination, but because of a lack of hope.

When in this space together, not only am I able to cultivate hope, but I am surrounded by so many creative, compassionate, and impassioned people that I would feel foolish doubting that we can change the world for the better. —Devin Welsh

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