Plathhack Lore — Plath Hack Montessori Emporium

Hi!

My latest work in progress:

“Strawberry Milkshake for My Mom”

18x18x2 Collage ingredients: epoxy resin, waterslide decal pictures of my grandmother in 1963 on the last beach trip she took before her death, nail gun strips, acrylic paint, ashes from my burned letters and a book I made for my first lover, spray paint, moss, dragonfly bodies and sand from my last beach trip, Tallahassee moss, torn up Norton Anthology from college 2004, one of my poems about my great grandmother, purple 💜 wood shavings, purple fruit mesh from Turnip Green, dried lemon balm from Hannah’s garden, vintage doilies, dried flowers from S.E. Daugherty farm at the hwy 70 split

Hello from a former over-poster making my first post here since going Meta Sober in January. It’s become my entire personality, talking about the things I’m noticing after leaving the sensory deprivation echo chamber that is Meta. My phone is no longer a dopamine slot machine. What does it even do now?

I realized I have been narrativizing my life through the lens of these apps for nearly two decades. My Instagram handle was an insult my ex made about me on a MySpace blog in 2005. He called me an “unambitious Plath hack.” I was in college. He was my first love. I adored this insult and I’ve carried it with me this long because I saw it as a badge of honor and also an homage to Sylvia Plath, who is far too often a grotesque punchline coming from people who have no business being around me. It’s been a good barometer and beacon up until now, but at what cost?

The rent is far too fucking high on Instagram. My neurodivergent Highly Sensitive Ass came for the memes, not the reel homework and subliminal measuring sticks coupled with targeted ads. I’ve had my account for ten years. No amount of archiving or deleting followers was ever enough to remove the misogynist assholes I went to high school with a quarter century ago. Someone was always popping out of the woodwork after I thought I’d deleted them years ago.

Instagram made it really hard for me to manage my account. They allow you to remove up to 100-200 followers per day and up to 60 followers per hour. Removing too many followers at once can put your account at risk of suspension. There were days I’d set reminders on my phone to go delete people because I’d let myself amass too many strangers.

Posting stories after seeing Mosab Abu Toha’s war coverage made me sick at my stomach. I started to realize that opening the app caused my whole body to tense up. It’s no longer safe for me share my story in that roach motel managed by fascists. (Okay! That’s so dramatic but y’all! I was so DONE and just angry at myself for sticking around as long as I did.)

They make it somewhat difficult to delete these apps entirely. I only deactivated my accounts which led to several of my close friends texting me to see if they had been blocked. That was probably the toughest part of leaving initially, explaining to people that I didn’t want to cut them out of my life. But I’ve never felt like taking a break before and I knew I needed it to focus on grief healing with my new somatic therapist.

Anyway, one of the things I'm most curious about in this “sobriety journey” is how will the art I make change? I’ve been prolific sharing pieces online since the summer of 2022, when I returned to my visual art practice and began studying Transcendental Meditation. I didn’t feel like I was rushing myself to complete things, but I wonder if I will move slower this year? My hope is yes. I need to make fewer, more intentional art objects for my own health and sanity.

One meta dad joke I have developed and keep repeating is that within a minute of scrolling IG, you can experience the seven deadly sins.

Like who is being churned up by this outrage-driven algorithm, then sees me gluing trash together and posting about it on a Tuesday afternoon and looks at it with genuine gratitude and happiness that I am sharing that with them? Nah.

The house always wins.

Oddly enough, I legitimately miss Facebook more than IG because it’s how I kept up with my elderly friends and former teachers. My cousin Joy wrote posts every day talking about what she saw on her trail cam and where she went. My former history teacher is dying and will never come over to Substack. I have been sending lots of postcards though!

Please send me your address if you want some mail art!

Anyway, I'm here today to share with you my most current work, made Metaless over the last few weeks. The title, “Strawberry Milkshake for My Mom” references how when she was 9 and they told her that her mom died, they gave her a strawberry milkshake right away and she could never drink another one again. I wonder what to do with details like this now that she is gone, so here they are for you.

Here’s a video of me in my art factory living room deep conditioning my hair in my big ass Mitski hoodie:

This “canvas” is from Turnip Green Creative Reuse which is an absolute gem of a store in Nashville. It is salvaged dentist office art, I reckon.

I forgot to take a picture before I painted on it, so this is the “before.”

I’m really struggling to accept my writing right now which is keeping me from doing so much. I do not feel as articulate as I once did. Years of scrolling have rotted my brain, I’m afraid, but I’m going to do my best not to word vomit here:

This piece contains several photos of my mom’s mom, Caroline, who died when she was 26. My mom was 9 when she died, so she didn’t really remember her. Growing up on rainy boring days at my house, my mom would get out Caroline’s suitcases and I would try to wear her tiny clothes. I wasn’t small enough even when I was a child. I was always so fascinated by her and the life she lived. One of her last beach photos is the cover to my second poetry ‘zine self-published in 2003. It contains a horrible short story I wrote sort of imagining her life. It was truly terrible, but if you want to see it, it lives here.

She made an incredible scrapbook and left behind so many artifacts I've spent years pouring over and dissecting. I even have her very fabulous tit pics. It was clear that she was an artist too.

When Caroline found out she was sick, she went to the beach one last time with her partner. These 4 photos are the last ones ever taken of her. Even when I was really little, her solemn face was such a puzzle. As one might imagine, now that I'm in the cliched doldrums of middle age, it's even more curious to me now.

Caroline a few months before she died of cancer at 26

I’m grateful to have these artifacts now as I’m moving through the grief of my mom’s death in 2023.

Thank you for providing an alternate online community for me right now.

Enjoy these queer living room art studio thirst traps from 2/21