Greetings from Los Angeles. It's good to connect with you here again after taking an unexpected break from sending my monthly love letter in January. When I went back to the platform to write this February love letter, I saw a half-finished draft of January's love letter, and I was reminded that I was in the middle of finishing the story just when the winds in Los Angeles took an intense turn.
It has been four weeks since then, and I observed myself feeling a lot of grief for our community in Altadena, where Frido and I spent quite a bit of our lives together and where our studio/office currently is. And yes, there has been a sprinkle of joy, hopes, and dreams because of the beauty of the community coming together. Then, this "other" state of experience took a chunk of my emotional bandwidth. It was neither joy nor grief but somewhere in between. It wasn't that I was emotionless, but it was an emotional state I was unfamiliar with. One morning, I was lying in bed and looking up, thinking it would be easier to identify my feelings to be either a blade of our ceiling fan or a ceiling, but how do I explain when I am like the air between the blade and the ceiling? Maybe this is like the stillness or the beauty of emptiness people talk about when they become skilled in meditation, though I certainly haven't felt more enchanted by this experience. I told myself to be patient with "not knowing" and keep creating, nurturing, and loving life as it unfolded.
And so it has. In the last two months since the previous love letter, I hosted two in-person meet-ups (one at our studio and another in Denver) to have more moments as a collective. We are relocating our studio from Altadena to Eagle Rock in the near future to expand just a little bit with the hope of building a safe place for everyone to gather and for our team to operate our business. We also opened our BK online community space to create a reliable platform for timely updates on BK events and community info and for everyone to share inspiration and creativity with like-hearted pen/paper enthusiasts. In my wildest dreams, I wish all the BK friends lived within walking distance so everyone could stop by our studio to spend time around our analogue table. But since we have to balance reality, I hope this virtual community space will be an intentional oasis to fill "some" of the cup for everyone. I would love to see you there (link to sign up here).
And if you are local to Los Angeles, you are in for the treat this Sunday. We are excited to host Artist Showcase with Jen Herzig Smith at our studio on 2/9. There will be a discussion between Jen and Emil between 11 am - 12 pm (please RSVP for this portion and let me know if you have difficulty reserving a spot), followed by an open reception during our opening hours between 12-5 pm. I also wrote a story about our collaboration with Jen if you want to read more about our dynamic relationship. And since we skipped last month's love letter, I have many beautiful stories from A.C., Marina, Kaitlin, and Frido to share. Please grab a cup of warm drink and scroll down to find those inspiring thoughts.
I am still not sure how to wrap my head around those undefinable in-between feelings. Even today, I go in and out of these states. But I am more comfortable with it, like having a new friend I am getting to know. Maybe I wouldn't know what it is for a long time... or perhaps this is how "possibility" looks and feels like.
-wakako
always a work in progress...
Los Angeles // February 4th, 2025
**This story is from BK Love Letter for February 2025. If you would like to see the entire love letter we sent to our community including links to the new and updated BK artifacts, you can browse it via this link.
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