When the Shewanders interns and Suzanne come together we go on art dates to nearby coffee houses. Today was different though as we ventured into Lakeside, a town filled with old homes and businesses that look like they haven’t been changed since the 1960’s. Today felt crazy and different, that good kind of crazy, where we couldn’t gather our thoughts clearly because we were all sprinting out new ideas.

Here are our compiled thoughts on what happened today, October 2nd.

Homes can be too sacred and surprisingly we find public spaces is where we find comfort in being the most truthful. And what about a car? The one that is moving us from Suzanne’s home to Lakeside, an overlooked town seemingly buried into East County of San Diego. This old moving Subaru, a place where we pile up our ideas and displace them onto each other. Our safe space is a coffee house. People walking in and out, maybe some are listening to our conversation or are too interested in their own. We don’t care we are in our own bubble.

Claudia takes us to a cafe disguised as a barn. Filled with coffee, tea, and antique vendors. We get something to drink and head out to the isolated garden area filled with chairs and tables but no people except us.

Before we met with Claudia we discussed storytelling in photos. When we sat down with her she shared her idea of telling a story of narcissism and we talked about the potentials of how we could photograph that word. This is how we started our complex conversation on the dissection of narcism. How do we interpret such a negative words, some find it good others like me can find it evil. It seems like we can’t fully agree on what it might mean.

So we shift to something new, pulling art oracle cards. They have artists on them and short descriptions of who they are as people and the art they made. First Rachel pulled Andy Warhol, Tariq then pulled William Blake, Claudia pulled Gustave Courbet, and last Suzanne pulled Tracey Emin. All these artists had wild descriptions that are seemingly un-normal-human like but we all found a way to emotionally relate to them. The Gustave Corbett card says “fight the power, paint the powerless” we are not powerless but we found a way to relate to his words because we believe we are strong and together we paint a beautiful picture. This turned us to positive affirmations which typically sound cheesy and fake to the ear but are truthful and raw to your soul. There is a way we can find connection in things seemingly unrelated to ourselves and there is that skill and power in all people to dig deeper to related to the unrelated.

Being genuine also became a topic of discussion, Tariq is personally attracted to people with “true to self” personalities. Within the confines of the coffee shop we get to experience the real depths of eachothers thoughts. We all understand the beauty of being genuine because we experienced it together, a constant flow of thoughts and conversations unbound by the need to impress. There is no simple definition of a family however what we bring to the table constitutes the attributes of people who care for each others opinions and standpoint. In a way this makes us a family.

We are the new interns, and we are excited to share this journey with you, expect to see more of us!

Xoxo,

The Wanderers: Claudia, Rachel, and Tariq