Every time I've executed a successful socially engaged artwork I have also had an intimate connection with the local vicinity, it's people, it's politics, and its geographies both real and imagined. In California, I had the privilege of spending four years getting to know its landscape. Then, I lived in Baltimore for two years, immersing myself in the culture and people of West Baltimore through my work.

My time in Philadelphia prior to the fellowship at Fleisher was much shorter-lived than either Los Angeles/Claremont, California or Baltimore--only six months actually. Yet, the advantage that I had that enabled me to successfully create CONSUMPTION and Kitchen of Corrections with the men at Sunday Breakfast Rescue Mission, was the two years of local knowledge that Rick Lowe had acquired and subsequently imparted to Aletheia and me. My six months in residence was actually, in a way, two and a half years of work learning about the people and politics of Chinatown North.

In many ways in this residency, time was my main enemy. Aside from the concerns I had developed at the idea of partnering with Aunty Kim and Tweedy's, my ability to only be in Philadelphia for four days a week limited the amount of concentrated time I had to get to know the community, its needs, its wants, and more. Although I was able to build a strong connection with Aunty Kim and Tweedy's, I still don't believe it was strong enough to carry out the project successfully.

To get to know the neighborhood, in the four days of the week that I had, I would try to eat out locally and walk around the neighborhood as much as I could. However, I also tried to split that time in the studio where I either conducted research on nail art, nail salons, and refugee communities or I worked on some studio works that I have been wanting to complete for a while.

Then, when the day was through, I would head out of the neighborhood and up to Old City to the apartment to sleep. With how tough it was to find parking in that area, I often ended up leaving Fleisher for the apartment around six in the evening, which cost me some valuable hours of the day to explore and become more familiar with Southeast Philly.

In the end, I don't think I had an adequate familiarity of the community area where I was working.

That is all to say that moving forward I doubt I will take on a community based project anywhere unless I already have a strong connection to that place or location. Or at least a lot of support to learn about the area and synthesize that knowledge into a project quickly.

I visited Aunty Kim again today to reaffirm my desire to host a community event at her salon on Tuesday, May 23rd. She continues to seem open to the idea, though I think she has major concerns about potentially closing the shop--even if by closing the shop she is well paid. She told me "Emily, it's not about the money, it's about the customers. If I close, the customers might go away and not come back. Most customers come in without appointment."

This I understand. It seems that the customer traffic ebbs and flows with the seasons. Frankly, sometimes I'm not sure how she sustains her business given how many times I have seen it very empty for almost half a day. I understand that given the precarious and unreliable nature of her business, it perhaps is not so helpful to bring in a bunch of customers for one day as a part of an event only to not be able to count on those customers returning again in the future.

I've been thinking a lot lately about how to disperse power and cultivate greater agency and authority with Aunty Kim in her participation in this project. She is clearly a very compassionate woman who cares about the well being of the people around her. I asked her if she believed there was any way to use the nail salon to help other people like refugees and those less fortunate. She responded with a sigh and said, "I can only help so many people. I want to help, but I cannot hire everyone. And you have to trust the people you help. Some people just are not good people."

I continue to fall back on the idea that maybe my words and my questions are getting lost in translation. Perhaps because she is a very practical and pragmatic person, she is not thinking broadly and creatively in that way about her business, but perhaps I am still not able to voice my questions in a way she will understand. I asked her if she had ever thought of hanging artwork on the walls of her salon. She laughed, "Emily! Where would I hang them? The walls are completely covered!"