We are living culture.

Some thoughts this week:

There’s a loving joke in my family: “There goes Mom—making it about her again.”
It usually happens when one of my kids shares something about their day, and I jump in with, “I…” before they’ve even finished. It’s not about trying to steal focus or tell a better story. It’s a kind of reflex. 
A call and response.
That “I” is my way of standing beside someone else’s experience. It’s my way of saying, I hear you. I feel that too. I’m in this with you.

This instinct—to seek connection, to find common ground—is my inheritance and has been my survival.

I was baptized Muslim, adopted by Jewish refugees, and raised in a multiracial, politically diverse family. We were liberals, libertarians, and Republicans. Veterans and born-agains, Buddhists and philosophers.
My sister is disabled. My brother is a hipster. My favorite uncle died from addiction.
The woman I called my great-grandmother spoke with a heavy French accent and lived to 84 with just one lung—the other lost to tuberculosis.
My grandfather built a banking empire with 99 branches, and then lost it all. Rags to riches to rags again. Round and round it goes, where it stops, nobody knows. 
When I turned eighteen, I was given a Buddhist name that means Compassion Dancer.

All of this taught me how to live in complexity. To see people as whole. To move through difference without losing love. And to recognize diversity not as a challenge—but as abundance.

So when I say I don’t believe in us and them, I’m not being idealistic. I’m being autobiographical. In my world, there is only us.

Lately, I’ve been receiving more and more messages from students—emails and letters full of private hope and real-life struggle. They’re honest, vulnerable, and brave. And I feel deeply honored to be trusted with that kind of truth.

These notes are reminders of something that institutions often forget: real community isn’t built through conformity or shared opinion. It’s built through trust.

In a true community, your wins become our celebration. Your hardship becomes our concern.

We need that care now more than ever. 

In this culture war, let us not forget that WE are the culture makers.
Culture is not static. It is not an archive or a database entry or a product to be consumed.
Culture is a living thing.
It needs to be tended, nourished, challenged, expanded, and protected.
It needs participation.

We’re also contending with something quieter, but just as urgent: loneliness.
People are lonely. Media (“social” or otherwise) won’t fix it - we consume more than ever, and yet feel more disconnected.

But what if instead of consuming, we spent our time creating? Creating something pro-social.
What if we used our hours to make art with friends, or sit with strangers in cafés, or host small neighborhood gatherings—yard sales, pop-ups, poetry nights, community dinners, charity shoppes in driveways?
We don’t need a cultural grant to do this. We don’t need permission.
We need presence.
We need to remember that joy and connection are not luxuries. They are acts of resistance.
They are how we stay human.

Here’s what I’ve learned:
We don’t have to be the same. We don’t need to agree on everything.
Because the foundation of community is not agreement—it’s trust.
We trust each other to show up. To tell the truth. To listen generously. To say “I” not as a form of ego, but as a bridge. To put ourselves beside one another.

I don’t have the answers, and I’m not pretending to. I’m just moving forward with humility, knowing that the only way through is to take up space—unapologetically—while making space for others to do the same.

So, here’s my path forward. It’s not a master plan—it’s a practice:

• Support living artists. Especially as museums, libraries, and media outlets face increasing pressure and decreased funding. Artists are holding the line. Hold the line with them! 

• Reclaim your time. Spend it on what nourishes your soul. What connects you to others. What makes you feel alive in your body and spirit.

• Lead with vision, not just reaction. Protest is important and works—but vision is essential. Ask: What am I for? What am I building? What future do I want to live in?

• Listen deeply. Give generously. Listen to what others need. Everyone has something to offer— attention, creativity, care, social currency, space, skills. Offer what you can. Show up.

• Kindness is free. I’m as messy and mean as the worst of us, and I find it endlessly helpful to remember that not only is kindness free but it is a choice. It is always on the table. 

My art is inherently political—I can’t escape it—because it bears witness. I believe that is the role of the artist: to mark our time and to give form to truths that are difficult to express in other ways. To that end, I drew some protest posters last week and I’ve made them available for free download at cammellot.com. They are copyright-free. Use them however you like. I believe in FREE speech. 

I’m also sharing my daughter’s music. She’s bearing witness too—in her own voice, with her own light. You can find her here: www.heromusic.org

Let’s create the world we want to live in—one painting, one song, one act of kindness at a time.

We are living culture.

xoxo K ❤️