The Spoon House 2.6

Julia Dvorin

I live and make art in San Rafael, CA. I am a self-taught and category-defying artist who works in many different media. I am a writer, painter, actor, costumer, musician, and sculptor—sometimes all on the same day! As a visual artist, I am most interested in the expression of concepts or metaphors through the juxtaposition and interaction of symbols, patterns, textures and colors. I also enjoy using upcycled and out-of-context materials in ways that allow the viewer to see things in a new, unexpected or at least different light. If my recent work has a unifying theme, it is the desire to playfully translate the conceptual into the literal. From 2011-2024 I ran a participatory public art project called “Fly Your Freak Flag High” (FYFFH) where participants made actual freak flags to represent their unique identities from a variety of materials. FYFFH touched and delighted thousands of people over the years, in places like Burning Man in Black Rock City, NV, Maker Faire in San Mateo, CA, Figment in Oakland, CA, and Treasure Fest in San Francisco, CA (see more at www.facebook.com/flyyourfreakflaghigh). Since 2020, I have been working on a variety of large, spoon-centered art projects under the umbrella concept of “Spoon Theory Art”. I have installed these large spoon pieces at unSCruz (a Burning Man regional in Tres Pinos, CA), Burning Man in NV, the Marin County Fairgrounds in San Rafael, CA, and the new Maker Faire Bay Area in Vallejo, CA. You can check out some pictures of the various Spoon Theory Art installations I've done by browsing through the galleries at www.spoontheoryart.com, and see even more pictures and video at www.facebook.com/spoontheoryart). You can also see video walkthroughs of most of the installations on my Youtube channel. Spoon Theory refers to a descriptive metaphor originally coined by Christine Miserandino in 2003 and used since then by the disability community and others. Miserandino, who has lupus, used a handful of spoons to demonstrate to a friend what it felt like to have a limited amount of energy available for basic tasks of daily living, and show how she and others dealing with the invisible disability of a chronic illness found it more difficult to replace or regenerate that energy than others might. (A “spoon” in this metaphor just refers to a unit of energy.) People now use the metaphor of spoons to express various ideas about having energy, running out of energy, conserving one’s energy, spending or rationing one’s energy, etc. Some people, especially those with invisible disabilities or those who find themselves in chronic situations that cause high levels of fatigue and exhaustion, even refer to themselves as “Spoonies”. I became aware of Spoon Theory after being diagnosed with breast cancer in 2015 and going through treatments that took away lots of my spoons and taught me the uncomfortable practice of daily spoon hoarding and rationing. I got used to saying things like “sorry, I can’t go do that thing with you, I just don’t have enough spoons today.” Though those most difficult days are now behind me, I have certainly been experiencing a similar feeling of exhaustion and constant running out of spoons building up over these last few years as we all collectively lived through a terrifying pandemic, divisive elections and their aftermath, a groundswell of protests over racial justice, an ever-growing pile of worrying and relentless attacks on civil rights and the very foundations of our democracy, apocalyptic-level fires, storms and floods, and horrifying ongoing wars in Ukraine, Israel and Iran. And now here we are heading into another high-drama election with our democracy rapidly crumbling and what feels like a relentless firehose of bad news every day to outrage and exhaust us. You likely have felt some of this exhaustion too—I think we are all Spoonies now! We have all been subject to extra fatigue and mental/emotional overwhelm from dealing with everything the last few years have thrown at us. We have all expended so much energy on hypervigilance, upset, worry and fear that I think it has become harder on all of us to feel like we have enough energy to get through the daily tasks of living—and with our accustomed routines and activities still all out of whack, it’s been hard to know if or how we’ll get our spoons back. It is my hope that by spending a few contemplative moments sitting in a spoon-rich environment, you will remember to appreciate the spoons you do have, and that it will remind you that sometimes you can find spoons in the most unlikely places, even when you think you have lost them all.