she's a wildewoman
Greetings, earthlings.
This week has been a doozie.
It started by waking up in a little cabin in the Northeast Kingdom with three close friends who I love dearly, but haven’t spent much time with in the past year. It was a gift to share long walks in the woods with them catching up, and to absolutely obliterate them in a game of Hearts.
The next day started with a trip to urgent care (I’m fine, but I want to throw my too-tight ski boots off a cliff) immediately followed by a call to AAA when my car died in the parking lot of the urgent care facility (the car is fine, too). This was of course frustrating, but it was also hilarious. These kinds of days make me aware that most of my life is relatively pain-free and frictionless, and for that, I am so grateful.
Anyway, I’m happy to be here!
Here are three things I consumed this week worth sharing:
1. An album I’m listening to: Lucius’s Wildewoman
In November 2021 I went on daily walks in my favorite forest in Burlington listening to this album while I contemplated my relationship at the time, which was making me feel small and stifled. Wildewoman was a beautiful primal scream inviting me back to myself. I’d have to stop myself from breaking into a sprint during Nothing Ordinary. The title track’s lyric, “she’ll only be bound by the things she chooses,” hit me in the chest over and over.
Listening to this album in the forest made me feel wild and powerful. I felt like my animal self–the same way I feel when I swim in a river naked, or when I’m picking wild berries on a mountainside, or when I wake up with sunlight on my face, or when I’m going fast on my bicycle. Untamed. Soft. Free.
On Tuesday Lucius played through Wildewoman at Higher Ground to honor the ten-year anniversary of the album’s release. I danced a lot. I cried a lot. I recommend listening to this album and doing both of those things, separately or together.
Thank god for music and thank god for friends who take you to experience it (I love you, Tab).
2. An animal on the internet that made me smile: this perfect dog.
Speaks for himself, I think.
3. A quote I’m thinking about:
“The role of the artist is to make the revolution irresistible.”
-Toni Cade Bambara, the radical black feminist filmmaker and activist
This week I’ve been trying and failing to carve out time to make work about participating in local democracy, with a specific focus on Burlington’s mayoral election.
Here’s the cover of a zine/shareable IG graphic that’s about 70% done:
I want to build these out into zines/sharable IG decks, too:
This the the kind of work I want to make: work that connects people to place.
To my mind, ”place” is defined by both ecological systems (see: skunk cabbage) and social systems (see: why the mayor/city council matters).
The more I’m able to wrap my head around the particulars of a place (especially the place where I live) the more connected to and protective I feel. I’m a little obsessed with the process of learning about the systems, ecology, and people in a particular place and sharing what I find so that others might feel more grounded and connected to a place, too.
This is also the kind of work that’s hard to get paid to make. No one asks for it, but lots of people who engage with it tell me it’s valuable. I keep prioritizing paid client work and making things to sell in my shop while these projects scream at me from the sidelines: PUT ME IN, COACH.
Your paid subscriptions to this newsletter help fund the work I want to make, so thank you to those who have already done so. I’m humbled by and grateful for your support!
If you’re interested in supporting this work, you can become a paid subscriber here:
And if you have other ideas for how to fund works like this, I’m all ears!
Thank you for being here!
Christine Tyler Hill
Website: tenderwarriorco.com
Email: tenderwarriorco@gmail.com