Confettigrams
It’s the first day of my cycle, three months into being 30 and six days after my Dad’s 4 year deathiversary. I haven’t taken a photograph in nearly three months, even though - real talk - the bizarre world of New York City real estate insists that I bestow $2,000/month for an inactive studio. The day before lockdown, I was in a school in the Bronx, dousing 1st graders in an empty classroom in the wee morning. Now, it feels like fate to have had that experience right before everything stopped. Before the pandemic. Before the global humanitarian crisis. Before increasing poverty, domestic violence, death, exhausted + exposed essential workers and the growing disparity between the rich and the poor. It’s been 64 days of quarantine as words like unprecedented, social distancing and flattening the curve have entered our new lexicon. Yet, within this collective human pause, we’re all experiencing something together. It’s a global occasion that is eliciting a massive grief within all of us. Grieving life as we knew it pre-pandemic. Those on the front line. Those who have lost lives or lost loved ones. Grieving the fuckupness of how the pandemic is highlighting all of the cracks within our Western systems. Yet, we all feel loss individually. It’s painfully unique. And non-linear. Random. With many simultaneous, mixed emotions. (Trust me, when you lose a parent in your 20s, you become acquainted with this new, forever part of you.) As Julie Radar said: there’s no right way to feel, so accept whatever you’re feeling and process it however is best for you.” We honor our emotions by allowing ourselves to feel them - without judgment. So if that means that one day you’re checking off everything on your to-do list and the following you can barely muster the energy to get out of bed - then both feelings are valid and regarded with equanimity. Because our pain and pleasure will always be inextricably linked during our entire lives.
At first, I found myself elated that everyone was going to quarantine with me as self-isolation has been something I’ve done for the past few years - experimenting with going against the normality of societal speed. Since I started this project, I’ve always had to have off-the-grid days to myself, where I can reset and time mold around my goals. I loved it. More so, I needed it. (Reminder: I’ve been a freelancer for five years.) Yet there's a big difference between choosing to quarantine vs. being told to. A week in, as the novelty wore off, I was sad. And mad. And feeling hopeless, like many of you have probably felt at one point or another. Within that space, I asked myself: what can I do? How can I get away from the narrative of me? And like most good ideas, I completely forgot what compelled me to take the first step in being of service to others during a challenging time for all. Creating a product was something I had always wanted to do but, at the time, all I thought about was sending the magical properties of confetti to anyone who needed it. With a sharpie, 100 white envelopes and a 10+ lb. order of confetti, I began doing something that completely fueled me. It was me putting everything I had into something I loved. So this is a story about hope. About going all in. Trying something you’ve never done before. Seeing the good in bad situations. Having the courage to follow your feelings to origin. Mindfully finding the silver linings. Acknowledging something good outside of or even within the sadness. This is a story about how everything I’ve ever done had been inspired by challenge. Because, as someone who is forging my own path (in other words: an artist, aspiring entrepreneur), the entire day-to-day landscape of creating is the unknown. I repeat: every single milestone idea I've had has been birthed through challenge. My dad died and I decided to go full-time with confetti. I got fucked over with my first brand partnership and I decided to create a new monthly Open Studios format in my studio - that became the main consistent revenue stream. I began to say no to brands and yes to creating my own social awareness campaigns and that completely opened up a unique way of positive storytelling. The pandemic is happening right now so I pressed play on finally designing that first product. Within all of these moments, I had to get creative to find a solution so that The Confetti Project could keep surviving. Even though I am still - what sometimes feels like - barely surviving, there’s something to be said for growing through innovation and the embodying the constant evolution of something new. Both professionally and personally.
Watching my Dad die reaffirmed to me how life is always uncertain. We, as humans, are just really good at pretending it’s not. How? By grasping onto any illusion of control that we think we have. Our whole existence is wired within the unknown so it makes sense that this self-defense mechanism would be sprinkled among all of us. For the past two months, as I gear up for this moment - I’ve raised the bar with the unknown. As I began to create giveaways week after week, it dawned on me that this should be something that is available to everyone. A massive thank you to all of you who asked, further nudging me! The first vision I had: glossy neon padded mailers - that would be the first thing that people see. Then, I designed what would go inside - which quickly became a mindfuck as I bought yellow, magenta and orange mailers that I wanted monochromatic designs for each. Next, came the confetti - all 20lbs. of it that I prayed would be enough for the limited release of 300 Confettigrams for May. I sourced envelopes, a coveted label maker, scale, washi tape, and all of my studio gear. I learned how to make an e-commerce shipping and fulfillment center in my apartment by clearing out the entire space, putting up framed confetti photos, learning Shipstation and the product page on Squarespace by the skin of my teeth. I was lucky that everything came on time and that I was able to learn on a schedule. Because it all came down to the wire. Even today, I learned how to pull off product photography with transparent fish wire. I’ve had moments of happiness as packages come in. Moments of tears when it’s taking forever to figure something out. Moments of defeat as I work through 8 hours in a robotic haze. But, every person that shared their experience with getting a Confettigram giveaway or asked about when they can purchase a Confettigram kept me going. At the end of the day, I never feel like I have a choice. When I feel something inside telling me to do something, I have to trust that. My Dad didn’t survive being born during WWII, being a runaway refugee in the late 1960s and accomplishing the American Dream - to have me not live up to my potential in gratitude as I reap the rewards of his lifelong sacrifice for me to live the life I do.
While some may argue that Confettigrams were invented in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, I would say that we should always be reminded that celebration can be intertwined within ALL of our experiences. Every moment is an opportunity to celebrate. Being alive is the celebration. I don’t want anyone to wait for tragedy or trouble to be awake to their life. Or, for someone to get to the end of their life and regret that they didn’t try to find gratitude in each moment, no mater what it brought. Our intentions are always mixed with how we adapt to life happening to us so, while we will all ultimately die, we also have a choice, too, on how to live in the meantime. Confettigrams are specially curated envelopes of confetti with various journaling prompts that remind us to celebrate everything. They are a piece of The Confetti Project studio experience, where you let go of it all and drop into the present moment. Confettigrams are a gifting product - whether it be gifting it to yourself or to someone that you celebrate - whether it's providing them relief during adversity or just ensuring that they know how you feel about them. That is why including the choice of custom gift messages is a vital part of the product. Essentially, they are joy delivered. Moving forward, each month will have a new limited edition Confettigram. May is all about vibrant spring colors. June will be completely Pride-themed. July…well, I haven’t thought that far in advance yet to be honest but you get the drift. If you read all the way to the end of this, I want to thank you. For listening. Supporting. And being a part of this community of celebrators of life. I know that one silver lining during this time is that we can all understand the preciousness of one another. How we are all part of something bigger, together. And that every single one of us is an amazing person with a potential limited only by our own thinking. As we all experience every shade of human emotion, know that in this state of unknowing, everything can help us grow as we search for more meaning. We’re all capable of anything we want to be - now that we have more of our most precious commodity: time.
