Monthly Recap :: July 2025

Peace Everyone,

I hope this finds you well. I’m writing this from a midsummer dream, so my apologies for being a little tardy. Per usual, I’m sharing a few reflections on where my mind’s been, what I’ve been making, and what questions continue to guide my work in the past month.

1. What I’ve Been Thinking About

If June gave me alignment between the many parts of my practice, then July grounded that alignment in feeling. Recently, I was listening to Hanif Abdurraqib, Eve L. Ewing, and Toni Morrison—and was floored by how each of them spoke about their work. Hanif, in particular, spoke about grief, place, and devotion as the three thematic anchors of his practice—a framework he traced back to Johnny Cash. That clarity made me pause: what are mine?

If you’re anything like me, then your brain might also jump to wondering what it means to think clearly—especially in a moment shaped by AI, where cognition and creativity often feel compressed. What makes a thought worth keeping? Is thinking just the ability to sequence consistent questions—or is it inherently nonlinear? And how does writing sharpen that cognition? I’ve been trying to get some paint on the canvas, so to speak, and trust the act of making to bring things into focus.

The good news is that I don’t feel quite lost in this inquiry. In fact, it’s led me to very specific lines of reasoning. First, I’ve been investigating the function of beauty and depth in a system that often reduces both to luxury? Are we here just to sell expensive things—or can beauty itself disrupt systems of domination? I’ve been sitting with this quote from bell hooks:

“Rather than surrendering our passion for the beautiful, for luxury, we need to envision ways those passions can be fulfilled that do not reinforce the structures of domination we seek to change.”

Two new books on my shelf pushed this further: Who Can Afford to Be Critical?, which examines the uneasy relationship between design and capitalism, and Research for People Who Think They’d Rather Make, which reframes the role of inquiry within creative practice. Both challenged me to rethink how critique, making, and reflection can live alongside each other in the everyday rhythm of running a practice.

And of course, July was my birthday month. For the first time, I truly felt the shift: I’m not a kid anymore. On the surface, I’ve accomplished a lot. But beneath that, I had to acknowledge where I’ve been holding back—not out of fear, necessarily, but maybe out of hesitation around how and when to give fully. I’ve been meditating on reciprocity: how we give and receive, and what it means to offer your life as a gift. Toni Morrison once said she wanted to write the book she couldn’t find. That line hit me like a ton of bricks. I’ve been thinking: what’s the project I can’t find in the world yet—the one I need to make?

There hasn’t been one singular question animating this past month. But I’ve felt most alive when sharing new work—whether it was finding a chord structure that finally made sense, having conversations about time with my brother, or quietly recommitting to the practices that help me feel whole.

2. Updates from My Art Practice

I’ve been thinking a lot about the uneasy pace of artistic production. Sometimes I get caught in the question of medium—what’s the right vessel for what I’m trying to say? But often that question masks a deeper truth: that the work hasn’t taken form yet. There’s nothing wrong with that. But it can feel strange when the culture moves faster than we’re ready to respond.

If art is expected to be produced at the speed of cultural consumption, what are we sacrificing in the process? And what does it mean to slow down—to resist producing until the idea is fully gestured?

If you’re anything like me then maybe you also wonder time to time about how creativity is entangled with advertising and late capitalism. And, I don’t know if it’s for you or not, but I’ve found a lot value in returning to The Prosperity Paradox, where Clayton Christensen argues that the most transformative innovations no longer happen within the margins of leading corporations. Instead, they emerge in overlooked, underinvested systems—particularly in the Global South.

The good news is that there is a case for hope. Because if innovation has been structurally displaced from the center, then maybe our work is more necessary than ever—especially when it doesn’t look like what the system expects.

3. Ongoing Work in My Professional Practice

In my professional practice, I’m continuing to lead a $250K food systems initiative focused on infrastructure, procurement, and investment strategy. I’ve been in conversation with farmers, institutional buyers, policymakers, and impact investors. Across the board, a pattern is emerging: the government—in its current form—cannot be relied on to support regenerative agriculture at scale.

That’s not just a policy problem. It’s a design problem. And two questions have started to crystallize:

• How should philanthropy begin to scope specific areas of need within the U.S. food system—in the absence of federal leadership?

• To what degree should we encourage partnerships with “Big Food” to shift production practices across their supply chains?

These questions aren’t easy, but they’re urgent. And they’re forcing us to reimagine not just how change happens—but who’s resourced to lead it.

4. Best Things I Saw in July

These are a few of the talks, books, and works that opened something in me this month:

🎥 Hanif Abdurraqib & Eve L. Ewing in Conversation — Watch here
🎥 Toni Morrison Interview — Watch here
🎥 Christine Sun Kim Interview (MCA) — Watch here
🎥 Tupac Interview — Watch here
🎥 Alabama A&M Band — Watch here
🎥 The Cry of Jazz — Watch here
🎥 Timbaland & Busta Rhymes in Studio — Watch here
🎥 Endless in Full Color — Watch here
🎥 Robin D.G. Kelley on Black Liberation & Palestine — Watch here

📚 The Art of Architectural Grafting
📚 The Aesthetics of Equity
📚 Paul Pfeiffer Exhibit (MCA Chicago)

5) Priorities In My Holistic Practice Right Now

• Strategic advising for mission-first organizations exploring urban development, sustainable business, and uncertain futures

• Projects that treat art as civic or ecological infrastructure

• Collaborations at the intersection of land, design, and long-term investment

• Precision Fabrication for sculpture 🙂 

Thanks, as always, for following along. If your own work is circling similar questions—or if you’re wrestling with slowness, systems, or scale—I’d love to be in conversation.

Blessings,

JCM