on crafting a homemade field of love (part two)
a reflection and meditation by brontë velez
the artists, SOURCE Studio and i gathered in the blustery winter snow the week ahead of the concert in residency at Arts Letters & Numbers in Averill Park, New York to be in ritual craft together and make our sacraments. we found ourselves collaborating with the fugitivity of winter. that harsh, quiet weather that so many of our ancestors collaborated with to set their eyes toward freedom.
following Sista Docta Alexis’s black feminist breathing chorus practice, we made prayer beads while listening to Fannie’s spirituals. we used the prayer beads to chant a black feminist text from June, Alexis and esperanza 108 times a day: i need to speak about living room (June Jordan), love come flood through here (esperanza spalding), “[my gifts can] hold water” (adapting a line on baskets holding water from Alexis Pauline Gumb’s M Archive: After the End of the World).
in each other’s company we felt the resonance between our voices lifted, that our craft has the power to offer refuge.
as we made our prayer beads we shared in council together the kinds of living room we needed in our lives. we made incense cones together with plants from the land i steward at The School for Inclement Weather as we answered the questions: what prayers need to be sent up through smoke for you right now? what needs to burn that will clean the air? how will the burning daylight a river that lets love flood through and overflow in your life?
we anointed each other’s hands in peanut oil. we identified personal mantras to set on the meditation of our hearts as we crafted our sacraments: my senses are your instruments (Pir Ziya Inayat Khan), your soul is quiet on the matter (something a brother at seminary said to me), refuse precision (Cici Osias).
i invited Spirit Adams to interpret the dish Mrs. Fannie cooked for June through a turnip and okra stew. we ate Spirit’s meal in fellowship together buttermilk cat fish and turnip and okra stew with chicken thighs, black eyed peas, and tomato venerating the hospitality they offered and received from one another. we laid out spirit plates for them on our altar honoring them.
photos: Billy Chen, courtesy of Arts Letters & Number, Averill Park, NY.
Karina had to leave the residency early to install her light at Carnegie before anything else could be positioned in the space. before Karina left the residency early, we sent her off in the Yoruba tradition as Ibeyi. in the spirit of the orishas Ibeyi, the younger twin arrives first to make sure it’s safe for the older twin to emerge.
Karina setting the path before us held that Ibeyi nature, in the sense of sisterhood and siblinghood, as she set out to light the morning fire that would hold center for our homemade field of love.
the residency offered an affirmation that what was being made between us was most importantly about honoring the sacramental nature and art of black feminist fellowship we inherited: an outstanding commitment to joy, presence, beauty, tenderness, intimacy, co-witnessing, kiking. a prayer that our sacraments could serve as a material artifact of taking refuge with one another.
as SOURCE Studio and i worked on the “homemade field of logistics”, as we called it (ha!), we would always open in a prayer:
“as we enter a homemade field of love, which is also replete with a homemade field of logistics, may we be able to witness the heart of love that animates each task. may we remember ‘attention is the substance of prayer’ (Simone Weil) and may we honor what is before us with presence and right effort. may these ritual objects amplify the prayer and support the distillation of esperanza and Sista Docta Alexis’s medicine, so the most potent dose of their offering can be received. may those who experience this environment feel a temporary sanctuary and know they can always return to the images, sounds, and poetry in their heart as oracles that accompany them. as these objects transition to live at a black feminist space of sanctuary-making, may they be given more time to rest into the sanctity of what we have made together, so the merits of this space are dedicated to their new home.”
this prayer continuously returned our hearts to living into the prayer of the offering, shimmering like a mindfulness bell even when we drifted. their soft glimmer was a reminder that production and coordination cannot live outside the altar of sacred work. nothing can be off the altar. this is a teaching that will be with me for a long time.
once we arrived to Carnegie, we were met by Karina’s one full black lily luminescent and totem already installed. Karina’s totem served as a threshold as the first encounter guests would experience in the lobby. it was a visible amulet of June Jordan’s poem, a signal to tread lightly, to know there is something here that speaks in tongues, to know there is a frequency that will lovingly wash over you that you may not understand. all you have to do is let it register in your marrow and do its work on you as music does. the totem itself refused capture as it lifted off of itself, the way blackness, poetry, art, its interiorities exceeds itself.
Karina Sharif’s totem. Photo: Billy Chen, courtesy of Arts Letters & Number, Averill Park, NY.
behind Karina’s totem lay my altar of instruments, one solid gospel (sanctified) one gospel (peace), replete with the samo rattles i made and rattles crafted by loved ones. the other instruments present were an invitation to play with the gospel the earth makes with their self: dried okra shakers whose sound i first heard in the company of gabby etienne’s okra, scallops against scallops, cinnamon against cinnamon, seeds against seeds, peanuts against peanuts. bullets turned into music simply by giving them another container besides a gun to live in.
guests were invited to take some tobacco, lay down a prayer and then gather an instrument to bring into the concert with them for the night.
before you entered the concert hall, there was an altar to the matter of our sacraments — wool, paper, cotton, marley braid, okra, corn, samo seeds, raffia, sorghum, peanuts, silver, beans, pictures of ancestor June and ancestor Fannie. while i was setting up the altar, Jasmine’s brooms and Spirit’s libation vessels were being installed. Jasmine, Nastassja and Spirit held down the craftfolks representation at rehearsal — singing with the band, listening to Alexis’s stunning writing as they medtiatively re-felted parts of Nastassja’s lion spine relaxed cushions. Cici offered their agbadas to Alexis and esperanza; marley hair bolo ties to the musicians: Morgan Guerin and Eric Doob; and raffia skirts and adornments to the dancers: Kayla Farrish and Tashae Udo. Spirit went with Carnegie’s catering crew to craft their libation of “tulsi and dandelion root with a splash of bitters featuring wormwood, burdock root, dandelion root, mint, bitter-orange peel” and rehearsed bringing it in.
it was almost time for the homemade field of love to begin, but prolly by now you can see it had already begun. it was something handed down intergenerationally like coals carried in a long match from our black feminist ancestors. we had the pleasure to keep this sacred fire going, something made for us long before we got here. it was as Alexis shared of Samiya Bashir’s work, to “invite us into a quantum field of black remembrance.”
by the time the concert began, esperanza had begun to “lose” her voice. but wider than the perception of “losing” was that it was clear esperanza’s voice, like Karina’s totem designed to hide a black grammar within it in plain sight, wanted to be protected for the evening, wanted to find some other register to delight the space in. something about a vibration she had facilitated that exceeded the need to be named aloud. the way the bass, her instruments, carried the substrate for the music to leave its muddy and clear track in.
esperanza invited us to open the evening by shaking our instruments. the room lit up with the percussion of the earth. guests used the instruments to both co-musick and as shakers of affirmation when Alexis’s word called us to attention. Alexis opened the concert asking:
“what is the difference between a homemade field of love and a store bought field of love? i think June Jordan made sure to use the word homemade to remind us that a field of love is something you can create at home. it is something you can create anywhere. it is something we can create here.”
esperanza invited the artists who crafted the environment to be vocalists and sing the final song with the band and the entire audience was invited to dance. with levity, fervor and that sacred two-step, we cried out:
in a time like this
looks like we found it in a time like this
just to know we can, in a time like this
make it together, ahhhhhhhhhhhh
thank God we found it, in a time like this
just to know we can, in a time like this
make it together, ooooooohh
i met someone after the concert who told me their name meant manifesting heaven. i asked them if they had a good bed to rest in with the burden of that name at the end of each day. i said, you must be exhausted manifesting heaven! they smiled and reassured me that they relate to manifesting heaven as easeful. i wish i would have heard that BEFORE homemade field of love! ha! and i was grateful to receive the wisdom after the concert that we can manifest heaven with ease! what a relief and what a petition.
my recording of the night on my phone is geotagged for an acupuncture clinic near Carnegie. homemade field of love was an acupuncture clinic. it was an acupuncture to release that holy music of the heart. it’s 100,000 daily drum beats that keep love electric and alive between us.
samo, the seeds from kiskeya i used to make my rattles are also known as corazón de shangó, african dream herb, sea hearts, sea beans, or entada gigas. their seeds are known to be made into a tea for lucid dreaming and to connect with the ancestral realm. shangó is associated with the elements of thunder, lightning, and fire. one of the instruments connected to shangó are the thunder stones, rocks struck by lightning. i love that these instruments sound like soft rain.
my prayer is that in sharing the merit of this story forward, we remember, like the rattles, that we can change the weather with music. that worship co-evolved with weather. that we cannot change the atmosphere without the fellowship, presence and mercy of praise. may this testimony following the black feminist instinct to make, protect and offer beauty encourage your own commitment to livingness. may all things, through the love of our witness, revive their animacy and shake like bones with song.
Photo: Jennifer Taylor, courtesy of Carnegie Hall.
- so, so much prayer, presence, laughter and joy went into crafting our sacraments! and so much hospitality surrounded us to rest into the prayer, from a friend of mine from college, Sara Taylor, being down to cook for us during the residency, through last minute runs to find each and every little last minute element we needed from Amanda and Siyona, to Amanda helping me get the mechanics clear on a new rattle design, to an Iranian family dinner cooked by artist-in-residence at arts letters and numbers. it was a labor of love.
- somehow Amanda and Siyona still managed to begin their prayer beads while simultaneously working out logistics and travel for us, our sacraments, install, lodging for when we arrived to the city. although Amanda’s prayer beads were made with floss, they still got made! holy evidence that even the most improvised of materials will rise to meet an earnest prayer! and maybe something sure there’s something auspicious in there too about chanting and purifying the mouth! somehow we managed to find in-between prayer even when it got busy and the prayers started to crumble before they us. they were nutrient-dense crumbs.
- alas, the installation day of install was also the day of the concert and it was a homemade field of a whole lotta lot!! Karina Sharif and her partner Grant got up at 4 am to get a uHaul to transport her totem sculpture and get her light installed bright and early at Carnegie. they were met by dear folks at Carnegie, Sam and Anna, along with many others, who were up early to assist with install. working with Carnegie was such a blessed corrective experience as a black femme. to work with such a prestigious institution and to be met with softness, care, love, curiosity, and shared prayer was truly a well.
- meanwhile, back at Arts, Letters & Numbers in upstate New York the day of the concert, the artists and SOURCE team worked to close our time in residency and pack our pieces to drive down to the city. a generous soul from Arts, Letters & Numbers, Elliot, was down to drive all our precious sacraments down along with the literal ton of bricks Amanda retrieved for my altar of instruments. Elliot rocked a Sisyphean feat as they tried several times to safely get up the hill in the snow with the bricks towing the rear.
- a month prior to our offering, a dear friend Atheel introduced me to Kenya Miles, founder of Blue Light Junction in Baltimore. Kenya introduced me to their Día de los Muertos altar built with bricks as the armature. i was so grateful to follow that sibling craft prayer and gather my own bricks for my altar of rattles. we affectionately finessed our beloveds at Carnegie by calling the bricks “modular blocks” to ask for forgiveness rather than permission (and i’m sure they will never allow that again! ha!). shout out to Kenya’s altar for the inspiration!
brontë velez
2025 – 2026 RESEARCH & DEVELOPMENT FELLOW Meet brontë (they/them): is a black-boricua transdisciplinary ritual artist, shepherd, minister and cultural worker. their theological praxis is an intergenerational prayer to resanctify labor with land through rebuking the hauntings slavery has had on our precious relations with earth-rooted ritual and craft. brontë’s ministry is committed to re-ecologizing the roots of pastoral care — as shepherds who paid attention to the earth, followed the wisdom of their rhythms and patterns and through that devotional awareness received prophetic instructions for liberation. the prayer of brontë’s life is to support safe and hilarious bedside care through climate collapse. they don’t know if we will get to the “other side” but are interested
Research & Development Fellowship
RESEARCH & DEVELOPMENT FELLOWSHIP S.O.U.R.C.E. Studio’s Research & Development Fellowship supports artists in developing a bold and poetic project that catalyzes opportunities for connection and liberation. Over the course of a year, we closely with the artist Fellow, providing thought partnership, administrative support, and a $25,000 grant to deepen and build a program