The Story.
A recipe for becoming.
There is more than one way to make a life.
I left Detroit and moved to another continent carrying my family's cornbread recipe.
For years, I tried to recreate it. But the ingredients were different. The conditions were different. Eventually, I stopped trying to reproduce the original exactly and began making a recipe of my own.
I still carried what mattered about the first one. I just had to discover what it could become somewhere else.
That experience has stayed with me. It is one way of understanding how we make a life: we carry things with us, adapt to circumstances we didn't choose, and discover possibilities we couldn't have anticipated at the beginning.
Cornbread. grew out of that idea.
Why Cornbread. exists.
I believe people can develop capacities they haven't yet learned to use. But the opportunity to do so is not distributed equally. Some people have access to mentors, professional development, institutional resources, and sustained critical feedback. Others are expected to work everything out on their own.
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Sustained critique is often available to those enrolled in an art school or connected to the right institutions, but much harder to find outside them.
Cornbread. aims to make that kind of developmental support and access to creative resources more widely available.
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Through art advising, I help people develop their eye and confidence as they engage with art. I also undertake independent research and consulting for patrons and organizations interested in supporting people, ideas, and creative practices.
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What people might discover, make, and do when they have the opportunity to see their circumstances differently and explore what else is possible.
There is more than one way to make a life.
A family recipe is something you inherit, but it is also something you make. You can carry it across borders, adapt it to new circumstances, and pass it on. What matters is not always preserving every detail. Sometimes it is discovering what you can make from what you have.
I think about human development in much the same way. We are shaped by the circumstances we inherit and inhabit, but those circumstances do not determine everything we can become.
Cornbread. is an invitation to take that possibility seriously.
