Broken promises
The day I get good at archiving and publishing work consistently..
TRAVEL UPDATES
APRIL 7-10/14-17 LOS ANGELES I’ll be at Sacred Fire studio with Jesse Jaramillo (@pinche_kid)
I am anticipating a trip to New Mexico and Texas in the spring/summer please start hitting me up if you want to get tattooed by me. Maybe Austin? Santa Fe? Albuquerque? San Antonio? You tell me.
When I know I am writing something other people are going to read I automatically feel a wave of embarrassment. I have made peace with humiliating myself on the internet. I should be pretty used to it because I’ve practiced humiliation in so many ways. I think of the countless of times I’ve ate shit in front of people while skateboarding either while trying a trick or on my way somewhere in the middle of traffic. Telling myself that practicing writing a newsletter for others to read will be very similar to falling in public, some people will laugh at me, ignore it, forget about it, remember it for a long time, maybe ask me if I’m okay.
I’ve been volunteering at Afghans for a Better Tomorrrow for over a year now. I just pull up and draw with a bunch of kids of all ages, some only a few months old and some teenagers. It’s been really sweet and such a privilege to watch a lot of the kids grow and learn English and talk about friends they’ve made at school. Some kids struggle to make friends because of language barriers and constant housing changes. A lot of them live in shelters with their families so their whole lives can be uprooted in little to no notice. There are usually newly arrived families, however we are anticipating a shift in the amount of people coming in now that Trumps migrant policies are rapidly being rolled out and flights coming in from Afghanistan have been cancelled (this is happening in a number of countries). We have been taking new precautions to be more low key about it since ICE can pull up almost anywhere now but if you speak Farsi/Dari/Pashto/Spanish and you would like to volunteer please email me and we can meet in person.
Ramadan begins at the end of this week and for Eid we usually buy toys and supplies for the families. I will be fundraising for the whole month of March and booking appointments to tattoo from a special flash book of all kids drawings. The kids that drew these sheets are not the same kids I work with through AFBT. In the spring of last year I got to do some voluntary guest teaching at a public school in bushwick. I compiled a bunch of kid friendly classic tattoo designs and made flash packets for the kids to trace from. I brought sheets of washi paper since they absorb water well and are translucent enough for the kids to see through and trace, saving me from having to acquire 20 light boards. I first had the genius idea to have them use expired tattoo ink since they were in the 2nd and 4th grade and thought they would be so intrigued and think it’s so cool to use something taboo. But I learned quickly that I shouldn’t be letting the kids work with something that’s gonna stain the shit out of their clothes. One kid thought that if he got it on his skin it would stay forever and when I explained to the class that you needed a needle to puncture it in to the skin another kid exclaimed that he had a needle in his backpack that we could use… So the second day I borrowed a bunch of watercolor pallets for the rest of the lessons. Anyways, these kids made some sick ass flash and paint way better than so many tattooers. There are over 50 sheets to look through these are just some of my favorites.
Dm me or email or shoot a text to 8183055827 to get a tattoo that looks like this so we can get kids toys for Eid. If you just wanna donate please venmo Hsn-Niazi and put a gift emoji or “AF”
I am a bit neurotic when it comes to curating things for the internet. I am learning to let go and let things be in the ether. Just because something is said and published on here does not mean it won’t ever change. The way I view it hours, months, years from now might make my skin crawl from embarrassment and shock that I felt so confident once to say that online. I have a stupid amount of drafts on here but I swear I am gonna work on saying a little thing at least once a week. I overthought for so long about what I should say in my first newsletter in many months. There is something happening all the time and so many other happenings I would like to talk about and acknowledge. Listening to Amy Goodman’s voice almost every morning drives me a bit crazy and I don’t wanna act like it doesn’t. I have so many tattoos and paintings and ceramics and stupid drawings that I would also love to share. Bare with me as I go through 30 thousand photos on my phone.
Best
Hassan
حسن