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Arielle Rebekah

@ariellergordon

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out, proud trans Jew-ish coffee gay, dreaming & writing about liberated futures ✨ disabled as in free 🇵🇸 anti-Zionist as in wear a 😷

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Hi guys I make art I think

I just applied to like 5 upcoming vendor markets, and they all said some version of “we’re gonna check out your Instagram” but my Instagram currently has 0 static photos of my art because social media???? Who even is she???

So, here’s the proof, and the story…

2 years ago, I became a whole lot more disabled extremely abruptly, amid the most serious ongoing mental health crisis of my life. I already struggled mentally/pschologically with leaving my home; now, I also struggled physically!

I ended up with entirely too much empty time on my hands, which I mostly spent watching TV. Out of desperation to fill my joyless days, I decided to start making art. I started drawing, then making candles, then painting, and now (for the first time ever) selling prints of my own original artwork. I unlocked in myself a passion I never knew I had, and it’s become a light in the darkness as I’ve grasped for meaning and purpose.

In that time, I’ve also lost 2 major sources of income 6 months apart and bought an accessible condo. I’m trying to move toward sustainable self-employment, hopefully by expanding my creative practice! Currently, I sell original art prints, stickers (some original, some commissioned),, decorative candles, fragrance free body butters, salves, and CBD-infused pain relief salve. More soon maybe??

I am doing markets and wholesale for now, but who knows, maybe I’ll eventually sell stuff online? T&C Cosmetics global domination???? Goop WHO?! (just kidding. Or am I?)

Anyway, thank you to those who have already supported my scrappy little biz!

Image Descriptions
Slide 1: A white femme wearing a 3M Aura N95 mask, seated at a green tableclothed table in a large gymnasium. The table is covered with a sticker riser, art prints, silver tins, and many decorative candles designed like various pride flags.
Slide 2: A Playbill for a fictional show called “Trans Women Thriving” at the fictional “Dolls’ Theatre.”
Slide 3: Rows of silver tins labelled with fragrance-free lip balm, fragrance-free body butter, and CBD-infused pain relief salve.
Slide 4: A guitar being pulled into the ocean by a wave A white femme wearing a 3M Aura N95 mask, seated at a green tableclothed table in a large gymnasium. The table is covered with a sticker riser, art prints, silver tins, and many decorative candles designed like various pride flags. taken in Chicago, IL by @ariellergordon

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a month ago

Happy Solstice ✨ Comment your favorite summer meal?

I’m looking to add some more care to my lovely web of folks keeping me alive. This is a Personal Care Assistant role paid by IL DHS at 19.50 an hour. It includes Housework, Personal Care, Preparing Food, Monitoring Inventory, and Executive Function Support. Weekly hour commitments can range from 3–20 hrs/week, with shifts available in the late morning, afternoon, or evening. I’m located on the North Side of Chicago. I am seeking folks still taking viral illness precautions and wearing high quality respirators in daily life.

Some screening questions to answer, to gain access to more details about the role can be found at tinyurl.com/lughcare

I am a trans & disabled creative still taking viral illness precautions. I deeply value intentional care relationships & disability justice. I prefer to work with folks invested in liberation for all!

I am an ambulatory wheelchair user with physical and cognitive and care needs. I am looking for thoughtful PA’s to help care for my body, home, and creative projects. Previous care work experience is not required!

Image descriptions coming in the comments by @ariellergordon

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a month ago

What do you mean you don’t have your tickets to see Composure yet? Well, lucky for you there are still some advance tickets left. So come out all you musical theatre lovers, queers, artists, and anyone else who enjoys a good show. Ticket link is in our you-know-where… no, the other “you know where”!!! taken in The Newport Theater by @ariellergordon

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2 months ago

A year ago today, I agreed to give life another chance. (TW: suicide, abuse)

I agreed to spend 6 months in residential psych treatment following my second suicide attempt in a little over a month.

I had spent months in the throes of severe PTSD in the aftermath of leaving an abusive relationship. A relationship that started out beautiful. A relationship that, although it did not last very long, would tear my soul for my body, my sense of reality to shreds, and my self-worth to the ground.

In the year since, I’ve realized that far too many of my loved ones know the pain and horror of surviving domestic violence.

Through all this pain, I’ve managed to find a silver lining.

As I’ve regained trust in self and others, I’ve begun sharing my story more openly. Dozens of people have reached out to me to express a deep resonance and connection with what I’ve shared. I’ve had countless conversations with friends and comrades who’ve confided in me painful details of their past or present, and given me the honor to support them.

I’ve learned that my unique insights as both a progressive organizer and a DV survivor have allowed me to draw lines between interpersonal violence and global systems of domination that help illuminate a path towards ending both.

I did not invent this framework. I draw from the lineage of incredible Black feminists like adrienne maree brown and Mariame Kaba. I feel called to carry on their work in a way that is unique to me – to make the difference that only I can make. Not in a self-aggrandizing way, but in the sense that each of our experiences guides us down our own path toward justice.

I don’t know where my path will lead, but I know I want to spend the rest of my life working to end intimate partner violence as a practice ground for helping ending global systems of domination. I want to help build a world where no one ever has their power ripped away from them, or is disposessed of land, bodymind, spirit, soul, home.

I’m proud to call so many of you accomplices on this journey toward justice. We are the ones we’ve been waiting for.

📸 @xaythiraj A white woman with brown hair and blonde highlights crossing her arms in front of a black brick wall. They’re wearing yellow velvet pants and a brown tank top. by @ariellergordon

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6 months ago

This situation would be dangerous for ANYONE given the torturous conditions that ICE is putting immigrants through. But for Albeiro in particular, with his dire health condition, the way he’s being treated puts him at even greater risk that he may not be able to live through the longer he’s detained. We need your help to get him out of detention and back to his family. It’s been over a week. How long will they keep him? How long can he survive?

Please contact your Congress people to tell them to FREE ALBEIRO. And please share the fund 🔗, give, and sign the petition.

#immigrationlawyer #immigration by @ariellergordon

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7 months ago

URGENT SUPPORT NEEDED for an immigrant father and husband who has a chronic, life-threatening illness and has been detained by ICE in Chicago… we need all hands on deck! His family, and his team of lawyers and organizers need help NOW so he doesn’t die in custody. YOU can help. Swipe through to find info on the crowdfund, petition to sign, and who to call to demand that he’s given his life-saving medication while in custody, and to demand his release. 🔗 in @adcimmigrationlaw bio.

#immigrationlawyer #immigrationcustomsenforcement taken in Chicago, Illinois by @ariellergordon

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7 months ago

Reflections on being COVID-cautious and loud about it! My online pal @theo.knight offered to make these lovely slides and send them to me. I love the tiny lil COVID-aware queerios inside my tiny pocket computer, y’all make life liveable.

Image descriptions:
Reflections on being COVID-cautious and loud about it!

we have so many tools individually and societally, systemically, that we can employ to lower our individual and community risk - and I want so badly for more people to adopt those.

I feel like when a lot of people see COVID cautious people on the internet, they see us mainly as angry or judging them for not masking - and it’s not that those things aren’t true.

I am angry, I am sad, I feel a certain judgement to people who have left the disabled community - honestly, all of us - behind and moved on from something that is still really serious -

- but me expressing everything I do on social media - and I know this is true for other covid cautious friends of mine - is out of this deep sadness and this deep fear for our loved ones.

COVID is a mass disabling event. This pandemic is a mass disabling event, that is continuing to ravage our immune systems, to affect our children, to affect us in ways that we aren’t even aware of yet. Even COVID cautious people, we are not fully aware of the extent to which this is harming us in the long term -

- but what we do know is COVID is a multi organ system disease, it is primarily a vascular disease that has the ability to damage literally every cell in your body that has a blood vessel - which is almost all of the cells in your body. Long term damage, the extent of which we don’t even really understand yet.

(Continued in comments) Reflections on being COVID-cautious and loud about it!

we have so many tools individually and societally, systemically, that we can employ to lower our individual and community risk - and I want so badly for more people to adopt those. by @ariellergordon

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7 months ago

C0V!* is not the flu! Butttt, masking can decrease the spread of both illnesses— so why not give it a try? Pwetty pwease? For me????? by @ariellergordon

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7 months ago

I want you to mask because I care about your safety❤️ @theo.knight made some beautiful slides from this reel that I’ll share soon by @ariellergordon

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7 months ago

Rent is a Christmas movie and I will die on this hill 🎄

Screenshots of Threads posts reading “December 24, 9PM. Eastern Standard Time. From here on in, I shoot without a script… Happy Rent day, to all who celebrate🎄” with an image of Mark from Rent the stage musical holding an old fashioned video camera. by @ariellergordon

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7 months ago

Do you know how to spot gaslighting?

Slide text begins here and completes in comments:
Learn the difference to make a difference…
Gaslighting vs lying

The cycle of gaslighting always involves lying. But not all lying constitutes gaslighting.
Gaslighting is intentionally trying to convince someone they’re wrong or “crazy” when you know they’re not.

Therapy speak sucks. As “Therapy Speak” enters the vernacular, people are increasingly misusing the term “gaslighting.” In doing so, they dilute its meaning and increase the likelihood their peers will dismiss actual gaslighting. *Correctly using terms learned in therapy can be super beneficial! But the rampant incorrect use of therapy speak is causing major damage.

Gaslighting /ˈɡasˌlīdiNG/ [verb]

A deliberate attempt to psychologically manipulate someone by convincing them their perception of reality is incorrect
e.g. Convincing your partner they’re losing their mind when they point out signs that you’re cheating—even though you actually are.
Gaslighting may involve multiple tactics — including lying.

Other common tactics include:

Minimizing emotions/experiences
Intentionally baiting or triggering someone
DARVO/blame-shifting

On the other hand...
Lying /ˈlīiNG/ [verb]
Saying something that isn’t true
e.g. saying the turkey is sitting on the counter
to defrost when in reality, it’s still in the freezer
Lying can be:

Done by anyone, to anyone
Malicious or innocuous
Consequential or inconsequential

Gaslighting is a tool of abuse and coercive control
Everyone lies sometimes, and anyone can lie to anyone — a child to their parent, an employee to their boss, a survivor to their abuser.

Gaslighting, on the other hand, is a tactic used to establish or maintain power and control over another person/people. After solidifying control, gaslighting can only happen in one direction — by the person with more power, against the person/people with less power. Learn the difference to make a difference…
Gaslighting vs lying by @ariellergordon

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8 months ago

Teenage me could not have imagined living to 30. TW: suicide, domestic violence

A year ago today, I tried to take my own life. I was coping with the aftermath of an abusive relationship with a once sweet, sweet comrade who I’d thought I’d spend the rest of my life loving. I took this photo of me and Saffron just after getting home from the hospital.

On one hand, I’d known for years how commonly shared community victim-blames DV survivors. Experiencing this first-hand was a whole new kind of “knowing.”

Throughout the fall and winter, I regularly felt shamed for the actions I took to survive.
Community members repeatedly expressed doubt that their friend had abused me, or perpetuated the myth of “mutual abuse” (mutual abuse is a lie seeded by Big Abuser to sell more abuse).
Rather than embracing or supporting me, shared community sat idly by while I disappeared from progressive community spaces out of fear of running into my abuser.

Ignoring abuse is the path of least resistance – it only requires that people continue doing absolutely nothing. Ignoring abuse maintains the status quo: the victim will continue to experience residual impacts of the abuse (“Secondary Abuse,” as The Mend Project calls it), and the abuser holds onto their power.

After months of treading water, I began to realize I could not trust our shared community to help. It was in this agonized state that I attempted to take my own life. How could I go on living, afraid to leave my own house?

A year later, much of this situation remains outside my control. What has changed is my ability to cope:
I’ve built new friendships—reciprocal, trusting, and loving
I’ve shared about my experience‚ making meaning out of my pain
I’ve continued pursuing justice, which subdues my feelings of powerlessness
I’ve found light, even in times of darkness.

Every day is a new chance to tell a DV survivor that you believe them. Every day is a new opportunity to do something different and support their healing journey. Believe survivors: we know what happened, and we know what we need to heal. Oh, and f*** Thanksgiving. a white woman with brown hearing leaning down to kiss an orange and white cat on his head, while he sits on their lap. by @ariellergordon

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8 months ago