THE LINDSEYS

RAMONA:

Cultivation, I think, kind’ve reminds me of a gardener. You plant something in infancy like the seeds, you plant it, you let it grow, but then you got to cut some things away as that plant grows. That’s cultivating and getting rid of the bad things. Sometimes, you got to take that plant and move it to a better location so it can grow better. Sometimes depending on what you want that plant to do, you might anchor it to something so it’ll grow straight up.

I realized that Zach liked the theater and performing; that’s why I had Mr. Foster build you a stage to put in your room because you liked to perform. And when Faith started to seem interested in photography when she was in elementary school I didn’t know anything about photography, but how could I help her to build that eye? So it was finding friends who had that talent; taking you and introducing you to people that could help you develop. And for me that was cultivation.

FAITH:

There was a time when our mom got Zach and I a spot at the DuSable Arts and Crafts Festival in Chicago. I had to be about 8 years old and Zach maybe 11. Mom had been teaching some art classes in partnership with the DuSable Museum and was offered a spot at the festival for free. Instead of showcasing her art this time she let her kids do their own thing. We split the tent in half. On one side Zach was selling pillows that mom taught him how to make, and on the other was me selling prints of some of my photographs. 

We bought black and white mat boards for me to display the images that I took while out with my mom's photographer friend Ms. Minnie; one of the first to ever teach me how to use a camera. Zach made his pillows using materials my mom had left over from her projects, old fabric scraps our Grandma Lindsey sent him, and clothes we found at thrift stores. He sold more than me that day, and as my mom likes to tell it… Together, we sold more artwork than she'd ever been able to sell at a festival.

RAMONA:

When you are in the role of a cultivator, the one who is trying to create the space for cultivation to happen, you have to be willing to step back and give up what you think is right and be willing to be present, observant, and listen.

Cultivation is evolution. It’s a journey.

And the Covid-19 pandemic was undoubtedly a roadblock in many people’s journey that we were all forced to navigate. The path forward was unclear...

ZACH:

And at first, that was frustrating me, like “Well, why can’t you get back to the place you were a year ago?” and it’s like maybe I don’t need to go back to where I was a year ago or maybe where I need to go is better than where I was a year ago. I feel like now I’m cultivating how I present myself to the world, what that means, and also helping to cultivate a world where future people don’t have to feel the need to live in antiquated ideas of gender and gender roles and sexuality roles within gender.

FAITH:

I also think that people should just start being more creative in the way that they decide to live life. I want to live a creative life. I think being creative is thinking big things, and going after it, and figuring out a way to make it happen. I feel like a lot of people don’t get the things they want in life because society has told them that they can't have it – and that’s not necessarily true, that’s just patriarchy and white supremacy trying to hold you back. That’s just how it's always been. It’s always been a lie forced upon people that you can’t enjoy life. That life for Black people, life for poor people, life for people who are not the majority is not to be enjoyed. And you're not supposed to take risks, you’re supposed to step back and let the world happen to you.

ZACH:

I do wish that the majority of the world felt like they could live life the way that they want to live it and not that they have to meet certain checklists or boxes. What works for another person and their belief system will not also work for you and there’s no shame and issue in that because no person is alike. I am excited to see more people in positions of celebrity and influence being a little more outspoken and hopefully, that can translate to people in middle America and places that aren’t New York or LA or all those other creative hotspots where they can really blossom and not look back at their lives and be like “I wish.”

FAITH:

What if I want to be a nobody? What if I wanted to live in the middle of nowhere and no one knows that I exist? Why isn’t that an option? I feel like that’s also thinking creatively and thinking outside of the box of what society has said is a career and what is proper to do.

ZACH:

I really kind’ve hate the notion of a career because that to me means that you are preventing yourself from ever evolving. That you’re saying I will do one thing until the day I die.

FAITH:

And it’s no fun. Fuck a resume. Shoooo, I’m trying to have a good time.

Just before Zach’s junior year in high school, he became a contestant on the first season of Project Runway Jr. Just a couple months prior he heard about the opportunity a few days before the deadline. So he enlisted me – a 7th grader at the time – to help him record his audition video. He finished the application almost entirely by himself and the rest was history. Mom barely knew anything about this until he was asked to come to NYC for an in-person audition and when he was cast for the show she didn’t hesitate to take time off from work to accompany him to NYC to pursue his dreams. After graduating high school he officially moved to New York, started his namesake luxury clothing brand, Zach Lindsey, and hasn’t looked back since.

RAMONA:

I created a support system within our own household that allowed you all to push those ideas. And for you to see a world that was bigger. Where you felt free enough to share your opinions, voice your opinions, to act on them. Even Zachary for you moving to New York, I knew Louisville was not the place for you to fully be you. I knew I had to get you safely from Louisville to the place that would allow you to do that.

I’m glad that I’ve made those sacrifices for you two because just sitting here listening to you talk lets me know that my efforts were not in vain because you both are on the path to being independent, courageous humans. And I think the world needs more independent, courageous humans because that's how change happens.

ZACH:

What I'm grateful for is our family unit, for whatever reason, operated in a sense where Faith and I had our own independence to do what we wanted and if there was something we couldn’t do ourselves – to be able to advocate for ourselves to get that thing done.

RAMONA:

Zach. I remember one time you said that you wanted to start a compost in our backyard when we lived in Alabama and you were in the after-school program and I made you call all the different pet companies, pet supply companies, to see how much worms costs, and come up with a budget and everything you need to start a compost in the backyard instead of me doing it.

Also when y’all asked me questions about things that y'all wanted to do – I didn't immediately shoot them down. Even when we lived in Chicago – I was unemployed, and your father was in grad school, we didn’t have any money, but y’all wanted to be in theater and dance and all that – and we figured out how to do it. You wanted to be in film and we figured out how to do it with no money. Even how I would take y'all to the library and get those culture passes so you could go to all the different museums and the different camps.

With little to nothing, my mom always found a way to make sure we were rich in culture and community. Making my community second to none. Everything is on the table and up for the taking in this house, making cultivation easy.

ZACH:

Even though I’m still not where I want to be, I am a lot more ahead of where I would have been if I had taken the traditional route. With my art in design and fashion I would like to cultivate a world where people are able to live freely outside the boundaries of the gender binary and those traditional points of views, so that the future world ahead of us will be a lot better and that the issues that we are currently going through will one day not exist.

FAITH:

Do what feels good to you and if it doesn’t work out be comfortable with moving to the next thing. I feel like life should be enjoyed. Life should be fun. It should be full of joy. Like why should it not be? Give me a reason why life should not be fun and then maybe I’ll rethink that.

We all laughed!

RAMONA:

When I think about my art and places, because I’ve lived in lots of different places, that it’s not about the place itself, but the people that you bring around and connect with. So for me, my art, I see it as a way of connecting people. One of my dreams for myself is to use my  home as a safe space for artists to be. The house that I buy before the end of 2021 will be the house that I can use as that safe space.

FAITH:

I’m just a big believer in self agency so that’s why I love being a sex educator, that’s why I want to go to school for art history because knowing more about yourself in the context of your being and the world that you live in gives you so much more agency to live a life where there’s less fear and where you’re more profound. It literally protects you and helps you live a life that’s more fruitful. I want to be able to provide that for other people rather that be through sex ed, or introducing people to the art world, to Black artists, or just to a new way of life through art. I really want to give that to people.

RAMONA:

Art is another way of expressing who we are as individuals and collectively and I think that it’s important that we embrace that art as a vehicle to express that agency that power that we have. I don't think the world sees art as that tool. I think the world likes to see art as something beautiful that you put on your living room wall but for me art is that expression of what’s most important to you, what’s valuable to you, what makes you who you are, what makes us who we are as a society, as a people, is seen and revealed through the art that we create. The more that we see art as more than this frivolous – because some people see art as being frivolous – it's something that you don't have to have, it’s only available for the rich. But no, art is available for all of us and I think we have to be able to cultivate this. That belief amongst us as artists. Then as we embrace that as artists, how powerful our art is, then society will be able to begin to see it as powerful.

FAITH:

And also just fuck society too because society don’t have to see it as powerful for it to be powerful. I think a part of self agency is seeing yourself as what you believe you are and not giving two cares about what nobody, including society, thinks. 

ZACH:

Art is history and history is told through art. Everything that we know about history before this time period, has majority come from some form of art. Art is a way of knowing what was before us, what is now, and what is possible to come.