Joni and Jade

This story offers a glimpse into the work of two people pulled together by the orbit of Portland, Oregon’s progressive art scene, a burgeoning site of advocacy for Disability Justice. These people are Joni Smith, a member artist at North Pole Studio — a space that, as per its mission statement, “exists to increase opportunities for artists with autism and intellectual/developmental disabilities to thrive as active members of the arts community” — and Jade Novarino, an artist and art facilitator on staff there. Smith and Novarino share a palpable connection, emulating the aesthetics and poetics of revolution through their creative work.

Smith stirred in me a desire to both communicate my feelings with more care and to attend more deeply to the presence of those around me.

That same week, I ventured to find out more about Novarino. We sat in her backyard farm — one site in a larger cooperative called Campo Collective, an agriculture nonprofit — as we chatted at length about her work and practice.

As we sat in the shade of shrubs surrounded by curious chickens, Novarino shared with me that she takes influence from the late Jaki Svaren, a calligraphy instructor and homesteader. The two met and lived together as roommates during Svaren’s late life, and Novarino cared for Svaren’s property in exchange for calligraphy mentorship.

“I learned so much from doing that,” Novarino reflected, “like what it means to be in a place for long enough that you can see things changing and see things growing.” This taught her that she wanted to “stay in a place,” to nurture it and be changed in the process. Novarino’s farmwork illustrates the revolutionary potential of intuitive timing, something continuously available to tap into and honed through her sensorial relationship to the land where she lives. She spoke about her rhythmic relationship to planting, and how she tests the earth's temperature to inform her when she sows seeds, feeling for what is needed and when. Growing cycles live as a felt sense in her body.

In Novarino’s view, “there is no beginning and there is no end” to social revolution, framing it as ever-present — even if it is not noticeable in the moment — much like the revolution of the Earth around the Sun.

Novarino shared with me that her father, Elida’s son, served as an occupational therapist during his younger years. She reflected that it comes naturally to her to work at North Pole, a community premised in collaboration and care, and considers this succession in her father’s vein of work a manifestation of a generational cycle.

In Novarino’s view, “there is no beginning and there is no end” to social revolution, framing it as ever-present — even if it is not noticeable in the moment — much like the revolution of the Earth around the Sun. She asserts that social revolutions do not spontaneously erupt, but rather build off work that has already been happening. In spending time with both Smith and Novarino, I found that attunement to different kinds of relationships illuminates the ever-present nature of this form of revolution, and that staying tapped into its ebbs and flows is key to participation in its momentum.

Be it the collective struggle for social transformation or the Earth’s movement around the Sun, the rhythm, cyclicality, and continuity of revolution in its many manifestations shapes the conditions of shared experience, inextricably enmeshing our beings with one another. Thus, broaching the subject of revolution bears a look at these nuanced relationships — between Smith and Novarino and their extended communities — as well as sites of coming together, such as North Pole, where the momentum of affinity-based relationships and coalition-building feels unmistakable.