Do you remember when you first started thinking about this project?

I do.

You were on Molly’s rooftop in Midtown last May.

The air was thick, the sun beating down on our scalps while we smoked spliffs

And indulged in late afternoon ciders.

The future feeling like the tease of a long distance lover.

The time between then and now felt limitless, I figured there’d be plenty more ideas where that came

from — and there were.

Something about the way we were all in a perfectly comfortable state of doubt, together,

Undergrads, City Kids — being cradled by the promise of a linear future.

Aspiring artists, not yet ready to carry the crown Artist, at least not gregariously.

The ‘aspiring’ lessened the sincerity of it, the responsibility of it.

The moment provoked the idea, to which I typed out in the notes app on my phone:

‘Thesis Idea: desires + fatal attraction - psychological investigation through film’

The words practically wrote themselves, and I’d be lying to you if I told you

I knew what nudged my inspiration that day into writing that down, or how I thought

I was going to make it happen.

It didn’t matter yet.

Around a month later, I came back home to Santa Fe for Summer Break,

Inspiration knocked again and I typed a few more things out in the note I started the month prior:

‘-clips from movies depicting levels of desire, push and pull between people, explore tension’

I’ve found that my particular sort of creative vision comes in the form of images, feelings, and random

words at seemingly random times — a combination of all of these things dance in my head,

I usually will write the vague ideas down until, at some point, I circle back to them.

Sometimes it’s a month down the road, sometimes I forget about them completely, sometimes I stew on

them for a long period of time before even knowing how to execute or bring the image to life.

I’ve learned a lot recently about how necessary the

time I give myself between idea and execution is.

There is no need to rush unfolding,

Letting the cards fall

Is much better

done

gracefully.

There were several more moments of inspiration found in my garden

In Santa Fe, on my morning commute to school during my Fall Semester,

Revivals of ideas birthing in the dead of Winter.

Then Spring.

Then now.

What I have now, feels like a culmination of all of it.

I bounced from moment to moment without judgement and I think that,

More than anything else,

Has revealed itself as the secret to my creative process.

No judgement.

So the vision changed?

No judgement.

So life took shape and you strayed from the rough draft?

You should.

It’s not easy being easy on yourself,

Cultivating a creative process

Is not a walk in the park

Like I once thought.

I spent many hours thinking about this passively,

Followed by more hours writing pages of notes and weaving

Webs of thought for myself to go back and follow,

Only to return to the web with a newly learned technique to

web-weaving.

There’s time for all of it,

There’s time to fail,

To produce,

To reproduce,

To suffocate an idea,

To give it mouth-to-mouth.

Surrendering to the process IS the process.

•••

My name is Kristin Leigh Probst

I go by Kris,

I go by friend,

I go by artist,

Director

Actor

Astrologer

Writer

Queer

City-Slicker

Desert-Dweller

Silk Robe

Spiked Choker

There’s a lot of me

There’s a lot I’m still learning

I’d be lying to you

If I told you

I had it all figured out.