One Messy Year: A Year of Essays About Art-Making, Creative Agency, and Coming Out

In May 2023, Thibault– then Sarah– began a weekly newsletter called Art Date to write about art, creativity, burn-out, and finding more agency and connection in the sprawling isolation of Los Angeles. What resulted was a wild year filled with rejections, wins, an appearance on Good Morning America, Flip Phone February, and the beginning of a multi-year process of coming out as trans.

One Messy Year is the first in a series of essay compilations archiving the Art Date Essays. This comprehens...