bell, naima y.

[naima bell]

I n the crowd on the lawn of a Lenny Kravitz concert in 1993, Clark Bell met Eliza Porter. Freshly a year out of college, she'd gone to school in New York to escape the narrow conservatism of her family back home in New Hampshire. Oppositely, he came from a free-spirited family rooted in the east end of Toronto, where she would end up moving a few months into their love affair. The two shared a passion for local arts and social welfare with dreams of enriching dispirited communities and fixing broken systems. Striving for change, Clark worked for a nonprofit while Eliza entered a municipal program. They would have an on-again-off-again relationship until becoming pregnant with their first daughter, Zoe, in 1997. The next year they married and then in 2000 welcomed a second baby girl, named after the John Coltrane song. Z oe and I grew up in the east end of Toronto with my dad’s side of the family tree. We were the only mixed kids in the bunch but we weren’t treated any differently, though my mom had her occasional battles. It was a family of characters and a clash of personalities at home, with me learning to be the quietest and calmest in comparison. Of course I went through that identity crisis inevitable to mixed kids...too white for the black kids, too black for the white kids. I remember becoming acutely aware of this when I was around eight years old, how people lead with their expectations of you based on the superficial. If you stay quiet long enough, someone will tell you all about themselves through their assumptions about you. Like you’re not even there. When I was eleven my parents broke the news that they were getting a divorce. It had been happening under wraps for months, really building over the years, finally breaching when another of my father's ideas fell through. Between my parents he was the bleeding heart creative, constantly shifting goals or changing jobs in pursuit of change that my mother eventually deemed futile. Meanwhile she mom worked her way up in city government, the breadwinner and big boss. Diverging career ideals and money management split them apart, though it was mostly amicable and mom moved not too far away to north Toronto. However...I ended up going to a different secondary school than the kids I grew up with, which was a shock to the system at that fragile age. Growing up I was described as quiet, reserved, shy. I idolized my father, adored my mother, and understood my sister. I liked to read, write, draw; I played soccer for a few seasons, danced ballet, tried out the violin. Like most girls in those years I wanted to be a veterinarian, but it wasn’t until taking biology classes that I took notice to art, the diagrams and handwriting that made up my note-taking. Eventually friends asked me to decorate their lockers...in grade 11 I got involved with the yearbook club...I helped create club posters and dance banners. I won a local contest that let me paint a public mural. I was chronically online learning how to Photoshop, joining art communities, taking commissions—I saw art as a viable option since the science didn’t click! W hen uni acceptance letters arrived, I decided to go to California. My parents encouraged it since they wanted me to travel and be exposed to the world, so relocating to San Francisco felt like a paradigm shift. A new city, a different country, all the discoveries that come with reestablishing yourself as a young person. Just like that I was surrounded by iconic sights and young radical artists who showed me around the city. The woods, the beaches, the piers; riding BART home from the club, spending hours in museums and galleries, painting in Golden Gate Park. Some parts about growing up and moving away are daunting, but my parents prepared me well enough that I just felt set free. For those four years I loved my courses and professors, finding my way to 3D modeling, texturing, and environmental design. I made friends with video game developers and animators and cosplayers and writers, shopped exclusively at co-ops and farmers markets, smoked weed on Hippie Hill, traipsed through the Castro. I lived with new people each year in shared housing, first in SF then Oakland then Berkeley. My dad sent me lovely letters every month about what he was doing or random memories of me as a little girl. I would go home to Toronto for snowy Christmases, spend half of the summer interning and the other half traveling. After graduation, it only seemed right to start a big girl job. I thought I'd gotten a decent taste with my internships though I still wasn't sure exactly what I wanted to do besides keep creating. I took the only job offer I got: joining a corporate marketing team, working 8-5 in a downtown SF office building they refused to sell during covid. That should have been my first red flag, their stance against hybrid working, but everything was new to me, everyone here buzzed with talk of eccentric startups and cushy jobs in Silicon Valley, these things and ways I was supposed to aspire to. But it was boring, soul-crushing, pointless work... I hated it. My sister laughed and said welcome to the real world from her cubicle. Fortunately in my parents I found balance between a father who took risks but was always passionate about what he did, and a mother who stuck with it and made it her own. I quit after 8 months. Nadia was my first real girlfriend. In college, after all the awkwardness of high school when girls are terrified to disappoint or say no. I had dated boys but I wasn't experimenting—since I was young I knew I could find beauty in any gender, that mind and personality matter to me more than parts or boxes checked. We lasted a year before she cheated with her ex during a visit home. Heartbreak doesn't discriminate. Damon was a situationship that dragged on for far too long... It was almost self-punishing the way I went back to him again and again, expecting more when it seemed a challenge for him to give less? I don't know what I was projecting or working on through him, but the whole thing was a major drag on my energy. Of course hindsight is 20/20 but I guess every girl has to go through it, unfortunately. Andrea is the reason I moved to LA in 2023. She knew I was unhappy in the Bay and floundering after college, so when her roommate suddenly bailed on their lease she insisted I needed a change of surroundings. I did, and it helped. That's when I went freelance. A few months in to living together, our friendship blossomed into something more. But she wasn't out and in the end I love myself too much to be hidden. Likes: Creative freedom, asset creation, video games (cozy, adventure, puzzle, horror), indie creators, music (pop, K-pop, lo-fi), storytelling, color theory, street art, puzzles, potted plants, anime, brown butter cookies, midday naps, getting letters or cards in the mail, tattoo stories, photobooths, collarbones, game jams, body jewelry, cool mornings, baking, loose tea, the color yellow, dream journals, fleece blankets, holiday decorations, window seats, floral fragrances, sleeping to background noise, roller skating, old music videos, 2-dollar bills, pocket photo albums, artisan markets, community gardens, penguin pebbling Dislikes: Standardized fonts, micromanagement, scope creep, mascot games, raisins, public speaking, heights, nightshades, cigarette smell, parallel parking, TikTok trends selling out products she likes, wrist soreness, fill-in appointments, self checkouts, news stations, proselytizers, ignoring homeless people, the sound of helicopters, cured meats

susan . manon bannerman . resident