Growth comes through love.

Part of The Comfort House Project: Stay as long as you like

This room for Will and Harper-Hugo Darling is designed to be a place where resilience is not required. 

I met Will and Harper-Hugo at our local tea shop (a place we now haunt nearly every Thursday evening). During the conversation/interview, I filled five pages of my sketchbook with notes while the two of them finished each other's sentences and guessed each other's answers. Will talked about horror as a genre that defribulates their emotions when they're receding into numbness. They talked about being a social chameleon and why that's exhausting. Harper-Hugo talked about the heaviness and importance of their writing job which is "to love and lose these people (queer folks) who have been excluded from history books". They say that some of their deepest comfort comes from feeling and honouring their own feelings. 

In the room I created for them both to inhabit, the deep cozy maximalism and fantasy library vibes were very fun to play with. The walls are covered in portraits and artworks by queer historical figures as suggested by Harper-Hugo. The chandelier seems to be a swarm of fireflies maybe? A scaly "chameleon coat" is draped over a privacy screen, discarded from Will's shoulders. The big brass elevator doors in the middle are an homage to Tamora Pierce and her YA fantasy heroines. The book Will is reading to Harper-Hugo is "Wild Magic" from that author.