Day-to-Day: A Life in Sticky Notes

Every night for almost two decades, artist Clare Johnson has drawn and written on a post-it to save a small piece of each ending day. Currently including over 6,500 sticky notes and growing nightly, this sprawling yet deeply intimate work honors what normal communication can’t—all the separate times held within ourselves, endlessly overlapping, collapsing and refocusing.

As part of Art + Culture Week and in conjunction with the exhibition Day-to-Day: Rhythm, Routine, Resistance, join Johnson at the Henry for a talk and hands-on activity exploring personal histories and practices of everyday making. Set in the galleries amidst the Day-to-Day exhibition, which explores the poetics and politics of everyday life, learn about Johnson's practice and project’s unlikely origins; discover how it responds to society’s erasure of queer histories; and experience hidden stories—from the dramatic to the lighthearted—behind individual post-its. Johnson invites audiences to exercise curiosity about hidden histories we each hold, explore the power of meaningful self-made ritual, and uncover strange magic in everyday life.

Bio
Clare Johnson is a multidisciplinary artist and writer celebrating overlooked spaces, histories, and memories. Honors include fellowships and residencies from Jack Straw, Hugo House, Crosstown Arts, Surel’s Place and James Castle House. Recent public art includes an art scavenger hunt on the backs of traffic signs in West Seattle, a permanent supportive housing mural in Burien, and window art in Cal Anderson Park about HIV and family, the originals from which can be seen in the lobby of Gay City: Seattle's LGBTQ+ Center. She is also the editor of the Washington State Queer Poetry Anthology (a free website published in 2025), and the author of two lyric memoirs about growing up queer in Seattle during the AIDS crisis, published on the Department of Neighborhoods' blog and by the free app TrailOff, which combines her audio narrative with a walking route through Capitol Hill.