🪴

With a heavy heart, I come to you all with the news announced by close friends of Cat Frazier that she had passed away on Monday, June 29.

She had been running @animatedtext since 2012, with her impact on the internet SHAPING tumblr. If you have a years long history on this site, you’ve seen her art.

She ran a venue in Oakland called Oakland Secret, a punk venue where I’d vend at regularly as an artist. She made a safe space for queer artists, artists of color, and local furs too. I am forever grateful for her work both in the Bay Area creative scene and online, and am forever changed by the totality of her impact.

I’ll be linking some articles from the 2010’s about her impact online: The Fader | Action | Jezebel | ObviouslySocial

I invite you to take a visit through her archive, and if you have a long history with this site like I do, it’s like walking down memory lane. (open link in browser)

Selections from a 1999 Target newspaper insert (1999)

Lots of kitschy Groovival, mixed with a style of colorful, playful 90s-00s contemporary interiors we've been calling Gen-X Home - I could see that style coming back, its so fun!

My name is Sahar. Like any young woman, I dreamed of a stable and happy life. I was engaged to Mohammad, and together, we dreamed of building a warm little home where we could start our life. We spent years preparing our house, but just before our wedding, everything was destroyed in an instant by the war.

I was faced with a choice: to leave Mohammad in the midst of this chaos or to stand by him and begin our journey together, no matter how difficult it might be. I chose him. We got married, not in the dream wedding I had envisioned, but under the harsh reality of war. Our new home became a fragile tent, offering neither comfort nor security.

After we got married, I received the news that I was pregnant with my daughter, and I live in constant fear for my unborn child. I am terrified of the world she will be born into—a world of poverty, hunger, and bitter cold. We have been displaced from our home more than nine times, carrying with us nothing but the burden of loss and the hope of survival. The house we dreamed of is now rubble, and the tent we live in barely protects us from the rain and cold.How will I protect my daughter? We struggle to find enough food. Basic necessities like milk, blankets, and clothing feel impossibly out of reach. The cost of survival has become unbearable. Every night, I am haunted by the thought: how can I bring her into this world, knowing I cannot keep her safe?

After a long pregnancy filled with pain and fear, after nights without sleep, I finally gave birth to my baby girl. She was born in the middle of bombing, surrounded by destruction and poverty—not in a warm room, not in a safe place. Her first cry mixed with the sound of explosions, as if she was announcing her arrival into a cruel world she never chose.

I gave birth to her with nothing but my heart. I cannot promise her anything. Poverty surrounds us from every side, and the cold reaches her tiny body before night even comes. My baby and I are suffering deeply, not because we ask for much, but because I am unable to provide her with the most basic needs: milk, warmth, and safety.

When I look into her eyes, I feel strength. When I look at my empty hands, I break down in tears. I am a mother trying to save her child from hunger and fear, in a world that has shown no mercy even to the dreams of children.😢🥹

To donate or support us, here is the link 👇🙏