PREVIOUS GUEST CURATORS 🗂️

Alice Elm: 3 Ways to Refresh Your Space

Alice Elm Interior Decorating

As the seasons change, so should your space. Alice Elm brings her distinctive eye to The Thread with carefully selected spring refresh ideas that transform environments with purpose and warmth.

"If you live in it, I can decorate it," says Elm, whose signature catchphrase captures her accessible philosophy to design. Through three thoughtfully curated images, she demonstrates how intentional changes to our physical environments can shift our mindsets and create new possibilities without overwhelming budgets or schedules.

Candy Boyd: Tokens of Devotion

Boyd Funeral Home, Los Angeles

When grief arrives, humans search for tangible connections to those they've lost. Funeral director Candy Boyd has guided Los Angeles families through their final farewells for nearly 18 years, witnessing how physical objects become vessels for ongoing love. In her curation, she shares the memorial blankets that provide comfort to bereaved families and the ceremonial crowns that transform mourning into dignity.

"These aren't just keepsakes—they're bridges between worlds," Boyd explained. Her selections reveal how funeral traditions evolve to meet our deepest need: to continue loving beyond physical presence.

Jocelyn Robinson: Sound & Memory

Director, HBCU Radio Preservation Project

What happens when voices disappear? Radio preservationist Jocelyn Robinson curates essential recordings from the HBCU Radio Preservation Project, where campus radio becomes an archive of Black college culture and community connection. Through interviews with station managers and rare historical broadcasts—including a recently preserved 1965 commencement speech by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.—Robinson demonstrates how sound captures histories that might otherwise vanish.

"We're not just preserving recordings," Robinson notes. "We're mentoring the next generation of memory keepers." Her selections reveal radio as both cultural chronicle and living heritage.

Coming Exhibitions

This gallery continues to grow as new guest curators share their unique perspectives with The Thread. Return periodically to discover fresh voices and insights from thought leaders, artists, and cultural observers who bring their expertise to our museum of everyday meaning.

Last updated: March 2025

PREVIOUS LIVING ARCHIVES 🔑 

Ethan Ward: The Thread's Purpose

Creator and Editor of The Thread

Why focus on "ordinary" lives rather than celebrities? Why use real names from obituaries? In this revealing conversation, The Thread creator Ethan Ward explains the journalistic ethics and human-centered approach behind our museum of everyday meaning. His award-winning reporting on unhoused deaths in Los Angeles shaped his commitment to honoring lives that might otherwise go unnoticed.

"You don't need a global headline or celebrity status to learn from someone's life," Ward explains, offering insight into how The Thread discovers patterns of meaning across seemingly unrelated stories.

The Internet Changed. So Did I.

In this personal essay, Ethan reflects on his evolution from the early days of AIM, MySpace, and anonymous chat rooms to today's carefully curated digital landscape. He explores how the internet transformed from a place we visited to a mandatory presence, tracking his journey from the lawless "digital Wild West" to finding a more intentional balance. Ethan examines how social media became performance rather than play, and shares his path toward reclaiming digital peace through thoughtful boundaries and selective engagement.

Iyanìfá Owinni Adina Durosinmi Fá Omi Şango

Diaspora Death Doula

"Life is long, days are short," says Sango, a Reiki Master and certified Diaspora Death Doula who helps Black Americans reconnect with ancestral traditions around death. Through our conversation, she reveals how facing mortality transformed her own life—from leaving corporate America to embracing her role as a spiritual guide. Her insights about endings, transitions, and ancestral connection offer a profound shift in perspective about how we spend our time.

"My energetic signature as an ancestor affords my descendants the courage to do things," she explains, showing how our choices today create legacies that outlast us.

Alice Elm: From Banking to Decorating

Interior Decorator & TikTok Creator

An unexpected health challenge in 2018 caused Alice Elm to retire from her banking career, forcing her to reconsider her path. Rather than viewing this as a setback, she transformed her lifelong passion for interior decorating and fashion into a thriving second act that gained roughly 70,000 TikTok followers in just six months.

"I always love fashion, and I always wanted to be like a celebrity, you know, dress a celebrity," Elm shares in our conversation. "But I love a beautiful home...I was doing it for my family and friends at no charge. I was like, let me take some classes, get my business license, start charging."

Her journey from banking to creative entrepreneurship reveals how life's disruptions can become doorways to more authentic work. Through our Q&A, she offers insights on building community, finding recognition, and creating content that resonates across generations.

Melissa Minor: Kitchen Classroom

TikTok Creator & Former Teacher

When childcare costs exceeded her teaching salary, Melissa Minor faced a devastating choice. Rather than frame it as failure, she transformed her Pennsylvania kitchen into a new classroom, building community through cooking videos and creator battles. Her journey from education to content creation reveals what happens when humans rediscover purpose amid unexpected challenges.

"I went from having a whole identity as a person to 'I just change diapers and give bottles and make chicken nuggets all day,'" she shares. Her story illuminates how humans rebuild meaning when traditional paths become unsustainable.

Candy Boyd: Holding Space

Boyd Funeral Home, Los Angeles

While other funeral homes get bought out and converted to apartment buildings, Candy Boyd maintains the business her husband Reginald built room by room starting in 1963. Her candid conversation reveals the challenges facing Black funeral homes in gentrifying neighborhoods and why some roots are too deep to pull up.

"We aren't leaving—we are here to serve the community," Boyd explains, despite weekly offers to buy her property. Her insights on rising cemetery costs, families' lack of preparation, and the shift toward cremation reveal how economic pressures reshape cultural traditions.

Jocelyn Robinson: Soundwaves & Stories

Director, HBCU Radio Preservation Project

When Jocelyn Robinson investigated HBCU radio archives in 2020, she discovered a crisis: at one institution, 40 years of broadcasting had vanished; at another, recordings of Martin Luther King Jr. were lost during a library move. Now directing a Mellon Foundation-funded preservation effort, she explains what's at stake when audio history disappears.

"We can hear their tears, we can hear their smiles, and we can hear their laughter," Robinson says of why audio preserves human experience in ways written records cannot. Her work training young archivists ensures community stories survive for future generations.

LaJoy Mosby: Paper Trails & Bloodlines

President, Afro-American Historical and Genealogical Society

Most people see obituaries as endings. LaJoy Mosby sees them as doorways to joy. As National President of the Afro-American Historical and Genealogical Society, she helps Black families discover ancestors' stories beyond names and dates – revealing how they lived, loved, and found light in dark times.

"These are not just names on a piece of paper. These were living, breathing people who had wonderful lives, just like we do," Mosby explains. Her insights on how different generations connect with heritage, navigating emotional discoveries, and finding purpose through family research offer a unique perspective on intentional living.

LIVING ARCHIVE SERIES

The Thread's Living Archive preserves conversations with remarkable individuals whose work illuminates how we remember, heal, and find meaning. Through these dialogues, we document perspectives that might otherwise go unrecorded—creating an evolving collection of wisdom about intentional living. Check back regularly as our archive continues to grow.

Last updated: March 2025

VISIT OUR ARCHIVES 💎

The Thread's complete collection spans multiple themes, from city migrations and sound preservation to digital afterlives and professional legacies. Our archive contains every past newsletter, featuring hundreds of life stories analyzed for patterns of meaning.

Return to previous exhibits to discover connections you might have missed, or trace how certain themes evolve across different collections. Each past issue reveals new perspectives on intentional living through the stories of those who came before us.