What It Takes to Put Yourself Out There — Christopher LatoucheReusing coffee waste in Jamaica, building Ital coffee, and what it means to put yourself out there for new things.
Lately, I’ve been investigating what it means to build something in public. I’m shifting my studio toward public art. Work that lives outside. I want to place sculptures and murals at the center of my studio practice. Work that responds to people, to place, to history. And I’ve realized I can’t do it alone. I want to sit with people who are building. Artists, entrepreneurs, healers. People shaping things in real time. Not just talking about what they’ve done, but what they’re working on right now. The messy middle or doubtful beginning. The part that’s still forming. And not just the professional work. I’m just as interested in their personal work. Personal growth. Their spiritual practice. The internal work that everything else sits on top of. That’s where this comes from. What You Working On Right Now? is a series of show-and-tell conversations. It’s me being a little nosey. Sitting with people I respect, people I can learn from, and asking them what they’re building, what they’re figuring out, and what’s actually moving in their life right now. This first one is with my brother, Christopher Latouche. He told me he’s “slinging coffee waste.” And that opened up a much bigger conversation about Jamaica’s Blue Mountain coffee industry, the scale of waste that gets left behind, and what it looks like to take something overlooked and turn it into something valuable. But more than that, it set the tone. This isn’t about finished work. It’s about work in progress. Ideas in motion. People building things that don’t fully exist yet, while also doing the quieter work of becoming who they need to be to build them. That’s what I’m interested in. What you working on? If you want to learn more about Christopher’s Ital Coffee project email: chris@italcoffee.co Or go to www.italcoffee.co
This work is shared freely, in the original spirit of the dharma. Paid subscriptions help support my practice as an artist and lay practitioner, and as a gesture of gratitude to my patrons, I send seasonal art prints through the Art Mail Club.
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3.20.2026
What It Takes to Put Yourself Out There — Christopher Latouche
3.15.2026
The Story of the Streets Gets Told on the Streets
The Story of the Streets Gets Told on the StreetsA studio conversation with filmmaker LeXander Bryant about art, memory, and the streets as history.
Welcome to The Path of Shabazz Don’t recognize this sender? Unsubscribe with one click Shabazz Larkin recently imported your email address from another platform to Substack. You'll now receive their posts via email or the Substack app. To set up your profile and discover more on Substack, click here. There’s something special about having artist friends. The kind of friends who believe in you. The kind who see the work before the world sees it. And the kind who show up with a camera and say, “Let’s get it.” Recently, I got to talk with my friend LeXander Bryant. He’s that kind of friend. LeXander has been traveling through the Global South filming life, neighborhoods, and artists. It’s part of a project he calls We Are the Archive. I’m grateful he pointed the lens toward my studio in East Nashville. “The story of the streets gets told on the streets.” Shabazz Larkin Part of the conversation happened while I was doing finishing touches on some huge portraits of artists with roots in Tennessee. Which, BTW, will soon live inside the Bankers Alley Hotel, here in Nashville.
Standing there, looking at these works, I started thinking about how art begins to live once it leaves the studio. People will walk past it. People will sit underneath it. People will make significant memories around it. Few will stop in awe. It’s a pity. But there is a reward for those that do.
That’s how the archive grows. It becomes a backdrop for the germination of rememberings, ideas, and conversations. LeXander put together this short film. I’m excited to share it with you.
The archive keeps growing. For the first time, I’m opening commissions for walls and public spaces that need art.If you know a new building popping up, a school, a park, a hotel or any place that deserves a story on the wall — send it my way. Email my studio at studio@larkinart.co Or visit my online gallery www.Larkinart.co This work is shared freely, in the original spirit of the dharma. Paid subscriptions help support my practice as an artist and lay practitioner, and as a gesture of gratitude to my patrons, I send seasonal art prints through the Art Mail Club.
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