A themed issue edited collaboratively by Amanda Rose Villarreal, Cessalee Smith-Stovall, and Mya Brown.

Acknowledging that no individual’s experience can speak for an entire community, the editors have curated a collection of reflections that we hope will serve as a reminder of the vast multidimensionality of intersecting identities that impact our lived cultural experiences and our approaches to communicating and creating. We hope these six Notes From the Field can serve as an invitation to consider the cultural competencies we hold and those we lack outside of the limitations of a binary, encouraging our consideration to include the vast and intersecting cultural identities that inform the multidimensionality of each individual artist. We hope that this selection of Notes serves as an invitation to recognize, and reflect upon the value of, our own lived cultural competencies, rather than assuming that all of our collaborators share our perspectives, boundaries, and needs.