Josh Barkey – Third Culture Kid Artist and Writer

About under our own piece of sky, written by third culture kid artist Josh Barkey

I recorded “under our own piece of sky” on Sept. 13th, 2020 during a Facebook-livestream at The WAV Lab in Fort Mill, South Carolina.

Just one mic, my baritone ukulele, and a bucket of jitters.

The album title was suggested by my artist friend James Alfred Friesen, then chosen from a poll-list during a livestreamed run-through the week before. After we recorded, James threw together this amazing album cover and here I am four days later, posting my first-ever EP to bandcamp.

I’m hoping that if enough people dig my vibe I’ll be able to head back into the studio with some of the musical genius-friends I’ve accumulated over the years and record a full-length album of my favorite songs.

released September 18, 2020


About Josh Barkey

When I was six months old, my Canadian father and American mother took me and my older brother Jo-Ben to the Amazon basin of Peru, South America, where we would live (excepting the odd furlough in AmeriCanada) until I graduated high school.

My childhood, then, was spent migrating from fruit tree to fruit tree, paddling a dugout around Yarinacocha, and catching iguanas and boa constrictors and anything else that got too close to my bare, nature-stealing hands.

These days, I live a pretty idyllic life: I keep house with my fabulous wife, hang out with my family, play a little soccer, and write. Oh boy, do I write.

I’ve got aspirations, see?

I intend to write and write and write until I croak, telling stories that entertain, delight, and challenge the entire world. I’m honing my craft in the belief that this will lead to widespread acclaim, which will assuage all my insecurities and give me the financial resources to buy everybody I know a pair of gold-plated pinking shears. Because that makes total sense.

Mostly, though, I’m trying to do it for the love. Writing and making is at its best a love-based endeavor, and I want nothing more than to up the love-quotient in the world before the lights go out. I firmly believe that storytelling is the best way for me to do this.

Check out Josh’s blog and his other art here

Check out some more TCK music here

Travel Photographer – Massive Nomadic

travel photography
taken in Boston, Massachusetts
taken in Qatar

Learn about the photographer:

My name is Isam and I identify as a TCK. I have lived in multiple cities around but never in my parent’s respective home countries. I enjoy traveling, hiking, and photography.

As an avid photographer I especially like taking colourful shots as exhibited in my artwork.

What Keeps You Here?

a strawberry

What keeps you here
I ask my heart
Stranger in a strange land, so white, so clean

These fields in June, she laughs
Your red-stained fingers
A taste of heaven beneath each leaf
And this sky expansive and clear

I wonder why, my heart, you hold
Steady on small delights after
Months of sifting memories
Under grey skies
Testing each day as we
Walk out into this not-all-bad
But still foreign place

I am young, says she –
A child who races, explores,
Finds beauty even here
And welcomes the new, trusting
Inviting sweet existence even
Within this space of not belonging

I hold out for
Simple Wonders;
Encounters with the Presence

Crouched amongst the rows I ponder this
Sifting through the too-soon and the already-past
I find it.
The ripest, the reddest berry
Welcomes me into the perfect balance
Proves to me that
Yes, child, even here, even you,
Have abundant peace.
The taste and texture of now.

By Bree Becker, a third culture kid from Rwanda and Kenya who now lives in Oregon, USA.

Colors of my Father’s Heart

When my dad passed away in 2015, I painted the picture above as part of my grieving process. It’s called The Colors Of My Father’s Heart. My dad was a patriotic American who loved Brazil just as much, but more than anything he loved the Lord, and that’s what this picture portrays for me.

Painting by Lori Kingston, a missionary kid from Brazil who is now living in central New York.

See more of Lori’s work here!