WRITTEN IN THE KOSMOS, SCRIBBLED IN THE STARS

Zuzu Morgan on Musician & Therapist Jonny Kosmo

Issue No. 5 | Summer 2024

For those who don’t know, Kosmo is a Los Angeles-based musician, licensed therapist and now, the founder of the non-profit counseling center, Scribble. Scribble first opened its physical doors this past October with the help of Ben Varian, Louise Chicoine and Megan Manowitz. However, inspiration struck years ago, when Kosmo was spending much of his time on tour as a musician and felt that DIY spaces could play a more active role in their communities while not in use for shows. Located in the heart of Highland Park on York Boulevard, this kaleidoscopic space operates as a site for affordable, accessible therapy services. Scribble’s approach to healing extends beyond the traditional one-on-one counseling offered there: Along with traditional therapy sessions, Scribble hosts community programs ranging from live performances to breathwork classes, film screenings to overdose prevention training, and artist lectures to benefit events for aid in Gaza.

Through his work as a therapist and artist, it became clear to Kosmo that effective community-building could not be left to conventional practices. Since its opening, Kosmo has noticed a powerful “circular currency” arising out of Scribble, a circuitry based on connecting with, empowering and providing for one another. Here, you can go from client to volunteer to performer to audience member all within a day, if you choose. This multifaceted and communal engagement with healing works as an antidote to some of the issues that arise when individualized therapy is our societal default. Kosmo noted that questions surrounding power dynamics, prescriptive and linear paths and self-focused language have cropped up during his education and work as a therapist. So, it was important to him that Scribble takes a holistic approach to healing that considers both the individual and the community. Kosmo described it as “an act of resistance to a world that wants you to isolate and separate, be alone and also police yourself”–a vulnerable, challenging and sometimes scary, but truly generative act.

t’s an act of resistance to connect with another person in a world that wants you to live a very individ-ualistic path.” About halfway through my conversation with Jonny Kosmo, we ended up here. But looking back, this insight feels like the perfect place to begin.

“I

Photography by Bridget Lee J

This subject of self-policing is one that Kosmo has thought a lot about, especially as an artist. There exists a sort of surreptitious doctrine for how to go about a life and career, one that creeps under the surface until called out. Among these “stories,” Kosmo observed that, according to our cultural zeitgeist, the artist must suffer, be successful, but not too successful and pigeonhole themself into one passion with one identity. But Kosmo wanted to reject this idea. “We don’t really privilege joy very often in the art world,” he pointed out. “I want people to experience joy for a brief moment when they come to see us play.”

Kosmo has been a musician his entire life–writing songs, touring, running a recording studio (he has a new album in the works set to be released later this year), performing with a twelve-piece band and overall “being extremely playful, seeing where things go.” Because of this strong artistic foundation, Jonny Kosmo The Therapist’s philosophies share common ground with Jonny Kosmo The Musician’s. One key idea is that of play–not in a dismissive sense, but in the sense that imagination, creativity and not-knowing can be incredible tools for healing. “Inviting the spirit of play into our life when it comes to problems is such a powerful thing, and that’s kind of the space I like to hold with my clients,” Kosmo said. “Sometimes the world beats the play out of us.”

When asked to describe a memory that has stood out to Kosmo since Scribble’s opening, he reflected on the purpose of the work he has pursued in his life–from years dedicated to musicianship, to the counseling center and everything in between. “If we set all this up just for that one person to have that one moment of connecting, it’s all worth it,” he said. And that one person could be anyone, that one moment could be any number of things. Scribble is open to all, and offers a plethora of ways to connect, learn, grow and heal with the support of one another. “This is a we space,” Kosmo emphasized. “I want everyone to feel that this is their space.”

Photography by Nicky Giraffe

Photography from scribblecommunity.com

Special thanks to Michael Chadwick, Gretchen Booth, Ben Varian, Louise Chicoine, Megan Manowitz, Greg Hartunian and Chris Fallon.