How do we move beyond what we are “supposed” to be confined to, the “reality” that is presented to us? How do we liberate ourselves? This is a question that I ask myself with just about every piece that I make. I approach it as a queer person, knowing that queerness offers rich insights into imagining and enacting ways of life beyond what oppressive systems have dictated for us.
This tension, between embodying what feels freeing, and also feeling constrained by material conditions,shows up frequently in my work. At times my art shows blossoming, growth, and joy, and an attempt to protect and nurture those possibilities. This work is also often heavily inspired by the land for its life-affirming properties. Elsewhere, I rail against boundaries, and the work is an expression of anger, frustration and desperation that roils and explodes. While the above is how I would describe my art practice now, it has changed over the years. I started my career working with fiber, experimenting with how many knitting rules I could break. It was important for my work to feel rough and unpolished, as a rejection of capitalistic understandings of art as perfect product.Then I started teaching myself how to oil paint, having only done it a handful of times before. Painting allowed me freedom of movement in a way that I have not been able to achieve with fiber. A few years ago when I was in design school I designed a brush out of grandfather's beard lichen for one of my classes. I could not put it down, and ever since then I have been using it with ink. The lichen brush I made has become integral to my practice - it allows me to portray the essence of my emotions, and provides me with a physical connection to the land around me. Our relationship is a collaboration, one that imbues my work with organic elements beyond my control. This compliments the immediacy the ink demands. Our conversations remove pretense, there is only the present moment to experience and mark. Its wildness mirrors my queerness as I fight for possibilities beyond oppressive ways of being.
