In the spring of 2020, I created Exploration of Privilege. Earlier in the year, I inherited a tabletop wooden flat file cabinet from my parents’ basement. Scratched and marred, it smells of age, dust, and disuse. It once belonged to my great grandfather, Gramps, a complicated and contentious person in my ancestry. Within the drawers, I gathered artifacts and evidence of my identity—my heritage, life as a child, discovery of my queerness, compromises of adulthood, and privilege. I placed this cabinet in a sunny spot on the floor with a large cushion in front of it and invited viewers to examine and interact with the contents of my life.

 

I am driven by beauty, balance, color, shade, movement, mess, polish, and editing. I believe art can inspire and break hearts. Art can vibrate people to action, emotion, thought, and movement. I listen deeply—to my community’s stories said and unsaid, to the hum and rhythm of natural and human worlds, to my heart, and my gut—and look for clues of meaning in the space between thought. I am old enough to know that my work is serious play and that the way I move in, with, and through this world is as important as what emerges from my efforts. 

 

Through my many labels (queer, white, maker, parent, friend, leader) I find inspiration and direction. Using storytelling to see through different lenses, I explore the multiplicity of truths in myself and the world around me. I pull from my experience and skills as a graphic designer, art director, sculptor, painter, and writer to create multi-modal art.

 

Recent work includes a zine, Queer Solo Mom, that investigates my journey to becoming a parent, an edition of a tiny risograph-printed book, Pocket Survival Guide for Introverts, a large mixed-media puppet mask, and Dreamcasting—a ritual involving sigil creation for my hopes and dreams for the post-pandemic world. This winter I am showing a series of puppet masks in response to the COVID-19 pandemic at the University of Minnesota.