sometimes i forget that i've done some really cool things with art
a commission for the local cancer research center's diversity and inclusion board. they chose me to represent the queer community of my city, leaving me pretty much free reign to create whatever i felt like for it. this was the finished product. it's 9 feet wide and 7 feet tall and i hand-sewed and painted it on the floor of my apartment over the span of 3 months. if you zoom in you'll notice that i also gave it top surgery, and stitched the tools i used to make it into the piece itself. i found it symbolically important to not trim or cut away any material-- all the thread seen is the thread i allotted for it, which is what gives it its sort of unkempt look. the basis of the piece is a partial recreation of block #3249 of the aids quilt, which, like my piece, includes the words "forever remember me as loving you." under the sewn-on fragments of the block recreation are statistics about anti-trans legislation, healthcare and lifespan facts, hidden anecdotes from my own life as a trans woman, prayers and beggings for the ability to live to see 60, and fragments of poetry written by sapphos.
a commission for the jesuit headquarters in rome that i was given the opportunity for through my college. myself and 4 other printmaking students were tasked with making larger-than-life 5'x8'(?) prints using various methods of printmaking, reflecting the core values and missions of the jesuit organization. i was tasked with representing migration, transience, and refuge, and this was the result. permanently installed at the jesuit curia in the vatican city.
an incredibly personal piece depicting a tube of paint nailed violently to a canvas coated completely in the entire tube that was then nailed to it. a reflection on the exhaustion one feels after a traumatically violating event.
this doesn't really show the marginalia all over the piece but the whole thing is sort of a pained manifestation piece. a last-ditch effort at creating art immediately before i started transitioning. i drew a picture of me, as i wanted to be, in a field of flowers with wind blowing, then burned my face off. i attached the matches i used for the burning to the bottom of the work itself. after i declared it as a finished work and presented it to the class that i made it for, i burned the piece in its entirety.
a portrait i made digitally of my then-roommate/lover sarah.
monotype print. i was present when my grandpa died. he spent 101 years of his life able to recall facts, information, and memories with pinpointed accuracy. we knew he was getting close to the end when he started to forget things. his last two days were largely spent in confusion.