projects
What i’ve been up to
Wait…what are you? Series
In the “Wait…what are you?” series (a question all too familiar to mixed race people), I am making sense of why I hate the word ‘exotic’ and resented the experience of being a woman for a good portion of my life. I re-examine female characters from stories I passively internalized in childhood through my gay, mixed race lens. These womens’ individual voices and feelings were not included in the stories I heard growing up –only the actions of others in positions of power over them. In this series, I undertake giving their perspectives (and my own) authority.
Printed on fabric like tattoos on skin, symbols that represent my heritage, alongside Greek mythology, queer culture, and pop culture cover my woodblock self-portraits. With this storytelling, I seek to remove the passive acceptance of accessible exoticism and redefine being a mixed race woman who is white-adjacent. I uplift and add to the collective story of thousands of women’s voices that came before mine - many that were silent or silenced throughout history and today. I seek to shift the implied heteronormative male gaze out of my work and widen the viewfinder to include my life’s intersections of gender, race, and sexuality.
I began my series with Shahrazad, who is looking directly at the ‘male gaze’ and using the tools she has to stay alive. Her cleverness in storytelling is often exalted, but I wanted to draw attention to what she didn’t get to say living in fear of death every night. Next, I worked with Medusa. She could not overcome the violence of men and bears the burden of its consequences forever in her body. Third, is Persephone who suffered death, but also used it by accepting it into her seasonal shifts through life, becoming Queen of the Underworld. Finally, I reimagined Barbie. My gay femme icon who helped me understand my true self as a gay woman in my childhood. She is choice and celebration of being in her own power and community.
Das Schaufenster Gallery Artist Talk
Shahrazad, 2021, woodcut on fabric 6 x 4 ft
Panel discussion
Untold Stories: AOC (Artists of Color) & Art at Bainbridge Island Museum of Art. Invited Artists Tatiana Garmendia, Nikki Jabbora-Barber, and Carina del Rosario talk about their experiences as Artists of Color, the impact of their ethnicities on how their art is perceived, and what influences their creation of art.
Black Swan Project
My best friends, Niko, Troy, Jesse, and I all brainstormed how we could contribute our individual (and very different) skills to a common goal and arrived at the Black Swan Project. Black Swans are rarely seen in the wild, to the point where many say they don’t exist. The same is often true for people of color who are told their traumas are not real. For us, seeing a Black Swan represents the beauty of acknowledging this trauma and moving from a place of invisibility or shame to a place of empowerment.
To start off our project, we plan to raise money for Haymarket Pole Collective (HMPC) through the sale of a limited edition of woodcut prints. 80% of profits will be donated to HMPC (20% covers material fees). HMPC is an organization of sex workers for sex workers, focusing on advocating for safe and equitable home--and workspaces for Black, Brown, Indigenous, and or LGBTQIA2S+ sex workers. The collective is currently piloting a program where they match QTBIPOC clinicians with sex workers of color and provide free therapy services for one year.
Black Swan prints are available on the art for sale page. 80% of profits will be donated to Haymarket Pole Collective (20% covers material fees).
Artists discuss cultural appropriation
In conjunction with Seattle Print Arts, I coordinated a webinar series consisting of 4 virtual artist conversations presented by Seattle Print Arts and facilitated by Cleo Barnett, Executive Director of Amplifier. In each conversation, cultural appropriation is discussed from the perspectives of each artist. Artists include: Gregg Deal, Tracy Rector, Jude Vesvarut (Letronik), Tann Parker, Nisha Sethi, and Monyee Chau. You can view the series, ‘Drawing the Line: Influence, Inspiration, and Appropriation’ here.
Mural
Charleena Lyles #sayhername was murdered in Seattle. She had called to report a burglary. Her two children were home with her. She was pregnant. I was commissioned to paint this mural during the height of the Seattle #BlackLivesMatter in the summer of 2020. This mural was based off of protest posters I had screenprinted. If you are interested in getting a poster or would like other posters, email me. They are free of charge - just help me with shipping.
Community botanicals
November - February 2020
I put out a call via instagram, facebook, and email to friends, acquaintances, and strangers to send me an image of a flower or plant that meant something to them. Each print came from a story. Ranging from ‘peonies make me smile’ to ‘Joey bought me a carnation on our first date when I was 16’. I enjoyed learning about each memory or feeling someone had associated with a botanical. I displayed them collectively in my solo exhibition, ‘Growing Vertically, Together’. Ironically, this was the last in-person exhibition I had before covid lock down in Seattle. Each card- sized print is made using a single block woodcut with letterpress hand-set type. You can purchase remaining woodcuts from my art for SALE page.
Community wallpaper
Seattle Art Museum (SAM) invited me to participate in a public engagement workshop to tie into the Morris exhibition on display. I chose to invite guests to seek out a botanical they enjoyed from the Olympic Sculpture Park and sketch, carve, and print their design on to tyvek wallpaper. As the wallpaper grew longer and longer, we hung and installed it as temporary public art ‘wallpaper’.