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Do you find that your disability shapes the themes or subjects that come up in your work?
Yes, the purpose of making art for me is expression, reflection, connection and communication. Visual art has the power to communicate beyond words. Being someone with autism, brain fog, and mild speech impediments artwork is a means of deeper connection than verbal language. I draw, paint and write my relationship to sanity and existing in a body. That’s inextricably connected to my disabilities.
You describe your practice as “interdisciplinary.” What mediums or techniques do you find most effective in communicating your lived experience, and why?
Drawing and painting are amazing portals to my innerworlds! I’ve spent time in the past teaching art workshops to grade school kids and something I always told them is that visual art is something that no one else can tell you is right or wrong, good or bad. This is because it is an articulation of your own perspective and you are the only true judge of that. I love the anarchy of visual art for that, it transcends rules.
Could you walk us through a moment when a characteristic of disability or neurodivergence influenced a specific piece or artistic decision?
Yes! Putting the HD in my AUD (AUDHD = Autism combined with ADHD) I am never mentally in just one place at once. An extension of that is interdisciplinary artwork. I am in my best moments I can be both impulsive, playful and living in the moment with artwork and slow, methodical and deep in the careful detail of making. Sometimes a painting (Like Inattentive Observer) materializes over years, other times I fall into a hyper focus and come out with a massive work over a week or overnight.
How does being based on Coast Salish territories influence your work in terms of place, community, or cultural responsiveness?
Canada is a Colonial Occupation. I don’t even think of it as a country, it’s creation was non consensual. I understand this place as Coast Salish land wearing the hat of ‘British Columbia,’ but it has always been and will always belong to host nations. I hope colonialism is a bad weather that passes fast, and that eventually everyone everywhere remembers how to be in good relationship with land and place. My Dutch late great grandparents came to Turtle Island in the 1950’s from Ameland. Last summer I went to the east coast where they first landed, I got to slap my face with the ocean water there, and said “You guys shouldn’t of come here, but here I am!”
What role do your social platforms play in both building your art practice and connecting with communities who might see themselves reflected in your work?
Tumblr was the first place that helped me get my artwork out in the world online, back in the 2010’s as crusty street kid and newly out queer. I found a lot of people there before we all even had words for our identities and experiences who are still significant people in my life. I miss the older eras of internet I remember as millennial, before it was turned into a mind fracking mall.
As an artist now, a lot of reach I get is unfortunately through major techno-fascist platforms like instagram. It’s hard being a semi house bound person who relies on internet for connection, while also navigating how quickly the internet is changing right now. I think we all have a responsibility to decentralize from major platforms like google and meta before it’s too late.
Has your disability given you a unique perspective that you feel strengthens your art?
Definitely! As a person with dissociative tendencies, I am always dreaming and imagination is a refuge for me. I see my craziness as being completely connected to my artistic inclination. There’s an overculture that defines difference as bad that misses the way it can also be a gift. Is it that much of a stretch to see the richness and necessity of biodiversity as extending to the human mind?
What kinds of community support, whether online or offline, have been most valuable to you as a disabled artist?
People organizing, dreaming and talking about Covid Realism has had a major part in keeping me alive over the past five years, half a decade into the pandemic now. I owe a large part of my survival through my 20’s to punks and queers doing our own mental crisis support for eachother. I am also in awe of the robust, unmatched strength of informal mutual aid networks of disabled trans people in this era of time. They work with a love and survival strategy that holds up the entire world up.
Do you think audiences engage differently with your work knowing you’re disabled, and how do you feel about that?
Yes, through growing to accept my own Disabilities slowly as an adult I’ve had lots of time to notice the subtle shifts in the ways it makes people uncomfortable. It’s a sort of mirror where your reality brings up internalized fear of their own. Mortality, aging and the
fact that most people will be or are disabled at some point in their life. People project respectability onto people with invisible disabilities too with the expectation of masking and conformity. At the same time I think disruption is a function of art that isn’t exclusive to Disability Arts. In an ideal world disability compliments art without having to define it.
What’s the very first doodle or drawing you remember making as a kid?
My aunt taught me how to draw a smiley face when I was a toddler, by drawing it and smiling at me. I lost my shit with excitement and never stopped drawing from then on!
What’s the weirdest object, tool, or material you’ve ever used to make art?
I take out nail polish for making art more than is probably conventional.
What’s your guilty-pleasure art supply or stationery item you can’t resist buying?
Big fan of white gel pens over here, it’s the secret eraser for fineline pen and ink illustration, and a great highlighter for final touches.
If you could turn one of your illustrations into a wearable fashion item, what would it be?
I’ve actually been on a massive kick of drawing on clothing over the past year. I take thrifted garments and paint on them with bleach and then draw on them with permanent markers. I’ve been experimenting with methods and really enjoying seeing what lasts, fades and playing around with that. The temperance of casual clothing and wearable art fascinates me and I am considering a solo exhibition of these pieces in the future and selling them as works.
What’s a silly little ritual or habit you always do before starting to create?
I like to have one to ten coffees, putter around my apartment and sing songs to my cat!
If you could collaborate with any artist (alive, historical, or fictional), who would it be and what would you make together?
Right now I have a crush on James Baldwin, who wouldn’t? I would love to time travel to his France era and get an invitation to illustrate a novel cover.
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