I have found it difficult to write for extended periods of time since moving from the West Coast to the Washington D. C. area in 2019. I’ve moved six times and I’ve had to contend with overwhelming harassment, unlike anything I’ve ever experienced. When I have felt unable to sit and write at my desk, I have made these paintings on paper that I call automatic essays. This allows me to write whatever I want, often things that wouldn’t be appropriate in any context, writing continuously until I have completed a train of thought.
My practice draws on art I made prior to focusing on curating and writing. In the early aughts, I had a handcrafted jewelry line made from torn magazines; I also made small paintings with poured nail polish. My designs were mostly sold to friends and at RAG (Residents Apparel Gallery) in San Francisco’s Hayes Valley. I studied drawing, painting, and printmaking with Theta Belcher, Rupert Garcia, and Patrick Surgalski and have an art degree from San José State University, where I also learned design from Lanning Stern and music appreciation from the late Joe Hodge.
Making art now has been a way to contend with a jumble of feelings about the present-day politics of love. These messy ruminations include ideas about being a writer and a living descendant of Shakespeare’s largely unrecognized muse and ghost writer — a small detail about me that has contributed to my harassment — in a time when women are still fighting for civil rights hundreds of years later, and in the wake of the Supreme Court dismantling Roe v. Wade, protections that ran the length of my life. Add an ongoing global public health crisis and everyday mass violence, such as the January 6 Insurrection at the United States Capitol and pouring out paintings merely seems more expeditious than writing at this point. I started with the idea to write essays that could only be read in the dark. Many of these paintings feature phosphorescent paint, activated with sunlight.
Materials: Poster board or craft paper with tempera, Sharpie, nail polish, acrylic paint, acrylic marker, water-based house paint, house primer, adhesive letters, plastic gems, glitter, sugar, chalk, crayon, highlighter, tape, glue, chain, safety pins, crystals; 28” x 22” (vertical paintings, single panel), 22” x 28” (horizontal paintings, single panel)
