I am a Queer, ecological and transcendental visual artist, care worker and ceremonialist living in Detroit/Waawiyaatanong, Anishinaabe territory. My art practice is an invitation to remember the forgotten networks between humans and the earth to heal our collective body, compost grief, and restore interdependency. I am informed by my work in arts education, land stewardship, youth collaboration, as a member of the artist cooperative Portal For, and through my work with natural fibers, earth pigments, and botanical inks. My practice is deeply rooted in process + ritualizes eco-social art-making as a tool for personal and collective liberation.  I am a resident of BULK Space, the Curatorial fellow at Room Project where I facilitate my program, Our Craft of Care and am a leader at People In Education where I lead our Art Education programs.

Artist Statement:

Through my practice, I address the ecofeminist parallels in the treatment of femmes and gender-expansive folks, and the mistreatment of the earth by toxic hierarchical systems like the patriarchy. I seek to reestablish forgotten and disrupted relationships and patterns between humans and the rest of creation that have been destroyed by these systems. I suggest our pathway towards this reintegration of humans and earth is to dismantle settler colonial anthropocentrism, heterosupremacy, and the constructed binary of gender within ourselves. I use my art practice as a portal/process of regulation and healing for myself from these systems, and offer it to others through ceremony to restore our collective ecological body and return to interdependence. 

This guiding philosophy of ecofeminism, leads me to an interdisciplinary practice that observes, engages and celebrates life in its various phases and forms. My work is an archive of continual search and discovery, a somatic remembering,  a way of engaging in and relating to the world, and a practice of composting grief. I come to this practice as a survivor living with PTSD, co-creating frameworks of care and belonging  to heal and chart out pathways towards repair for myself and those that engage with my work. 

My paintings and textiles are cosmological maps made with place based elements of my surroundings that breathe new life into these elements through abstraction and sacred geometry. In my sculpture work, I reference the dictated mathematical progression of plant growth, shell formation, and the fractal mechanics of seed pod dispersion to draw attention to their intelligent design. Referencing the traditions of Persian tapestry and kilims, I make my work with natural and recycled materials; wood, paper, metals, botanical inks and dyes and watercolors I make myself from foraged plants, charred willow bark, ochres, ash and stone. I consider the process an interspecies communion that deeply informs the form and function that the work will take. The colors derived from the plants,  the natural textures and materials nature creates all reflect the landscape and identity of the land I occupy. By honoring its origins, I’m unlocking hidden stories through an interspecies communion that reveals its future.

Curiosity, biomimicry, and connection are integral to my practice as it is a reflective and relational process. I seek a re-belonging to this land that can only be possible with deep study and rigorous listening. I do this for personal liberation and to move toward a regenerative way of being on this land and with others who also inhabit it.