Who am I?
I am an artist and creative mentor who explores sense perception.
The senses are bound up in the intellectual history of Western culture, and are frequently the stage upon which definitions of selfhood are drawn, unevenly, on different bodies through different moments in time. Sensation is our native language. It is what weaves us into relationship with the world. The gesture of sensation is interdependence and reciprocity. Our bodies know this, yet culture has taught us a different story. The work of art-making, for me, is to first notice the presence of that story, and then to feel my way out of it, drawing and sounding out new modalities for us all to explore.
In my mentorship work, I guide people through explorations of their creative selves through bringing awareness to sense perception as a creative act. As we develop the capacity to witness our own experiences, we gain the capacity to engage with our sense perception with intention, awakening to our innate creative potential and power.
My art practice is informed by research into cultural history, philosophy, metaphysics, human and non-human sense studies, speculative and feminist ecology, and multi-species research. This substack is a space where I can share more of that research through exploratory writing. Writing is, for me, a material practice. In language we hear echoes of utterances made by our ancient humanity coming into first contact with the world. In this way writing, too, can bring us back to our senses.
Why this substack?
What motivates us? What are the engines that drive our imaginations? Where do our curiosities come from and in what ways do they recur in the different behaviors and endeavors we take up at various stages of our lives? From what do we derive a sense of meaning? How do we think with our whole bodies, how do our whole bodies think with the world? These are the questions I encounter and explore through my creative practice and as a creative mentor. I have created this substack to share these explorations beyond the studio, class, and mentorship setting, to give these ideas a larger space to roam and be shaped by the conversations that may evolve in response.
Why subscribe?
This substack will be an invocation, a conversation with those mercurial gods of creative practice, those portals of discovery, passage, and change. It will explore and experiment with ways to approach them, embody them, and be an invitation for you to join in.
Why pay?
Your paid subscription goes a long way to keep me going, to keep supporting a life devoted to creating and sharing meaning and beauty despite all of the structures that say such a life is not possible.
Thank you for being a part of it.
