Multi-Hyphenate Artist
Within the last four years, sharpened through homelessness and social-injustice, I have reformed my artistry to express an acute vulnerability. A moment of catharsis became the pressure on my bones, more than enough to create the discourse. My work honors the sovereignty held in traditional storytelling, applying a dance to brick walls and singing martyred hymns of survival.
Instead of succumbing to critical life events, I filled my margins with drawings and my composition books with tales. Percussion was introduced in my adolescence, teaching me how to communicate in poly-rhythms. I layered myself just enough to navigate through social-anxiety, dysphoria, and gun-violence. Sacramento, my home, would prove to be uninhabitable for me as I became an adult. To be black in a conservative region and queer in a hostile climate, attracted rigidity against the feminine queer.
In my early adulthood, my canvas became the walls of my hometown. Fine arts was celebrated in the BIPOC community giving me my first set of murals to assist on. This would be short lived due to the growing pandemic of COVID-19. By then, I began sleeping on couches, motels and living in my car. I also began practicing music production and songwriting as a form of healing. Eventually, I enrolled in formal studies earning my associates in music production.
The ballroom community became a significant part of my life by this time. For years, I rejected vogue out of fear of injury. One of my sisters in-community, brought me to the pavement and told me to vogue. Her vigor told me that this was ancestral and innate to us. I would continue voguing largely self-taught. Vogue workshops and house support became a second point of action, but I found safety around those that I called family in-shelter. This safety would be the setting that allowed the topics of family and violence to move hastily, showing me the raw truth of queer identities. Towards the end of July 2024, my chosen family and I were attacked while speaking against an attack against our sister. We came from AAC 2024 with a renewed purpose to serve, yet we were met with the hostile background of our community. The growing attacks held no foundation for us, transphobia and biased politics took over our shelter, a temporary home. On the third day, I was attacked by three men, slammed on my hip, and kicked in the back, head and face. At this point there were no monoliths or fantasies to look towards. I realized why each story was different after meeting the violence that already existed in the scene. Survival is the book we read from and resilience is our narrator. My protest then lived in grievances calling for reforms, voguing and songwriting.
Music and dance became a primary focus of my self-expression and survival. The subject of my work is often an examination of conflicts from my experience, but a testament of unsolved resilience. The synthesis of visual and performance art are necessary in the continued refinement of my canvas work, which keeps me grounded in the knowledge that I am not designed for complacency.