As an artist that values ancestral veneration, I’ve come to consider play as a rite of passage. A gift that has been passed on to me, that I can pass on to others through my art whether by the creation, collaboration, or sharing of it. 

This is essentially the core of my practice of living and creating. It is a way creator, a road opener, a permission granter.

Cultivating a relationship to experimentation and play allows for baking — meaning that ideas, concepts, and creations must essentially take on a life cycle of their own, that they must be given the time and opportunity to come to fruition in their own time, without forcefulness or too much effort. It also allows for newness and the emergence of ideas, identities, and processes. 

This relationship keeps me in a sort of perpetual beginning state where everything is in practice mode, all the time. Creating a seamless thread where the experience of both life and time become art. 

Self Portraiture is a comprehensive, illuminating, deeply cathartic, and skill sharpening practice that allows me to play with and explore my identity and artistic practice, regardless of medium or mode of creation. 

Over the years it has become my living practice and primary thesis. It is my mode of communication, a portal taking me more deeply into self. The place I find healing, understanding, and evolution. The place where I find myself. 

Engaging in this practice has culminated in the development of a self documentation archive that spans over 10 years. Year over year, I explore different methods that include exploring alters, multiplication of self, other bodies, landscapes as landmarks, emotional deconstruction, embodiment of ideals, the self in motion, the uncurated self, and inviting the audience to name a few. 

By stepping into the duality of artist as subject and object, I am mirroring and multiplying this experience outward from artist to self to audience. Joining the them together by creating multiple layers of interpretation and understanding. 

Proving that the creative impulse is the currency that makes self actualization possible for all of us. 

The ritual of movement offers something unique to my practice as a whole. Through movement I am able to care for my muse by releasing and eliminating stagnancy, embracing fluidity in mind, body, and soul. Movement is what places me firmly within the body and in tandem, within the erotic, creating open channels for creativity to flow. Somatics are an enrichment exercise, tapping into the alchemy of change, opening the self to experience. Part of that experience is intimacy — with one’s art, with self, and with others. 

Movements I enjoy include pilates, yoga, and rope bondage.