Support the Youth Pride Coalition at the SF Pride Parade!

Come out and show support for the Youth Pride Coalition in the San Francisco Pride Parade on Sunday, June 26th at 10:00 AM!  The Youth Pride Coalition float is the only participating float from Marin County and consists of a number of young, amazing queer youth!  Hope to see you there :)   

In the Studio: SF Pride Design

This week, I have been working on a design for the Next Generation Scholars float for the San Francisco Pride Parade. I decided to work in watercolor, guache and collage. The former two mediums are materials I haven't worked with in a VERY long time (since undergrad). My hand is shakey and I am a bit rusty, but it has been an inspiring experience to reacquaint myself with an old time favorite. After this project, I am excited to see how I will incorporate this medium into my current practice!

Openings: Blank Map

Collage of photos I took at the Blank Map performance.

On Friday, I had the pleasure of seeing a black performance collective entitled Blank Map at the Dance Mis-sion Theater in SF.  The collective consists of artists/dancers/musicians/scholars Tasha Ceyan, Brontez Purnell, Adee Roberson, Keyon Gaskin and Wizard Apprentice.  A mix of abstract dance and music, the performance, for me, transcended the contemporary moment to an alternative spiritual space that deeply considers the body in all its states with equal weight and validity.

The tempo of experimental movement switched from tap dance, drumming and choreographed group dance to settle gestures, shadow play and performers leaving the stage/hiding from the audience.  All stages of the body (visible, invisible, speaking, silent, fast, slow, together, apart) were given equal weight as they informed each other.

I particularly enjoyed the moments when Ceyan and Brontez linked up together in movement across the stage and in shadow play.  The two bodies made me think a lot about Afrofuturism in the sense that I felt like I was witnessing energies of the past in present embodiment moving together towards a future where comfort is located in the unfixed and the idea of constant change.  This is what I took from the piece as performance is, for me, always in conversation with the spiritual.

Overall, it was a beautiful piece that has me thinking about queer spaces that are reaching through and beyond dualities, polarities and the suggested linearity of time to provide a glimpse of how bodies can exist confidently in their entirety.  The recent hate crime massacre at Pulse Nightclub in Orlando has also informed my continued meditation on Blank Map.  I am thinking about the mediation, restraint and murder of queer bodies (and in particular, queer black and brown bodies-- including queer Muslim bodies) through erasure and hyper-visibility.  I am also thinking a lot about narrative and the control of that narrative in both situations. 

I am still digesting, writing and thinking about both the performance and the tragic event in their complexities.  At the moment, in my meditation, Blank Map is serving as one site of many where queer black bodies can exist at their intersections in their entirety with power over and through their narratives.   

Post-Grad: The Studio Change

My old studio at SFAI and my beautiful, intelligent and hardworking mom helping me move.  The majority of my resourcefulness comes from the examples set by her and the rest of my family. 

Here you have a before of my post-grad studio change.  I went from the luxury of a large (well, large for me) studio with concrete floors and walls I could do almost anything to.  Since graduation from school, I have had to downsize my work, put my most important pieces in storage and go back to my original studio- my crowded bedroom that also doubles as my personal library.

I am constantly teaching myself to be comfortable with discomfort.  Over the years, what that has meant for me is being OK with throwing possessions away and giving cherished items to Goodwill, sleeping in a variety of spaces over an extended period of time (a couch, the floor, a small bedroom), and working under a variety of conditions, whether I am holding down multiple jobs, living in a two-bedroom apartment with four people, or being resourceful to make ends meet. 

My studio time and space is no different.  For a period, my studio was in my head and my work was merely thoughts, sketches and undeveloped film.  The work happened when it could.  Most recently, I had the luxury of devoting every day, every minute to my work in a large studio space at school where my pieces have gotten as big as 10 feet. 

All this to say that one thing I am embracing (that all artists embrace) is the idea of flexibility, that the work must happen under any condition (even if it is only able to take the form of ideas, visualizations and small sketches).  The important thing, for me, is that I am always adapting and putting my work first in all circumstances. 

So today, my room is where it’s at.  No, it’s not ideal, but it works, and I am grateful, because private space can be hard to come by for many.

My mantra: Move forward, stop and readjust, keep going and stop to adjust again.  Adjust as many times as you need to, just keep moving.  

Current temporary studio space, complete with dog, altar and TOO many books.