April 18, 2025
In grad school, classmates and faculty called my work “punk,” and I liked this, but also felt it was an inaccurate description if the specific work didn’t relate directly to punk music. Since, I’ve had time to sit with this and think differently.
My work starts with writing, and is informed by the cadences of music, movies and tv shows, and choreographed dance. Social environments around music, movies and tv, and dance were where I first experienced collective emotional responses, so when I make I think in terms of the flow and interruption of, and distraction from, time. I first recognized formal experimentation when listening to punk music, but writing taught me how to formally experiment on my own, with the tools I had. This literary experimentation, particularly with poetry, also taught me how to create and work within constraints in order to surrender control to form, which helped transition me into experimental performance and visual art.
Generally, creating a new work means developing a new skill. When I formed my punk band Black Boots, I had written and sung my own music but had never performed with a band, so creating our performance together was also for me to learn this process. When we recorded our EP—another first for me. When I started building my conlang, Hatnahans, I had never developed a language to that degree, and followed steps from David J. Peterson’s book on the subject. My Tap Dance Drums are the first sculptures I’ve ever made, and for the performance Foot Vox, I’d never electronically manipulated sound before. When I create videos, I try a new effect I haven’t previously learned how to do.
The punk in my art comes from my interest in being a newcomer or amateur at something. Punk often shines because it’s an expression so urgent it can’t wait to polish or perfect itself. I’m interested in work deriving from this particular concentration of energy, intention, and the unknown: a recipe for novelty.