As an autodidact, my interdisciplinary practice has been nourished by the myriad ways in which I have been able to support myself. I lived in New York City for two decades where I worked simultaneously as an artist, a fashion designer, and an unlicensed self-taught sustainable architect.

My first major work as a visual artist was a project called Survival Quilting, an immersive textile-based installation environment. It was created primarily by shredding and reconstituting used beverage containers and creating housing from styrofoam packaging, pursuing my obsession with repurposing materials otherwise destined for landfill. With Pink Butch, I continue to engage with narratives surrounding the environmental crisis, as well as pursue a textile-craft based visual arts process but this time moving into more lyrical territory by exploring a future world improved by queerness. This project pursues the embodiment of the latent politics of materiality and hand-crafted labour that my work imbues.

My move to Montreal in 2018, and my more recent move to the Laurentians, herald a time in my career where I am able to focus on bringing my ideas to life outside of commercial applications. Survival Quilting was my first project to receive public funding (CALQ & CAC) and dissemination in Canadian arts institutions (Art Gallery of Burlington and OBORO). While I have been making art all my life, I am in some ways an emerging artist. To receive funding from the Canada Arts Council at this key moment in my career would be invaluable, enabling me to not only produce new work for exhibition but also to further explore new material processes and modes of thinking. Pink Butch is an ideal vehicle to display my technical craft while engaging with a more personal and conceptual creation process. I firmly believe that the visual arts landscape of Canada has a place for the visions of a queer elder garbage picker like myself.