Artist Statement
My writing from 2007 to present has been produced for my blogs Herzing Luv and Lovely Leah Ruth. The blogging format enables me to produce a variety of content including photography, autobiographical prose, and poetry. I enjoy using the platform to entertain, inform, and advocate against stereotypes and stigmas of physical and mental illness. Sharing my art and writing with the public comes naturally to me. I have been journaling, drawing, and collaging since childhood and I have always felt compelled to share what I create.
In my childhood I wrote, edited, and produced a photocopied zine, Outside the Palace. These were given to friends and family, classmates, and teachers. In college, I studied Art, Writing, and Graphic Design at Goshen College and Columbia College Chicago, where I also began to share poetry on my own website. That led to writing, editing, and hand-binding my own book of poetry, Seriously, of which limited copies were distributed to friends and family. I moved to Oregon, where I studied Sculpture in addition to earning my BA in Literature & Writing at Marylhurst University. My sculptures were mixed media featuring paper or paper mâché, wire or wood, canvas, photographs, and text with books or rubber stamping. I continued to blog on my own web sites, exploring different formats and topics. Writing courses gave me a chance to explore writing short fiction for the first time.
Themes I have explored through the years and continue to consider today are wrapped in the mysticism of religion, addressing the complexity of relationships, mental and physical illness, and death. The nature of all of my artwork and writing was and is autobiographical. Influences have ranged from the industry of nature and science of the body; lyricists that move me like Sufjan Stevens and Linford Detweiller; to visits to art museums and foreign cities. My recent literary influences have been Sarah Vap's Winter Effulgences & Devotions, Happening by Annie Ernaux, Ocean Vuong's On Earth We Are Briefly Gorgeous, and the book Shapes of Native Nonfiction edited by Elissa Washuta and Theresa Warburton.
I received my MFA in Creative Writing in 2022 from Pacific Northwest College of Art at Willamette University. My current goals are to continue to write autobiographical prose and poetry, seek publication for my thesis, "Blankets," and contribute to Lovely Leah Ruth.
