Artist Statement

I am a playwright, theopoet, and drag performer committed to social praxis across artistic media. Moving toward justice requires transformation of thought and action: we must think differently about ourselves and the world and act in ways that encourage the flourishing of life. Encountering art and making art open up new thought patterns for us, while producing art, especially in collaboration, gives us opportunities for new ways of acting, making, and relating.

My poems, performances, and community workshops explore how power, especially relating to sexuality, gender, and imperialism, exists in our bodies and interacts with the sacred. I also write, preach, and lecture in religious and educational contexts on theopoetics, myth, feminist and queer theologies, theatre, and medieval visionary writing. My artistic and justice work are unified by being 1) ekphrastic, 2) historiographic, and 3) mythopoetic.

Ekphrastic. We always interpret art when we encounter it, but making art is also how we interpret art. We gain special understanding when we spend time with a piece, learning its form, and putting ourselves in conversation with it. I create in direct response to earlier artworks, be they 1970s gay underground films, surrealist paintings, or icons of Saint Barbara. I also use ekphrastic exercises in my teaching, having students write or move in response to artworks and text. Paying attention to “high” and “popular” culture shows us what matters to our communities. Attending to form in art hones our perceptive skills, observing the aesthetics of oppression in propaganda or redlined city designs. Ekphrasis strengthens how we “look” at the world.

Historiographic.  The past gives us identity and community while also allowing us to imagine a different future. I am a genderqueer artist. Innovative history-keeping has been key to my community’s survival in the wake of the AIDS crisis and worldwide LGBTQ discrimination. When it comes to the past, I am always looking for new communities and collaborators to learn from and explore with. History’s pastoral role shows us how and why we come to be, gives a sense of belonging. As a prophetic, history reveals possibilities for family, community, and ecologies from the past to denounce what is broken now and announce what “others” have been and therefore could be.

Mythopoetic. The stories we tell and the rituals we perform say real things about our society. Many myths teach imperialistic, misogynistic, racist, ableist, and homophobic lessons, but they can powerfully subvert these. Anyone who wants to change culture must understand how myths operate, and use their power in ethical and liberative ways. As a writer, I reimagine mythic and historical figures: Circe the witch, Deborah, Delilah, Medea, Julian of Norwich, the nun Hrotsvitha, and the poet Orpheus from a queer/feminist perspective. My performances put myth into action, inviting audiences into mythscapes where their defenses fall down so new ideas can take root.  By telling stories we’ve inherited in new and dynamic ways, we shape the stories that have shaped us. In these new tellings we dream new dreams, act out new narratives, and expand our imaginations so we can bring forth a just society.