About Me…

Growing up in the early 2000s, I rarely ever saw queer media content; most of the ones that I did see ended up being extremely harmful stereotypes. My parents were and are very accepting of the LGBTQIA+ community, but the people in my small town on the coast were not so accepting… and it resulted in me repressing elements of my identity for many years.

Due to this, even when I moved to Salem, I didn’t realize my queerness until I started college in 2018. I started to understand and accept my sexuality little by little. I had a lot of doubts, though, considering I was exploring this way later in my life. Part of this is due to the fact that I care more for others than I do for myself, so I never focused on that element of me for years and then when I did, I felt selfish for it. I always felt like because it was so late in life that I was faking it, but eventually I let the voices in my head stop telling me that.

(Trigger warning for the next part: mentions of car accident and injury)

When I finally accepted this part of myself, I was the driver in a roll-over car accident right before the pandemic hit… wherein the fact that I lived, let alone without paralysis, is incredible. The car was totaled and my injuries were bad, yet nothing in comparison to what it could have been. For the first time in my life, my sole task was self-care. I couldn’t worry about anybody else but me at this time, so this led to a lot of thinking.

In this time, I started to think about my gender identity. This was odd to me, but the thoughts were rolling in as I was watching tiktoks in my free time of people discovering their identities and accepting them. After 20 years, I was questioning who I was truly for the first time. Maybe part of it was the imposter syndrome, but I kept those thoughts to myself for an unbearable amount of time. I repressed it, even though every time I thought about my identity being non-binary it seemed to fit and how they/them pronouns felt better.

That is until I transferred to the University of Oregon and lived on campus. The most important part of my life was about to start and I decided that going by Jules and she/her and they/them pronouns would be the right choice. I didn’t do it right away, but I introduced the idea slowly. The more my friends used they/them for me, the more I started to realize I wasn’t faking it.

So… why do I mention all of this? Just so you get to know me?

When classes finally were in person again in 2021, I started to make art take the shape of my queerness and explore themes of gender dysphoria and identity. This started in the fall term when I made a seven piece work (that acts as one) entitled “Forgive and Accept.” This project utilized phrases I’ve thought throughout my life and words that people have used to describe me to reflect the past me and the (at the time, though still relevant) present me. I physically drew myself as I looked in the past and how I looked at that time and allowed myself to view the past me through a trauma lens and how I can accept that part of myself while celebrating this new me. I explored my dysphoria and trauma in different ways and it opened up the door for me to create more art based on my identity.

Ever since, I make more and more art about my gender identity and queer journey; both for myself and for others. Some of the content is celebratory, and some of it is dark. For example, there are two paintings I made called “You Don’t Get To Decide” and “Trapped Inside of My Own Mind” where I explore how constricting it feels to be someone you are not and display myself yet again in a past and current viewpoint. It’s graphic and bloody and brutal, but it shows the feeling of dysphoria and the things I thought about at the start of this journey.

The more art that I made in college, the more I started to realize how important it was for me to create work about my identity in the form of trauma and celebration; it became its own thesis and I realized that this is the reason why I wanted to make art. I want to make art that matters to people and to myself. I want to make art that helps others not feel so alone and normalize being transgender for future societies in generations.

Comics are very appealing to me and my hope is to one day be able to create a graphic novels about my journey in growing up queer. There are simply not enough queer stories in the world, and my goal is to one day create content that can help others not feel so alone like I had. I want to add to the number of diverse stories. No one should feel alone, and my hope is to get into contact with other diverse creators as well to create wonderful and inclusive art.

Thank you for visiting my page and for taking the time to read about me as an artist. I appreciate your support and hope you find art that you like! Feel free to come visit again and to share my page with others. :)