I have spoken and guest taught at art schools, universities, conferences, community centers, rallies, and schools. Content present ranges from day-long visiting lectures to a semester-length courses with one-on-one time for critiques with students.
CURRENT TALKS
My Artist Talk focuses on my experiences as an interdisciplinary artist who constructs visual narratives and installations that memorialize obsessional lives. I use my body of work to discuss my approach to content, technique , materials, and self-producing.
How does fantasy fuel the way we interact and perform with objects in our daily lives? In Object/Fetish, I examine the underpinnings of the suspension of disbelief and how objects are and can be fetishized in everyday life.
COURSES UNDER DEVELOPMENT
Performing the Problemagic
Calling something “problematic” has become a shortcut to label something as oppressive without doing any work. But where some see problematic, I see problemagic: an opportunity to generate dialogue in a world demoralized by failing institutions. In this studio class we will mine the problemagic and autobiography as source material for original performances.
Constructing Beauty + Terror
In this hands on studio class we will explore different techniques and the fissures of our shared world to create objects, puppets, sculptures, and installations that occupy a precarious border between beauty and terror
PAST TALKS
In The New American Vaudeville, I contextualized underground world of contemporary short-form puppet and object cabarets for adult audiences through my work with the Puppet Slam Network from 2005 to 2016.
In the 90’s and 2000’s, I frequently spoke as an advocate for first in the nation legislation to protect LGBTQ students in Massachusetts public schools.
(Top L) Track 16, (Top R) Sean Dennie, design: Valeska Populoh,
(Mid L) Steve Gunther, (Mid R) Marsian De Lellis,
(Bottom L) Jen Lynn, photo: Doug Wong, (Bottom R) Associated Press
