I don’t need to tell you that the world is full of suffering. We see more of it every day. During times like these, it’s easy to feel hopeless and powerless. It’s hard to keep fighting.
My new series is my Survival Series. Each animal and plant depicted is an endangered species, and the subjects were inspired by real queer people who have been lost to violence. The animals hold up signs with messages meant to speak to our difficult cultural moment while providing hope for a way to live with mindfulness in the face of our difficult circumstances.
When our very existence is threatened, living fully and joyfully as our unapologetic queer selves is an act of resistance in and of itself. Let's face the coming year with that kind of defiance. Let's be too stubbornly hopeful to let our faith in a better future die.
Help me turn this art series into a 2026 Wall Calendar by supporting my Kickstarter.
Each month I send cute stickers to my sticker club. This month, an exclusive sticker is included. Penelope the Rabbit is a character I created for a local Tacoma shop, Teaching Toys and Books. She is a shop mascot who encourages local kids to get invested in their favorite books.
You don’t want to miss out on future exclusive stickers! Sign up for my Sticker Club today on my Patreon!
I'm sure you're heard about Chamel Abdul Karim. He recorded a video in a Kimberly-Clark warehouse, saying, “If you’re not going to pay us enough to live or afford to live, at least pay us enough not to do this.”
He then lit a roll of toilet paper on fire, and the entire warehouse went up in flames.
In the wake of this warehouse fire, there have been others. And I have been inspired to create protest art in the same vein.
Karim said, “Pay us enough not to do this.”
So I am painting “this” on tissue boxes, a nod to the first fire at the Kimberly-Clark warehouse.
A CALL TO ACTION:
Do you live near Tacoma, WA? I need your tissue boxes! You can bring them to my craft fair this weekend, at King’s Books. Or send me a DM and we can set up a time for a drop off.
MY VISION FOR THIS PROJECT:
I want to paint each kleenex box the color of flames, with the word “this” on each one. Then I will stack all the tissue boxes together to symbolize the way we make a difference when we take collective action.
INSTALLATION:
Do you have a storefront window or space where I can install this protest art? Reach out to me, and let’s make it happen!
At first, ARC Raiders wasn’t even on my radar. I received it as an unexpected gift around the holidays, hooked with the promise that I’d be taking care of a chicken named Scrappy. It is so much more than that.
ARC Raiders is video game, an extraction shooter set in a post-apocalyptic future. You load into a map and have up to 30 minutes to run around looting containers and completing quests before you travel back to safety underground. “ARC” are the sentient machines on the surface who are trying to kill you, but they are not the only threat. Other players are raiders on the map with you. They could be friendly or hostile. Often raiders prefer to hunt fellow raiders, and the map devolves into a pvp competition.
I knew off the bat that ARC Raiders was too violent for me. When raiders would shoot at me, I’d run away. I died many times.
Then I realized I could talk to other raiders in my proximity. So I opened up my mic.
The game has a mechanic where first you are “downed.” While you are down, all you can do is crawl around and talk. It is up to another player to help you, but they could just as easily revive you or knock you out (and loot your bag).
Back in January, while I was doing a mission, two raiders got the drop on me and a friend. We didn’t even see these guys coming. They knocked out my buddy, and–as they came over to knock me out–I pleaded for my life. I told them I was new to the game and that I would surrender my weapons; I just wanted to live.
I had begged for my life dozens of times before, but it made no difference. That changed on this day. When these guys revived me, I was too stunned to know what to do. When they dropped my buddy’s weapons at my feet so I could return them to him, I was even more taken aback.
We became friends. We even met in real life to play board games and go out to local events.
These days I load into maps, equipped with ARC-killing builds, and I run around finding people in trouble and helping them out. Yesterday I met two people in a solo lobby who were so used to backstabbers that they struggled to believe I was genuinely nice, even after I saved them from ARC without wanting any of the loot from the wreckage.
I offered to show them around and teach them about the loot locations on the map that I know about. The girl asked nervously, “You’re not going to just lead me off somewhere and kill me, are you?”
I shook my head in laughter, “There is nothing I can say to convince you to trust me, but if you want to follow me, I’d love to show you what I know.”
They followed. I let them borrow my gear to access a hidden room. I ran around the map with them, showing them hidden loot locations and teaching them all the tricks about the map I knew.
At the end, I took one of my favorite items out of my inventory, a Doodly Duck “trinket” that I’d found three of. I split the stack into three and gave them each one of the duckies for keepsakes.
“I can’t believe this just happened,” the guy laughed. “I’ve been so tired of combat, I just wanted friendlier lobbies.”
The real loot is the friends you make along the way.
The art featured in this newsletter is Doodly Duck, an original painting: watercolor and ink on 5x7 inch hot press watercolor paper. Email me for purchase inquiries.
This writing first appeared in my newsletter. Sign up here and never miss an update.
I don’t know why, but when my body feels crappy, my mental health tanks as well. I’ve been too sick to leave the house for almost a full week now. In the midst of body aches, runny noses, and coughing fits, a dark voice has seeped into my mind.
“You are not loved,” this dark voice says. “You are despicable and pathetic and weak and don’t deserve to be taken care of.”
But I know better than that.
I choose community as an act of resistance.
On healthy days it is easy to feel like I am a part of society, that I have earned my place through acts of service or a sunny disposition. But true shadow work happens when my inner critic comes for my sense of self worth with claws out.
Choosing community when I have nothing to offer but unmet needs is when it is hardest for me. I want dignity, respect, admiration. But more than any of that, I want to survive. And survival is often not very pretty.
In the ugliest corners of my soul, I weep and grind my teeth and plant seeds for some new form of future to grow.
I am becoming.
We are becoming together.
I don’t know what lies on the other side, but in this moment, in my hour of need, I know: I am not alone.
GRATITUDE:
Thank you Linda and Daisye for signing up for my monthly Sticker Club.
Thank you Todd, Jenna, Wendy, Linda, Kendra, Liz and Roxanne for sending me gifts via Venmo to help me in my hour of need.
Thank you Robin and Rex for helping me fix my broken shop on my website.
Thank you Darcy, Rose and Eli for running to the store for me to get kleenexes, cough drops and groceries.
I feel rich with people who are looking after my well being… and I cannot wait until I find myself in a place where I am able to pay it forward.
This text first appeared in my newsletter. Never miss an update & sign up here.
On the last day of 2025, we adopted Kelpie from the Tacoma Humane Society. She is an affectionate two-year-old long-haired cat. She was picked up as a stray, but now that she is in our home, all she wants to do is cuddle with the kids.
What we did not realize at the time was how many medical needs she had. In the first weeks of the year, I rushed her to the pet ER and the the vet to make sure that she was going to be ok, worried that we’d lose her before we had a chance to properly love her.
The worst of it is over, but she still has ongoing medical needs that require medicine and tests at the vet. To add insult to injury, she has to wear a cone of shame until she heals. The indignity!!
So, to help pay for her medical bills, I created a new Cone of Shame series!
You can buy the notecards, art prints and original paintings from this series in my online shop--all purchases help to pay for Kelpie's medical bills. Click here to shop!
My new love interest was a non-binary boy I met on a dating app. His profile pic looked just like Elliott from Stardew Valley, who is my favorite video game husband. So that’s how I added him to my cell phone. Every time he texted or called me, it said I was getting a message from Elliott.
He asked me out. We had plans to get together Friday for our first date. Things happened. We needed to postpone our date. We decided to meet Sunday instead.
He said he was out of money. I reassured him that I didn’t care about money. So we did something that was free.
He didn’t communicate well all weekend. Late on Sunday he finally confirmed plans. So I put on a cute outfit and drove through the rain, giddy with anticipation.
I had really good feelings about this one! Our values seemed to be in alignment on so many things. We had common interests and similar temperaments. And he is queer—so I knew I wouldn’t be judged in that area.
But when I met him, I barely recognized him. The person standing in front of me was about 5-10 years older and 50-100 pounds heavier than his profile pics.
The sad part about this is—he was attractive! I didn’t understand why he would put such outdated photos on his profile, and it instantly gave me the “ick” because it felt so dishonest.
Even though he works for a company that gives him free cookies all the time, he didn’t even pack a snack.
I spent about an hour with him, came home, and immediately analyzed the date with a friend. The more we talked about the minor details, the less I trusted this person and his intentions. My friend helped me see that the “date” felt more like an attempt at hooking up.
So I reported him to the dating app for dishonest photos, changed his name in my phone to his boring human name, blocked him, then played a new cozy video game.
The game is Sun Haven. I think I might romance Doctor Wornhardt. He has a pet mouse and likes windmills. And is already offering to feed me a meal, even though I only have two hearts with him.
Now that is the kind of treatment I deserve!
My date didn’t stick, but these cute stickers will!
I revamped my Patreon to turn it into a monthly sticker club. Sign up today, and I’ll throw in some extra goodies for the new year.
Treat Yourself!
creating storybook illustrations in watercolor and ink
This writing originally appeared in my newsletter. Sign up here & never miss an update.
We always knew this was going to be a hard four years. But here we are, coming down to the end of the first November, and the losses are devastating.
I know you feel this. I have seen the look in your eyes, felt the tenor of your soul, hugged you to ward off the creeping cold. It can be hard to get out of bed some mornings. Some nights are plagued by insomnia. Some moments the only thing that keeps us going is the stubborn refusal to quit.
We are still here.
That is worth something.
Last week I wanted to work on new art but instead I could barely get out of bed. I’ve had craft fairs the past few weekends, and friends have shown up to ask with all sincerity how I’ve been doing.
“I’m happy to be here,” I say, because it is true. I am happy to be sharing my art, to be in community.
“I’m happy to be here,” I say, because I don’t want to talk about my pain. I don’t want to tell you about the despair that cannot be named. I don’t want to tell you how frustrated I am that I see all the good work I could be doing but that I feel too drained and burned out to create the very oxygen that I need in order to breathe through these next few years.
“I’m happy to be here,” I say, because if I were to say that I am okay it would be a lie.
But the universe has had some surprises in store for me…
Surprised By A New Place To Live
This weekend I vended at Tacoma Is For Lovers, at Kings Books in Tacoma. A dear friend of mine came and we chatted about how nice it would be to be neighbors. I had to move just outside of Tacoma in 2021 and have yearned to return to the city ever since. I told her to keep an eye out in her neighborhood, in case any rentals went on the market, but she sighed–everything that goes up for rent is far too expensive.
After my friend walked off, a woman in dark clothes glanced at me, a coy look in her eyes. “I didn’t mean to eavesdrop,” she said, “but my wife and I will be moving in July, and we want to rent out our house.”
Her wife walked over–a woman who dresses like a piece of living artwork–and we chatted about the rental idea. I asked them to put me at the top of their list. And I was so overwhelmed at the promise and hope of future safety and happiness that I felt like I had to sit down to catch myself.
Surprised By A New Friend
In my free time, I play a lot of Marvel Rivals. To find people to play with I often go to the Marvel Rivals discord server, but it is very much a mixed bag of personalities. Online gamer culture can be toxic.
I stumbled across a Daredevil player, and we ran a few games together. Drawn in by my wholesome energy, he invited me to his personal discord server and I started getting to know his tight knit group of friends, most of whom are about 20 years younger than I am. For the most part, I feel like the big sister to the group, and as time has gone on, they have embraced me with such tenacity and warmth that it has surprised me.
There is a girl on the server as well—she plays Sue Reed, the Invisible Woman—and she and the Daredevil guy are going through the stages of starting to date. Watching this young love blossom is somewhat healing. It gives me hope that new loving and healthy romances are possible.
Meanwhile, Daredevil guy has been respectfully and intentionally pursuing a friendship with me. I’ve been so burned this last year by guys only showing interest in me when they have ulterior motives that it has taken me aback quite a bit. But whenever I get anxious, he intuits my anxiety and tells me that he is not going anywhere. Whenever I feel pain, he tells me he can’t fathom how someone so sweet as me could have ever been treated poorly. And when I tell him it’s good for me to have a friend like him, he tells me I’d better get used to it, because all of his friends love me too. They all want me around. For a long time.
In the quiet recesses of my home, I find myself gradually coming to believe them. While I am up late at night, warding off despair with video games and online chatter, I find myself gently and sincerely happy to be here.
The artwork featured at the top of this newsletter is my original watercolor painting We Get By With A Little Help. You can purchase an art print of it here.
This writing originally was published in my newsletter. Sign up here and never miss an update.
October is my birthday month, and I have lots of little things planned for it. I’m taking the girls on a “date” to get sheik haircuts. I have my eye on several geeky conventions and meetups. And I have dates set with friends to meet for tea or go out for lunch.
After a busy spring and a summer of busting my butt at craft fairs, however, the biggest thing I have planned this October is that I intentionally stepped back from doing other work so that I could make new art.
I have so many paintings I have been dreaming of making. I planned a new card for my Jewish Holiday series. I’ve been researching vintage photos to use for my Affectionate Animal series. I want to paint more pride flags. As this week started, however, I had a brand new idea.
A new idea?? I’m already overloaded with paintings that I need to complete! And yet… all weekend long, all I could think about were the nuts and bolts of this new project. I looked up source images and planned out the basic structure of the paintings. It is not a small project.
I don’t have time for this. It is incredibly inconvenient and it will take every ounce of creative energy inside of me to get it done. And yet? Researching and brainstorming these new paintings makes me feel like I’m coming alive. It feels rejuvenating.
So, I guess, we will see where October takes my paintings, one stroke of inspiration at a time.
This writing first appeared in my newsletter. Sign up here & never miss an update.
Last weekend I vended at the Punk Rock Flea Market for the first time. I’ve been a regular fixture at CHASM on the third Saturday of each month, which is run by the same people, so being at this market felt like being at a family reunion, but one where you actually like who you’re seated next to!
There were so many wonderful queers coming together, and I felt connected to my community and to my purpose as an artist. While I could share with you dozens of meaningful moments, today I want to highlight one in particular.
I was talking with a group of new friends and we were discussing the importance of appreciating beauty of small and humble things, the impact that they have in our lives.
One of them was eating a basket of waffle fries they purchased outside from one of the food vendors. I was craving fries, so I asked this person if the fries we’re good. I was thinking of buying some myself.
In response, this person—who I’d only just met—reached out and offered me one of their waffle fries. I accepted. It tasted absolutely fantastic! It is so important to allow ourselves moments of joy with our every day environment, to appreciate the beauty of humble things like waffle fries.
They bought a sticker. I gave them a discount. We chatted about how important it is, existentially, for moments of beauty to open up our hearts, and how it helps us to see even more beauty in the world around us. Walking through life from one beautiful moment to the next changes the way that we interact with each other and also the way that we treat ourselves.
As they were leaving, they realized they were satisfied with the fries they had eaten, and they offered me the rest of them. So I sat there eating half a basket of delicious, perfect waffle fries. I felt rich in that moment because one of the most meaningful things you can do to turn a stranger into a friend is to break bread with them—or do the Punk Rock version of that: sharing fried potatoes.
This writing originally appeared in my newsletter. Sign up here to never mis an update.
I had a really disgusting dream a couple nights ago, and when I looked up the dream symbolism, it revealed to me that I am not allowing myself to face and express my feelings. I’ve been bottling things up. I keep telling myself that “I’ve got this,” when–in reality–I’m at Over Capacity and about to fall apart completely.
I guess this makes sense. I’ve been getting migraines and my body is so stressed I’ve been falling asleep unexpectedly mid-afternoon all week.
But what does that mean? What feelings am I not feeling?? I sat with that all day yesterday, pondering it, and it struck me–the world we live in terrifies me; the country we live in scares the shit out of me; and I am so heartbroken about our political climate.
It breaks my heart that people are so cruel and callous to each other. It scares me how easy it is to despair, how impossible it can seem, at times, to tarry on.
Joy is my act of resistance. Existence as a queer and nonbinary person is–in and of itself–an act of defiance in a world that would see me disappear. But that does not mean the joy comes without cost, or that the survival comes without pain. I feel the pain of our world constantly–all the time.
So I want to play video games with my kids, and I want to drink wine and eat cookies, and I want to kiss cute people and go on dates. I want to enjoy what little time we have while it lasts. I don’t want to feel the pain.
But, I guess, making space to weep and being vulnerable enough to tell you I’m “not ok” is its own kind of okay-ness.
This writing first appeared in my newsletter. To never miss an update, sign up here.
My favorite thing about elves is that they live incredibly long lives. My favorite superpower is regenerative healing like Wolverine has in the X-Men or the Cheerleader has in Heroes; I like that it leads to cellular regeneration that makes the mutant live nearly forever.
I am acutely aware that time is short.
I feel that there is a pain in the impermanence of life. There is loss, grief over people who are gone, who slipped through our fingers, or who simply faded away. We experience thousands of small deaths before the final curtain is drawn and our lives are snuffed out.
And yet? As I sit here typing this, one friend is filling my DMs with good news about a new relationship that brings him hope. My teenager just walked through the living room and made a special hand signal to me that means they love me. And my Spotify Daylist greeted me with a collection of piano instrumentals perfect for this overcast autumn morning.
My tarot tells me that September is the month of Death, and I find great comfort in that. All things die. All things must end sometime. But–for the briefest of moments–we can enjoy them while they last.
It is important to make room for grief. It is important to cry a little over the changing seasons. It is important to allow ourselves to feel sad. How else do we put these things to rest, if not with the ceremony of “letting go” and the catharsis of feeling everything that comes with that?
Perhaps if I lived for centuries, or if my cells regenerated indefinitely, I would not feel the need to pick and choose what I live for with such a sense of urgency. But as it stands, I have no time to waste.
I choose to live for my kids. I choose to live for my art and storytelling. I choose my community each and every day, greeting the new souls who enter my life and releasing those whose time it is to depart. Perhaps a few missed opportunities haunt me from time to time, but this is Spooky Season, after all. A little haunting is okay.
This writing first appeared in my newsletter. Sign up here to never mis an update.
When I’m not making art or getting ready for a craft fair or being a single mom or cleaning up the house, I spend my free time playing games. The fantasy of entering another world recharges my soul in a way few things can, and the joy of gaming is my favorite stress relief.
I’ve also started dating again. I gave my number to a person in a bookstore I bonded with over Washington Irving, but they never called. I asked friends to set me up and went out on a few dates to ultimately realize there was no spark. I even got advice to try speed dating around the time PAX is in town. I’m approaching it all with an attitude of openness and curiosity about what the universe has in store.
Meanwhile, I keep spending my free time with my gaming friends. I wasn’t looking for love on the internet. Then the universe threw me a curve ball.
I met someone on a new gaming server, and everything about him makes me feel calm and safe. He marvels at how kindhearted I am. I admire his strength of character. We flirted a little, but ultimately realized that we wanted different things out of life.
“What now?” he texted, our 3,706th message to each other.
Isn’t that such an important question? He and I want to grow closer, but we don’t want that bond to be romantic. The “normal” culture that frames our bond puts such singular and important value on dating relationships to the exclusion of all others. I think that’s why so many people yearn to fall in love.
Life is already lonely enough—there is no sense in making it more so by rushing through cycles of sex and heartache with people who we never should have crawled into bed with in the first place.
So how do we connect when we find a spark with someone who was never meant to be a romance?
We live.
We continue being kind to each other.
We spend our days sharing life with each other, not just this nerdy internet boy and me, but also me and you—yes YOU person reading this tumblr post—ALL of us.
We are not separate.
We are connected.
It is so easy to lose sight of the way community permeates our lives. And maybe that is why I love fantasy and gaming so much, because playing with people over a shared interest connects us in imaginative and creative ways that have nothing to do with our relationship status or what we can get out of each other. We are all just players, enjoying the present moment.
I typed the 3,707th message to my nerd in reply, “Now we keep being friends.”
This writing first appeared in my newsletter. Don't miss out on future issues. Sign up here.
I truly believe the queer art in my Kickstarter will foster so much hope… if only I can get it in front of the right people.
I am pushing myself, putting myself out there in new ways to spread the word about my Survival Series. I believe that if my soul shines bright enough it will break through any algorithmic barrier.
Pulling out all the stops, I’m making posts on bluesky, tiktok, tumblr, instagram, and even facebook—but after a week of burning the candle at both ends, my posts have very little reach.
If you are still reading this far, please stop and take a moment to think about the people in your life:
Who loves endangered animals?
Who is queer?
Who brings you joy?
Who needs encouragement not to give up hope?
Would you share my Kickstarter project with each one of them? And please take the time to tell them why you think this art would be meaningful for them.
Word of mouth is still the most powerful way to share good things with each other. It would be a true gift if you would become an ambassador for my art and help me get the word out about the Survival Series: 2026 Calendar ✊ 1 Year of Joyful Resistance.
After all the social media platforms fade away, our connections with each other will stand the test of time. Let’s craft a sense of hopeful community for each other as we approach the coming year.
Be Slow To Anger: Nothing Will Change. This art is part of my new Survival Series, bringing you a year of Joyful Defiance. Support the project on Kickstarter & bring this art into your home to plat seeds of hope for a better future in the year to come.
Click here to check out the project on Kickstarter.
