In the year 2014, just before I started sixth grade, my mother made the decision to finally let me and my younger sister have cell phones and gave us more access to her computer. Over my three years in middle school, I completely immersed myself in online fandom spaces, and when I got into eighth grade, I found a community that would ultimately change my life forever- the My Chemical Romance fandom. Through fanart, fanfiction, and the Instagram online role-playing scene, I found my place as a dedicated fan
This laid the groundwork for my art. It became dark, edgy, political, and provocative. Even as a teenager, I wrote about and drew taboo or controversial topics such as queer identity, abuse, and even prostitution. Other bands like Green Day and System of a Down influenced my art as well, but none will ever compare to the first.
My art is an ode to fandom, an appreciation letter to weird teenagers that find their home in a blog post. My art is made to be remade, and remade, and remade again. I'm sure the stories I want to tell have been told before, and will continue to be told, so it will never be truly 'original'- but that's the fun, isn't it? That we as humans get to create and create and create again for the rest of time?
"God made grapes but not wine and wheat but not bread so that we may all share in the act of creation."
I saw a post once. It only said one sentence:
And so, my art may be a reflection of myself, but it is also a reflection of the thousands of people that came before it. It is an amalgamation of hundreds of thousands of years of human history and progression and creation that must be preserved.