Three Pieces/Self Discovery

Acrylic and embroidery thread on canvas, 38.5” x 47” (July 2025)

This piece considers 3 moments in time, connecting queer life across history in the Bay. I realized I was transgender in 2020; my reference for the self portrait was taken in 2021. I was in 5th grade, newly back in school in-person during Covid, and I had lost formerly close friends in the aftermath of coming out combined with the isolation of quarantine. The two upper sections of the piece are based on photographs by Crawford Wayne Barton: the legs from Castro Street Fair 1977, the torso from Castro Street in 1979. These separate moments come together to form one body, one whole, connected by thread. They are bridged with lines of red embroidery thread, and each part features a metal detail in embroidery thread: a buckle, a button, an earring. My 5th grade self looks up towards fragments of queer existence in the Bay – these queer pasts inform my queer present, shaping who I am and who I’ve been.