Selected Bibliography
My published writing on the web includes reporting, articles, interviews, and personal essays. If you’re interested in commissioning me to write something, please contact me.
Balanchine and His Dancing Cat
While searching New York Public Library for the Performing Arts's online archive, I came across these eccentric photographs of master choreographer George Balanchine and his cat. There's even a whole book named after his cat, Mourka. I just had to ask myself... WHY? Find out in my first article for the New York Public Library!
A performance inspired by the problems of Dog Day Afternoon
Dog Day Afternoon was one of the first feature films to center on a gay man as a protagonist. Yet upon researching the narrative, artist Raja Feather Kelly discovered that the film’s main character was based on a real-life trans woman, Liz Eden. His performance WEDNESDAY, explores the real-life story of Liz Eden, as well as the ethical and political question of who gets to tell whose story.
The surprising ways gun violence is affecting schools, students, and teachers
In 2015, filmmaker and educator Todd Chandler was talking with his students about a recent mass school shooting when an international student called it “a distinctly American conversation.” In response, Chandler made Bulletproof, a documentary exploring how the drive to prevent gun violence is shaping the culture of American schools.
A Guide to Using Patreon
I interviewed artists and writers, Pablo Helguera, Rahel Aima, Wendy MacNaughton, and Yanyi about what goes into making email newsletters, what to know about managing them, and some tips about how to be successful with limited time.
A photo from Lorraine O’Grady’s performance of Untitled (Mlle Bourgeoise Noire), 1980-83. Photo: Museum of Modern Art.
From the ‘80s to Now: Lorraine O’Grady’s Work Continues to Inspire Change
Reflecting on Lorraine O’Grady’s retrospective at the Brooklyn Museum, I wrote about the artist’s career starting with her guerilla performance across the 1980s New York art world as Mademoiselle Bourgeoise Noire.
Heartbreak, Sobriety, and Witchcraft: An Interview with Elissa Washuta
Just before the release of her book, White Magic, I spoke with Elissa Washuta about heartbreak, how the internet changed her life, and the real witchery of the writing process.
A look back on the art in 2020
2020, more than any other in recent memory, we relied on artists and their work for comfort and inspiration. Yet while the need for art grew exponentially the world over, it wasn’t always easy to see or present artworks. I wrote this review of some art projects that premiered over the year.
Installation shot of Julia Christensen: Upgrade Available by Julia Christensen, at Mullin Gallery, ArtCenter College of Design, fall 2020. Photo by Ian Gonzaga.
Meshell Ndegeocello on James Baldwin
Meshell Ndegeocello has been working on performance and visual art inspired by the writing of James Baldwin for many years, but during the pandemic, turned the project into a website of new content, and a 1-800 number that presented an audio portrait. I spoke to Meshell about the work, and wrote this article on Baldwin’s legacy.
How to make a compelling artist website
As more artists turned to digital platforms in 2020 to present their work, I interviewed Megan Canning and Rachel Crawford, who run Constellation Collective, a company that helps the creative industry with communications and content strategy, about their expertise on how to make a compelling artist website.
Especially for artists without robust representation, a website is your opportunity to tell the world about yourself and your work, sell your art, bring attention to the causes you care about, and connect with various communities.
— Rachel Crawford
Alternative economic models for artists.
As the pandemic has exposed many weaknesses in the art world, artists are leading the way rethinking what kind of models we use to support ourselves and our community. Based on a conversation between artists Amy Smith, Daniel Park, Kristina Wong, and Caroline Woolard, this article examines models alternative to capitalism which artists are using to get by during the economic shutdown.
How one artist uses his art projects to create dynamic companies
I spoke to Matt Moore, an artist based in Phoenix, Arizona, who uses his bacgkround as a third-generation farmer to connect his audience more closely with the food they eat. He turned a one-off art project into a company that formed private-public partnerships working with Arizona public parks.
Interview with writer Percival Everett
Percival Everett is one of the only writers who manages to do experimental things with literature in the mainstream marketplace. His novel, Telephone, is actually three in one—depending on which version you get, the ending or small details will vary. He told me that this was based partly on how his readers often interpreted what he wrote in a different way than his original intention, making him question whether an artist’s intention really mattered at all.
Image from The Weather Underground by Sam Green, 2003.
Interview with filmmaker Deborah Stratman
I spoke with Deborah Stratman about her film The Illinois Parables, and an exhibition centered around it on view at MCA Chicago. Before our conversation, Deborah sent me a link to watch the full film, and I was able to watch it with headphones on. It was just a circumstantial choice, but made watching the film richer because its as much a sound piece as it is a visual “documentary.” Deborah confirmed that the audio part of the film was important to her. Describing one scene where clips of audio from different time periods overlap one another, she said, “You could never do that visually. There’s a way that sound absorbs multiple times so elegantly without you feeling the burden of it. We can listen on many levels.”
Sam Green discusses his documentary, The Weather Underground
In the hopes of rousing white Americans to the violence being committed by their government, the Weather Underground organized in the late '60s against the systemic racism that shaped US policy at home and abroad. I spoke to Sam Green about the documentary he made about the movement, The Weather Underground, which premiered in 2002 and was nominated for an Academy Award. Green pointed out that although the Weather Underground were "morally right, but strategically" wrong, their story provides a complex, yet instructive example of what happens when a group decides peaceful protest isn't enough.
Interview with poet Srikanth Reddy
Author Srikanth Reddy talked to me about his book-length poem, Underworld Lit, was published in 2020 by Wave Books. I felt like what he had to say about writing about death and disaster applies to all of us: “Our collective responses to various challenges facing humanity are just so patently absurd when you simply describe them. You could say that satire, in many ways, is just another form of realism... So it was almost too easy to find the humor in my material while writing Underworld Lit; the real challenge was opening up the other forms of affect—like melancholy, anger, wonder, and love—that move through us in this world-historical moment.”
Reflections on my great aunt, an artist who painted for no one but herself
In 2016, Hyperallergic asked me to convert an obituary I wrote on Facebook for my great aunt into an article. My aunt was a great painter who never showed her work. This essay is an exploration on what it means to make artwork without ever intending to show it to anyone.
The Luminal Boom by Arantxa Araujo, 2019. Photo by Wei Chao.
A discussion with Latinx artists in New York City
I discussed with six Latinx artists based in New York about the unique challenges they face making a career in the city, and their experience in Creative Capital’s Taller Profesional para Artistxs.
What happens when non-Muslims practice Ramadan?
In order to learn more about Islam, I celebrated Ramadan in 2016 and wrote this reflection on it for Huffington Post. The experience brought me closer to other Muslim Americans and their experience. This article gets shared every Ramadan!
Bearing Witness to the Unrest in Ferguson, Missouri, in 2014
In 2014, I had the privilege of going to Ferguson, Missouri, to write about the protests there after Mike Brown was killed by police as a journalist for Elite Daily. I wrote a description of what I experienced there on a now-defunct post. A lot of the reporting at that time focused on looting and chaos of the protests. So, in this essay, I tried to capture more of the nuance of the movement for Black lives that started in Ferguson.