Posted by h3xtacy on Jan 16, 2026
Edit: changed the word "book" to schedule and updated the events list to include a March event.
Last November a book I had an essay in came out, which would have been a great time to try and schedule some talks about labor organizing and video games and generally use the book as a way to further my career, particularly in academia. But, I was busy trying to be a gallery artist and academia has never welcomed me, especially US academia, which would generally prefer if I disappeared or died. My experience with European intellectual institutions have been more welcoming, but their welcome relies on me embodying a good token for them to use and inevitably a good weapon against other marginalized peoples.
Realistically my future as an academic or philosopher was over before it started and it made being published last year a blip on my professional radar, something I’m happy I got to do (I had some things to say about labor and community) but it will not change my situation or the ongoing genocide against indigenous peoples and transgender, intersex, and gender nonconforming people in the US.
My ability to facilitate intellectual and cultural development is not destroyed by being excluded from colonizer academia and the ethics of learning and teaching inside an institutional system that exploits its students, that is funded by blood money, and beholden to fascist curriculum requirements is questionable.
I am currently the steward of a small library that hosts a radical lending library named L@s Quixotes, which is in turn stewarded by 2 elders and their close friend and caretaker. I am happy to be able to facilitate access to information and self education and Quixotes has books and periodicals that are hard to find. I have the privilege of having access to the house my grandmother owned and being the only member of my family interested in taking care of the house, which is how I ended up stewarding a library and starting a small dance studio that ended up being named Skeleton House. This year I want to offer an archivist residency and/or a research residency at the Skeleton House library, where people are given an honorarium to spend time with the collection and do their own research. I want to offer tracks of research designed by the researcher that culminate in an intellectual or art based project. I also want to offer similar residencies for the dance studio but we are talking about the library currently and I don’t want to get too off topic.
I have had an interest in pedagogy since I was a curious, intellectually hungry child who was told I was too stupid and disruptive to learn. I spent a very long time educating myself and reading stacks of books on theory by people like Paulo Freire and bell hooks. I learned about the Free School movement and adjacent intellectual forums outside of academia; until eventually I ended up in an MFA program, which was my first real experience with higher education. I did not complete an undergrad degree beforehand, and I think that benefited me in some ways and hurt me in others.
The school I did my Master’s In Fine Arts at was a liberal arts school called Goddard College that according to school legend had been founded to stem the tide of fascist thought. Goddard gave students the freedom to design their own curriculum, which was why I was attracted to it. It closed permanently in 2024, as far as I can tell mostly because of mismanagement.
There is a deep need for intellectual freedom and development in a culture that devalues critical thinking and kindness and diversity like the US does.
I like to think of my tiny arts nonprofit as a spiritual grandchild of Goddard, but with roots in indigenous pedagogy and ethics. A hybrid of cultures and traditions, with the possibility of opening up intellectual doors we haven’t even realized exist yet. It feels stupid and pretentious typing those words but I am a futurist and a romantic and imagining a better world into being requires some amount of delusion.
I have wanted to organize residencies at Skeleton House since we started quietly organizing the space in early 2024, but the after effects of medical discrimination and recovery from gender affirming surgery meant I put almost everything other than accountability revenge and basic survival on hold for all of 2025.
Here’s hoping we get at least one more good year at the Skeleton House arts incubator, maybe a couple more after that too.
For transparency and so I can remember them here is a short list of projects I’ve talked about in this newsletter that I haven’t completed yet:
Memorial film/podcast/zine about my friend and mentor Monte Levine who was part of AIDS organizing and harm reduction and radical queer communities from the1970s through 2025.
Skeleton House artist and archivist residencies.
The Necromancer's Ball
Mysterious summer events.
Just four so far that’s not too bad.
Events List:
- Some of my visual art will be at the ACES pop up at Magnusen Park Gallery in Seattle January 29–February 28, 2026. The opening reception will be January 31st
- I am in the process of presenting a new performance with the working title radio static tuning. I will be doing a short experimental showing during the Capitol Hill artwalk in a friend’s studio upstairs at Pound Arts. Feb 12th, 2026 - this is a small space so be prepared
- Fox Whitney is fundraising for his queer and trans cultidisciplinary (hello, I tried to type multidisciplinary but this is much better and more funny if you know Fox’s work) performance project, which I have contributed to several times and it is always a joy working with him.
- I am on the bill to do a more developed version of radio static tuning for the next iteration of 12 Minutes Max at BASE: Experimental Arts+Space March 8th & 9th
I’ll end with some stills from a test reel I took while rehearsing the radio static tuning piece I will be sharing in Feb. Please enjoy(?)
