🄼 Do you have access to your studio during the shelter-in-place? If not, how has this affected you?

🄺 I’m a current MFA candidate at San Francisco State (greatest ever). About a week before the state shelter in place was mandated, my cohort and I––like pretty much all MFA students––lost studio access because of the university building closures. I have a lot of family in China so I had been keeping track of what was going on with the coronavirus since it had started spreading out of Wuhan––so with that in consideration, immediately I was just like…girl, be real…you’re not going back for a loooooooooong time. What do I really need? I always have been the person who has the nightmare like “yo, my house is burning down...what do I save?”. I kind of used that logic here and took home every collage and film negative I had made in the last two years, and pretty much every pencil and cutting knife and glue stick that I have. 

It’s been two months now and I just make my art on my bedroom floor, in a silk robe, listening to dance beats…just like being seventeen and really making art for the sake of making something I wanted to see come alive. I feel less tied to self-expectations of a certain way and modality of production and that has been a liberating little silver sliver lining. I feel more inspired than I have felt in a long time.

🄼 Can you tell us about you dogs?

🄺 I have two rescued senior dogs: Jimi and Larissa. Jimi is one of those kind of strange terrier dogs with a human face. He loves my partner more than me––if I try to hug him he barks at me like bitch stay the hell away! All bark no bite. Always talking. Larissa is a 12 year old shihtzu princess rug. She will eat literally anything. She walks me every night at sunset.

🄼 What is the best/worst thing about staying home?

🄺 The best thing about home is being on time for meetings! The people who know me in real life know that I have…um, a punctuality issue of sorts. I’m almost always late to everything––I always get distracted by what shade of lipstick I want to wear, where THIS exact shoe is, tying a scarf the right way––and my two dogs need to be fed and I don’t know where my keys are. Zoom is a great punctuality simulator and I’m here for it. I also learned to cook!

The worst thing is not getting to see my friends––but specifically, not getting to giggle/shout/squeal at each other when we see each other from across the room, and screaming in delight for like the first five minutes of seeing someone you haven’t seen in a long while.

🄼 What is the first thing you want to do after shelter in place?

🄺 Nails at Nels in SOMA and pole dance class at San Francisco Pole and Dance. Squealing at friends, vaping by the garden wall at SFMOMA.

🄼 Do you have any current podcast, tv, or movie recommendations for artists (or anyone)?

🄺 I learn something new every time I watch Bojack Horseman. I also recommend the late Satoshi Kon’s film Paprika––it’s an animated film that I’ve been told is what inspired Christopher Nolan’s Inception. I watch it at least twice a year.

🄼 How do you safely socialize during shelter in place?

🄺 My bff Nathan Kosta and I sat in our own separate cars with the windows down a couple weeks ago and had an hour long chat––heaven. Lots and lots of Facetiming and virtual happy hour. Kissing thru the phone.

🄼 What was the last book/short story/article that you enjoyed a lot?

🄺 The last book that I’ve read that I’ve truly loved is Esme Wang’s Collected Schizophrenias. I also really enjoyed the aperture magazine issue, Mexico City that I devoured last fall. I miss bookstores so much!