Manifesto

Ink and Imperfection

I need to tell you about this space I’ve been building in my mind. Or maybe it’s been building me? This isn’t just some fantasy. It’s the territory between forgetting and remembering. It’s between the person I was told to be and the person I am when no one’s watching.

Sometimes I hold a pen and it feels like an extension of my nervous system! The ink doesn’t just mark the paper. It maps the territory of who you are when you stop apologizing for taking up space.

Belonging

“I belong to me” isn’t an affirmation to stick on your bathroom mirror. It’s a declaration of war against everyone that’s ever told you to be smaller, quieter, and more palatable. It’s sumi ink black. Permanent. It’s a statement that seeps into your bones and changes how you walk through the world.

The strange thing about belonging to yourself? It’s both the most natural and the most radical thing you can do. We’re taught to fragment. We give pieces of ourselves away until we’re hollow vessels for other people’s expectations. I’ve learned to collect those scattered pieces like broken glass. I aim to make something beautiful from the wreckage.

The Ritual of Making

Creating anything—a mark, a sound, a story—is both rebellion and prayer. It requires you to be present in your body. You feel the weight of the brush and the resistance of the paper. It demands that you show up even when you have no idea what you’re making. The process begins with surrender, which sounds peaceful but isn’t. It’s giving up control. It’s the acceptance that what emerges might be different from what you planned. It’s letting the ink find its way while you hold the space for it to exist.

The Practice of Presence

In a world that profits from our distraction, presence becomes a radical act. Presence in your body, even when it hurts. Presence in your pain and your power. Presence in the moment when the ink meets the paper so that something new is born. It’s a practice that requires constant return. You’ll forget, as we all do, but this space is patient. It waits for you to remember that you have agency. You can choose how to respond to the world. Your voice matters even when it shakes!

The Vow

I’m the sum of my fuckups and my triumphs. I’m the black ink bleeding into the void, and I’m the void that holds it. I belong to me, unapologetically, unconditionally. I create to remember, to resist, to reclaim. This isn’t just a place or a name. It’s a vow. It’s a pulse. It’s the sound of your voice when you finally stop trying to make it prettier or smaller or more acceptable to ears that were never meant to hear it. It’s home.

On Vulnerability as Strength

People mistake vulnerability for weakness. Me? I’ve learned it’s the opposite. I DGAF about showing my raw edges. I voice the things that live in my throat like stones. I’ve learned that it takes a kind of courage that can’t be taught or faked. I don’t hide my scars; I’ve learned to read them like maps. The body remembers everything, even what the mind tries to forget. Those memories live in the space between my shoulder blades. Sometimes I clench my jaw while concentrating. There’s a very particular quality of silence that follows certain kinds of pain. Art becomes a way of making the invisible visible, not to exploit trauma, but to reclaim it.

What We Leave Behind

Legacy isn’t about monuments or permanence. It’s about transmission, the way a story moves from one person to another, how a paper mark becomes a conversation across time. Every zine, every shared moment of recognition, every time someone sees your work and thinks “I’m not alone in this”—that’s the legacy I’m building. My archive is kept all over the world. In friends’ worldwide spaces, zine libraries, and beyond. It lives in the spaces between people, in the recognition that passes between artists who understand that making things is a form of resistance. Beauty can be both a wound and a weapon.

The Sacred Art of Fucking Up

I try to sell art pieces I call “$5 Fuckups”. They’re my paper disasters that refuse to be pretty, neat or Instagram-worthy. They’re proof that creation isn’t about perfection! It’s about showing up even when your hands shake and the ink bleeds beyond the lines.

There’s something deeply unsettling about a culture that demands flawlessness from its artists, isn’t there? The tremor in my voice. The smudges on the Bristol. Do the cracks in my facade somehow diminishes my truth? I’ve found that the most honest work lives in imperfections. Honesty lives in the places where control breaks down so that something more essential can emerge.

The Aesthetics of Survival

My colors aren’t chosen, they choose me. Black that’s deeper than grief but somehow luminous. Greens that don’t apologize for being seen. Purple shadows that hold me while they swallow me whole. Neons that change with the light. These aren’t decorative choices but survival mechanisms.

I think about the way certain textures unlock memories you didn’t know you were carrying. The weight of velvet against skin can remind me that I have a body. And I’m allowed to take up space in it! Aesthetics becomes a form of armor. It’s not to hide behind, but to move through the world with intention.

The Cosmology of Connection

There’s no separation between self and world in my practice. There are no clean boundaries between artist and observer. Every line I draw is a conversation with the universe. It’s every choice about what to wear or how to move through space. It’s a negotiation of belonging and identity and power. This isn’t abstract philosophy but daily practice. The way you hold your coffee cup. The angle of your shoulders when you walk into a room. The decision to speak or stay silent. All of it is part of the ongoing work of becoming.

The Living System

Nothing about this practice is fixed or complete. It’s a constellation in constant motion. It’s fracturing, healing and transforming. Your daily life, your art, your music, your words are all part of this ongoing cosmic work. To engage with this space is to join a lineage of people who refuse to disappear, who insist on their right to exist fully and messily and beautifully. It’s to understand that your imperfections aren’t flaws to be corrected but essential parts of the story you’re telling.