A friend & former student who has consistently inspired me with both her creative work & her activism! The border features tropical flowers & draped fabric inspired by Noél’s own textile sculptures/installations.

Portrait of Noél (pen & ink wash, 2017)

 

Images can serve as talismans, mementos, and amplifiers for our intentions. One of my ongoing creative practices that walks the line between art and magic is sigil-making, or creating images out of short phrases through a process of meditative graphic design. In addition to the zine and pins below, I create sigils on commission, often for donations to causes that are important to me.

“We Are Magic: Sigils for Trans Power” zine & pin set (2017)

Custom sigils for clients who donated to RAICES Texas (2019)

Six Songs is a short comic zine illustrating a chapter of the Hechalot Rabbati, an ancient Jewish mystical text which describes—in gory detail—the dangers of listening to the angels singing around the merkavah (holy chariot). It features detailed pen & ink artwork drawing from both Jewish symbolic tradition (including panel borders inspired by antique Ashkenazi gravestone carvings) and a modern macabre visionary style. Debuted at the Massachusetts Independent Comics Expo in 2017.

Six Songs (self-published, 2017)

Song Five (from Six Songs, self-published, 2017)

“Mir Veln Zey Iberlebn” (We Will Outlive Them) is a Yiddish protest song from 1939 that has become a modern Jewish anti-fascist rallying cry. The creatures pictured are the Leviathan & the Ziz, two mythical monsters from Jewish tradition that are used here to represent the enduring survival & power of the Jewish people & our stories.

 

Interior illustration & logo design for the tabletop roleplaying games Dream Askew by Avery Alder and Dream Apart by Benjamin Rosenbaum, published jointly by Buried Without Ceremony in 2018.