Work Samples
For more recent musings on volcanoes, hostels, and the zen of snowboarding, please visit my Substack
Social Media Campaign 2025
In April and May 2025, I worked with Spread The Vote US to create videos for their Instagram account to celebrate their 8th anniversary. Using their visual assets and information about the program, I created a series of four videos for the campaign.
Community Leadership Blogging
This week millions of people gather across the country to celebrate the Thanksgiving holiday. Maybe you celebrate with family or do a “Friendsgiving.” Maybe you have mac and cheese on your table, or include lasagna every year. The traditions are as varied as the families that celebrate them. (My family eats pie for breakfast on Thanksgiving morning. Yes, before the afternoon feast. We are visionaries.)
While many people in the U.S. celebrate this modern version of Thanksgiving — one that centers family and friends, giving thanks for all that we have, and cooking and consuming delicious foods — the origins of this national holiday are complex and varied, and deserve a piece of the reflection time this holiday often brings.
First, it’s pretty widely understood that there was never one perfect meal where a beautiful roasted turkey was shared peacefully by the Pilgrims and Native Americans. There is evidence that a meal was held by the Pilgrims in 1621 to celebrate a successful harvest, and that members of the Wampanoag tribe were there. This meal is often credited as the “First Thanksgiving.”
Continued on Medium
If you are anything like me, you are arriving at the end of 2018 dazzled at what we have accomplished, and energized (if slightly daunted!) by how much is left to be done. As 2018 moves into the rearview, here is a reflection on the highs and lows of this year.
Continued on Medium
Academic Writing
The departure that 100 Cans and some of Warhol’s later silk screens makes is to offer the same challenge to the viewer of locating individuality, but with the differences more nuanced. Similarity is the initial dominant experience, but the nagging emergence of difference is what calls to the viewer. These differences, however minute, hail the viewer, and thus “ ‘recruit’ subjects among the individuals” to seek out the can they identify with, to create a subjective parallel between themselves and the image.* While no longer engaging in the simplistic act of picking a favorite flavor, the act of allowing the eye to rest on a certain can, or move away from one whose position unsettles, parallels the viewer’s preferential experience of seeing 32 Soup Cans. When the viewer responds to the hail of difference from the painting, “he has recognized that the hail was ‘really’ addressed to him,” again experiencing a moment of intensified individuality, a small chance to assert the self that he so desperately wants to maintain.* These differences that call to the viewer work “as visual equivalents of our missed encounters with the real,” the moments of collapse that signify a brush with something beyond the surface.* These missed encounters with the real that permeate Warhol’s serial images result in imaginary relations to real conditions. The illusion of individuality is preserved in a mechanically reproduced work. The breaks indicate a possibility for actualized difference, but the repetition of sameness that is ever-present perpetuates the trauma of the subject’s continuing inability to achieve such a state.
Digital Community Leadership
Today our hearts break at the loss of a titan of justice and fairness. Associate Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg has died after a many year long battle with cancer. Her life has been one of remarkable achievement, and to so many of us she meant so much more than simply a member of the highest court in the land. She embodied speaking truth to power. She lived the values of fairness and equality that our county promises and often falls short of delivering. She fought for those who needed a warrior with her mind and her pen. We will miss her deeply, but we all carry a part of Justice Ginsburg with us. When we speak up against injustice, when we take a stand for what is right, when we don’t let anyone underestimate what we are capable of, we honor her.
Let’s mourn together here, as we have before. And then let’s rise together here as we always do, to continue to build the country and the world that Justice Ginsburg helped us to see could be made a reality. Together we will fight like hell to keep her legacy alive and keep this country out of the grips of tyranny.
May Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg Rest In Peace and Power.
(Photo credit: Charles Dharapak/AP)
On Facebook
Last night in Kenosha, Wisconsin, police shot Jacob Blake in the back at close range, while his children watched. Thankfully, Jacob is still alive. My first instinct this morning when I woke up to this news was to turn away. Because the pain and heartache of another Black man being killed by the forces we are told are there to protect us can seem too much to bear. As the sister of two Black men, my fear for them can feel overwhelming at times. I can only imagine what Jacob Blake’s family - like so many families before - are feeling right now.
But it is for my brothers, and for the suffering families of so many Black men and women, that I do not turn away. I take the time to care for myself, yes, but that care is in service of staying ready to fight for the protection of people who are being disproportionately killed at the hands of law enforcement. To demand changes in policing. To demand the defunding of police departments in service of funding community services. To demand justice for families of police assailants.
Last night, the people of Wisconsin took to the streets to protest this shooting. They shared their outrage at this needless act of violence. And for their response and for exercising their legal right to protest, they were tear gassed by the very forces they were holding accountable for violence and excessive use of force. Fannie Lou Hamer famously said that “Nobody’s free until everybody’s free.” Right now, Black men and women are not free to be on US streets without the threat of violence from the police. People who protest that violence are not free to exercise their rights and are gassed, wounded, and jailed. Little Black and brown boys and girls are not free to grow up without seeing their parents shot, without having their dreams constricted not by their own imaginations, but by our society that demonstrates daily that their families' lives don’t matter.
But they do. Black Lives Matter. Jacob Blake’s life matters. His children’s lives matter. Until Jacob and his kids - and families across the nation like them - are free, nobody is.
If you are a white member of this community and want to signal that you are present and committed to taking action, please comment #blacklivesmatter. Any comments derailing or dismissing the experiences of Black people grieving once again in this moment will be deleted to center this post on Black Lives Matter.
Many of you reading this are not in Wisconsin, or not in Kenosha. But we can still lend our support. Take action for Black lives in Wisconsin:
Demand justice for Jacob: Call for the police officers involved to be fired, arrested, and held accountable:
Kenosha District Attorney: 262-653-2409, Michael.Graveley@da.wi.gov
Kenosha City Attorney: 262-653-4170, webcityattorney@kenosha.org
Kenosha Mayor: 262-653-4000, mayor@kenosha.org
Kenosha Police Department: 262-656-1234, dgm398@kenoshapolice.com
Wisconsin Attorney General: 608-266-1221
Wisconsin Governor Tony Ivers: 414-227-4344, eversInfo@wisconsin.gov
Learn and share: Supermajority created an explainer on what it means “defund the police” following the murder of George Floyd. Share with your friends and family on Facebook messenger to help them understand: https://m.me/supermajoritynews?ref=PNDefund
Donate: to the Milwaukee Freedom Fund, working to bail out protestors in Kenosha: http://bit.ly/mkefreedomfund
On Facebook
Yesterday, Speaker Nancy Pelosi announced that the House of Representatives will open an impeachment inquiry into President Trump. This is an important historical moment, and it is also a bit confusing. Here are some important things to know about this impeachment inquiry.
What is an impeachment inquiry?
An impeachment inquiry is the House Judiciary Committee’s investigation into whether there is enough evidence for an impeachment case against a federal official to go forward. In this case, that federal official is the President of the United States.
Does this mean that the President will be impeached?
Not necessarily. Members of the House Judiciary Committee must decide whether to write articles of impeachment and present them to the rest of the House for a vote on impeachment. The house must vote to impeach by a simple majority.
How will this change the investigations the House is currently undertaking?
That remains to be seen. It could mean that courts currently considering cases for the House may make decisions faster. It could also mean that things continue as usual as the Judiciary Committee gathers all of it’s evidence.
Does being impeached mean Trump will be removed from office?
No. It is not guaranteed. After a President is impeached, the Senate holds a trial to determine whether the impeached President or other official is guilty of the charges in the articles of impeachment. The House sends “managers" to act as prosecutors and make the case for impeachment, while the Senate serves a purpose similar to the jury. A two-thirds Senate majority is necessary to convict the official, and to remove them from office.
(source: Time)
Read more here about this historic moment and impeachment as a process in general: http://bit.ly/2lHE29V
On Facebook
Pantsuit Nation:
Over the last several weeks, as state after state has moved to limit access to safe and legal abortion, hundreds of you have shared your own #YouKnowMe stories in this community. Our team has worked to publish and moderate many of these, and we have read every story submitted to the group. We want to acknowledge and honor each story, even those we are unable to share with the greater community.
The volume of #YouKnowMe posts means that we are not able to publish many of those submitted to the group. We take the responsibility of sharing stories in this community seriously, and have taken care to elevate stories that illustrate the diverse experiences of our members who have had abortions so that we can work to shed light on the complexity of the issue and the ultimate fundamental right of every human to have complete autonomy over her/his/their body.
However, we also understand that in order to continue to create meaningful civic engagement, we must also elevate other kinds of stories, too - those of participating in local politics, of advocating for all kinds of health care coverage, of celebrating equality and autonomy in all forms. We have attempted to find a balance of giving this moment the weight and attention it deserves, while recognizing that it’s an imperfect process and that ultimately we must trust that the dozens of stories we have chosen to publish in Pantsuit Nation represent many thousands more.
If you submitted a #YouKnowMe story to Pantsuit Nation which was not published to the group, please know that it was read. If you would like to use the comments in this post to share your story, we would welcome it. You may also comment with a simple #YouKnowMe if you’d prefer.
We will continue to publish these stories at a frequency that feels manageable for our volunteer moderation team and in line with our community goals to share narratives that illustrate a wide variety of experiences of marginalization in our country and around the world. If you have a story you’d like to share that highlights an aspect of this issue (or any other) that you think has not been given adequate attention here or elsewhere, please do consider submitting it to our team for review.
On Facebook