Lou is a land-based artist, musician, and community organizer living in Humboldt. They are someone who tends the land, tends the fire, and always tends community. They are the person who shows up and they are a passionate teacher and student of collective care– prioritizing our most basic and essential needs in good ways. Their dedication to care and collective creative living extends far beyond their capacities often and I want to make sure they have the right support in place as they enter this exciting part of their spiritual healing.
After years of dreaming, Lou is finally moving toward gender affirming top surgery — a step that will bring more comfort, spirit, and alignment into their body. This is ceremonial for Lou.
This surgery requires traveling down to the Bay for a week and personally I will be driving between LA and Humboldt counties multiple times (12-13 hrs) to be able to manage my life on top of caring for Lou during this time. We will also need support for a week of lodging in the Bay and to cover costs of taking time off work for 6 weeks. This fundraiser will provide us with access to the medical care, travel, lodging, and lost wages during their healing. I will be supporting them, driving them, and taking time off my own work schedule for 2 weeks.
Lou has carried and held so many. They are an ignitor of growth and their world always centers liberation work and healing. Lou is a ride or die and I am honored and so excited to care for them through this journey.
If you are able to contribute, you are helping make this moment more accessible, more gentle, and more celebratory for both of us. If you are unable to donate, please share this fundraiser with your communities. Every little bit helps.
Thank you for helping hold Lou!
RECENT EXHIBITIONS
Human Marks: Tattooing in Contemporary Art
University of Hartford
Joseloff Gallery
September 11 – December 13, 2025
Human Marks: Tattooing in Contemporary Art explores convergences between tattoo culture and global contemporary art. The exhibition, book (Hirmer Publishers), and related programming present the full creative spectrum of artists who maintain both tattoo and studio practices to ask what the world of fine art can learn from today’s tattoo community. With a range of surprising media—from paintings made with human blood to wearable works in silicone and even perfumery—themes of ritual, ethics, and identity tie together the materially dynamic, unexpected, and challenging artwork featured in Human Marks. Human Marks will be the 8th International Distinguished Artists Symposium and Exhibition (IDASE) at the Hartford Art School, marking a long-awaited return of this esteemed exhibition program after an eleven-year hiatus. Significantly, Human Marks will build on the legacy of IDASE by commissioning six new works for the exhibition.
Participating artists include Kaur Alia Ahmed, Oz Bardos, Makoto Chi, Nassim Dayoub, Evan Paul English, Gesiye, Don Ed Hardy, Ciara Havishya, Dr. Lakra, Christopher Martin, Duke Riley, Miller Robinson, Tamara Santibañez, Lyric Shen, and Jayna Won.
In addition to the main exhibition in Joseloff Gallery, the Hartford Art School’s Silpe Gallery will present Realigned Possession, an installation and 8-hour performance by Miller Robinson and Creighton Baxter that elaborates on the theme of identity, specifically in relation to transmuting uses of the body.