“I am not sure what pieces of me remain on the boiling asphalt in front of my home; that day I ruined a pair of shoes.”
My work should be enjoyed by the child and the caveman inside of you (they’re usually smarter than you) because I like to write people like myself: flawed, inconvenient, slovenly beasts—all while they win you over. These people are real, no matter their circumstances or quirks, know they are a part of you and me.
The things I pour onto the page and into these fabricated souls are from my childhood, adolescence, and blossoming adulthood (if we can call it that). It’s the combination of the rocks you drew on leaving “more than footprints,” the rapid whizzing of street lamps in car windows, and the first time you realize you’re smoking a filter and not a cigarette anymore. These memories, at least for me, are unsatisfying, wrong, and fleeting, but you’ll do your best to remember them fondly anyways. The way they fit together above it all, the tapestry of your conscience and morals, is your story. To know yourself fully is to live simultaneously. I hope to write simultaneously.
I write for tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow, in the hopes you meet me where I was and I meet you where you will be. My work is for the eldest children, the queer, the downtrodden, the burdened, the poor, the distraught, the ostracized, the unwell, the hated. We must use our words because too often they’re used against us.
Perhaps that is why I began to create, out of impulse, knowing that unless I was living on a page or on a memory-card somewhere, I wouldn’t be considered worth living. I’m not sure if I’m a proper “writer” or “filmmaker” or “creative," but I know to make something is better than nothing at all.
Artistic Journey
Nails
This short marks the start of my most recent trajectory of growth. I've been making things for as long as I've been alive, but I didn't consider myself an artist before this point. "Nails" is the second short I ever released on Youtube, and one of the few I am still satisfied with. (Reminder for myself and you: most things you make, you will be unsatisfied with. The important thing is not your satisfaction, but the fact that you made it.)
Caring For Your Hand
A short about the people you love being far away is a staple of Lowryside Productions, but this is the most complete form of that theme to date. I still have the painting created by Jacob Smith (the hand) in this short.
Sweet Pea
This is the big one! "Sweet Pea" was by far the longest project I have worked on to date. The entire process of conception to product was about a year and a half. It was built by Claire Saunders and written and directed by myself.
It follows a young girl with a rabbit head wakes up in a forest of realization after a fight with her mother.
Into The Lands Beyond
This is an immersive theatre piece I created with the help of my co-directors Michayla Robertson-Pine and Dash Merrill as well as the nine children ages 11-15 who wrote, designed, and starred in the show.
The show is based on Norton Juster's novel "The Phantom Tollbooth" and was performed at Deerfield Academy Summer Arts Camp (DASAC) in the 2024 session.
Other Projects and Miscellaneous Favorites
I have a completed screenplay titled "The Death of Johan" co-written with Will Sussbauer my close friend and writing inspiration. It follows a woman in a near-distant future named Foster after she has spent several years in prison for vehicular homicide. As an experimental treatement in her therapy, Foster has installed a Neuroscope in her mind, a device that can manifest the user's subconcious into their field of vision. However, once Foster's girlfriend finds her fish dead, Foster's mental health, artistic prowess, and relationship all begin to change.
I am currently directing the one act play "Horse Girls" by Jenny Rachel Weiner. It's a hoot!
And I am in a perpetual state of writing and editing small projects that never see the broader world.
A few favorites from Lowryside Productions:
"Nostalgia" - A short film I made before leaving for college Watch "a view in 2024 and 1961" - A piece in conversation with the computer that sang "Daisy Bell" as I attempt to understand how she might see the world. Watch
Artistic Future(s)
In Spring of 2024 I will be assistant directing the Carleton College Player's Production of "Twelfth Night" by William Shakespeare.
Several plays are currently being written:
"What Goes Around Comes Around" A play for the women in my family I don't speak to.
"Nine" A play about a nine year love between two people who feel undeserving of friendship.
"What's Brewing?" A play about three people in a house together over the course of two days.
I have several short films currently in the works, one about the "queer" identity and one about a priest.