Rereleasing my creative manifesto Revolutionary Radishes: The Survivalist Manifesto of a Radical Artist as a digital artists book, available on my Etsy store, is an exciting new adventure in the life of this creative essay. Originally this text was published last year (2021) by Lupercalia Press in their digital anthology Vulcanalia. Shortly after its release as a digital edition, I also had the opportunity to do a limited edition run of Revolutionary Radishes as a pamphlet. Next year a new edition of the pamphlet will be printed but in the meantime, while we wait for that beautiful carbon copy, the work is at least available for reading in a digital edition with additions to the original published text.

In the process of preparing a new digital edition of this essay, I decided to share a piece of it here (at the end of this blog post), as well as to.upload a video of me reading a portion of the piece aloud onto my YouTube account (available here). I feel like it is important for artists to be able to make money for themselves in order to survive, however, I also feel like it is of the utmost importance to insure that there is also work available to people with as few barriers as possible— in sharing this portion of my manifesto, I hope I achieved that balance in a meaningful way; the portion shared here and on YouTube is the heart of the manifesto, and if you feel like there is benefit in exploring the work more you can pick it up as a ebook from my Etsy.com store here.

Revolutionary Radishes: The Survivalist Manifesto of a Radical Artist was a piece of writing that came out of a difficult time for me: I was working through some medical, personal and professional hurdles, a bout of writer’s block, all the while starting a wonderful, new relationship and working through completing my Fine Arts Diploma at North Island College. For me, this Manifesto came out of a need to give myself focus and a directive on how to be in the world as an artist, writer and human being. I decided to share the piece publicly with the release of some other writing projects, when I was asked publicly about my creative process and my thoughts behind my own work while giving a public reading— while I was able to answer the questions of the time, I also thought it worth while to give a better and fully thought out response which inevitably resulted in the manifesto’s text. It does not explicitly refer to any one piece I have made but I think it does offer some suplimentary insight to my general practice, and therefor may be of some use to someone who is interested in my work.

I also hope that Revolutionary Radishes can be a seed of inspiration in the life of someone else. There is a long tradition of manifestos within the western art cannon and I have drawn inspiration from those works in the past, myself. Often times, seeing how others work and their own ideas of art can instigate something within our own selves and creative practices. I think it is the biggest compliment when I hear from someone that they have decided to construct their own manifesto. I hope that, for anyone, when their eyes leave the page of this work that they consider how they too operate in the world, maybe even write it down and share it with others. We live in relation to those around us, understanding each other more only can help enrich our lives, after all.

Chant of a Radical Artist

This chant is a psychic space that has unfolded from lived experience. I have come from difficult experiences, learned and have returned with these words. Who we are and our place in the order of things, like all things such as water or the trees, is constantly in flux or motion. These words are of the body, meaning they are alive and should be breathing: expansions and contractions, edits and alteration based on the need of the list for the person, place and time. What is presented here is the chant as it has been caught to the page come the time of its sharing.

I am alive and I am breathing.
I am drinking the water and I find nourishment.
I am the creator of my body’s artifice.
I am waking and resting and walking on the First People’s land.
I am talking and eating and learning among the ghosts of my Ancestors.

I am scavenging and inventing and learning new talk.
I am a house with an open door for all to come in, be warm and rest.

I am a truth finder and speaker, no matter how grim.

I am lost but also where I am supposed to be.

I am the water and I am in the water and the water is in me.

I am displaced and unsettled.

I am a writer of lists.
I am sloth.
I am nuanced, contradictory and hypocritical as every other human.
I am the realized ambition of my Ancestors efforts for survival.
I am open hearted and authentic.
I am giving you my heart words, my sleeve’s cut back and my wrist bare and open, bleeding.
I am a sculpture that will never be fully fathomed.
I am my own food, and am now asking neighbours to taste me, be nourished.
I am feminist.

I am queer.

I am all the animals you’ve ever seen me as.

I am listening to elders and I am listening to children and I am listening to all my cousins.
I am cat person and a dog person, I am an every animal kind of person.
I am holding both my parents’ hands, though they can’t hold each other’s.
I am a talking body, dancing tongue and thundering emotions.
I am able to grow dreams and hope like hair and skin, and shed them just as often too.
I am willing to stand in disruption and be uncomfortable.
I am in transition to a better self.
I am wanting to become a good Ancestor for those still to come.

I am not afraid of other people’s opinions of me.

I am the inheritor privilege.
I am in disbelief of what has happened and know we can all do better

I am hungry and tired.

I am not afraid to look through other perspectives.

I am not afraid to tell my story as I know it to be.
I am a tool of dismantling oppressive systems of operation.

I am singing.
I am stardust and I will always be stardust.
I am a believer that there is more good than bad in people.

I am certain that loving each other will change the world.

I am holding magic in my cupped hands.
I am made of magic.
I am a dreamer, artist, lover, warrior, academic, healer, teacher, storyteller and student.

I am racialized.
I am gendered.

I am with a sweet tooth and will eat food for comfort when stressed.

I am convinced that art is medicine that we all need.

I am making medicine, enough medicine for everyone.

I am at home in the city and the country.

I am my home and my home is my body.

I am excited to sleep and dream and wake, until I don’t.
I am in love with everyone I see.

I am chanting.
I am seeking balance and harmony.
I am not able to reconcile everything that is happening, that has happened.
I am still convinced that I can fly by breathing deeply.

I am in a performance.
I am the food I’ve been nourished by.
I am bridge and blockade unapologetically.

I am growing radishes from city refuse.
I am caring for bushes of wild berries that I sometimes talk to.

I am netting honesty.
I am doing the work.

I am watching time progress linearly but know it is a circle.
I am healing.

I am not doing enough of the work but both my hands are full.
I am waiting until I can do more work.
I am certain that to work is to have your place in things.
I am happy to have a place.

I am totally invested.
I am not one place or person to just one person, I am part of a community.
I am not trying to brag but sometimes it comes out that way.

I am trying to disappear.

I am trying to make things better before I go.
I am trying to fit into little pockets, like change, but I’m too loose for that.
I am gambling, with everything, but I’m not a gambler.

I am mentally unhealthy but more stable, able and grounded than ever.

I am able to expand and contract beyond limitations imposed on me.

I am yelling.

I am nature, just as much as anything ever was or will be.

I am dark on the inside.
I am scarred.

I am a preservationist.

I am making preserves.

I am a constellation of resilience and resurgence of life’s joy.

I am family orientated.
I am a medical miracle.
I am a survivalist making it through.
I am remembering how much my grandmother loved me.
I am able to exist freely and alone.

I am always working.
I use every precious family heirloom as much as possible.

I am dancing.

I am forgiving but not forgetful.
I am recommending you join me social media and mailing list.

I am, in the end, going to erupt in sunlight.

I am not beyond reproach or mistake making.
I am always trying to do better when I know better.
I am starting now and ending here.

I am thanking our Ancestors, the land and creator of all this.