Shiloh Jines & Erin Stokes

Shiloh Jines is a non-binary, gender-ambiguous poet, video artist & printmaker currently living in Oakland, CA. Jines received their BA from the University of Tennessee in Creative Writing & MFA in Creative Writing & Book Art from Mills College. They make hybrid poem-realities by merging handmade printed matter & video art. S/he examines the presence & absence of materiality in language & how this informs the design & /structure of book-forms & printed matter. Much of their practice involves deconstructing the codex as an object of power & considers the visceral ways language can manifest in/on/through a variety of queer bodies. Growing up in Eastern Tennessee, their identity as an Appalachian Queer & how s/he came to critically understand this identity plays a central role in hir poetic works. S/he believes in the magic of remembering for the sake of forming a queer future— a deeply accountable & perpetually unfolding utopia.

Erin Stokes: Hello, I am pussayfoot and I hope that my vibrant colorful art pulls you back in time to a party you wish you had gone to; a time of neon lights, bold clothes, and drunken nights. However, you step inside the bathroom. You see what you didn't want to see, the inner confusion of being alive- an intimate bathroom scene you didn't mean to barge into like that... My art highlights the glaring, obsessive fun of life through bright colors. But the subjects also showcase the vulnerability and conflict inside of us. Through my art I hope to challenge ideas of gender, beauty, and sexuality.