The Gathering Project, 2024

A site-specific temporary installation proposal to create (4) functional and sculptural ‘Bio-Anchors’ (sculptural forms that aid in ecology) that are an homage to human cultures, flora & fauna of past, and are a direct reclamation of Indigenous space. The NW Portland Park installation aimed to positively support and engage the community in the interconnectedness of all beings. The entire project details the process of an independent artist going through the public art installation process within the City of Portland, Oregon. The postscript project results live within my manifesto and a living document. The Teepee & Circle permanently reside at Caldera Arts (Sisters, OR).

⇺Outside of Art⍈ - A Manifesto for reclaiming artistic integrity/space

⇹ The Gathering Project is a direct reclamation of a once Indigenous space. Reclaiming what public art is, can be, who designs it, who decides its existence, and embeds Indigenous presence within the process. The Time to Rise has been Engaged. The Teepee. ↭My bio-anchors go beyond aesthetic impact & design - into an ecological aid. These bio-anchors are creating new contemporary forms of knowledge within the art realm and are ‘forward leaning’ outside the colonial notion of ‘Indigenous Art’. The interconnectedness of humans within Nature is the foundation of The Gathering Project and the concept for my bio-anchors. The Bench. ⇱Freedom of artistic expression is a gift to the world for and with every culture in human existence. The Gathering Project as an artistic research process manifests the power to profoundly use voice and action in art and is a call to “reach deep within you to pull the powerful spirit energy forward” for it is our responsibility to evolve art and social consciousness as artists. The Table. ↻Trust your instinct and heed your inner voice. Self-reliance is key to artistic survival, in a country that has yet to financially and socially support artistic research & ‘the artist’. The fork in the road of doing public art materially or continuing research no longer should be divided - bridging the gap between these processes which mirror the connection of humans to nature. As both scenarios are ever evolving and changing the landscape of our existence. In continuous reciprocity we circle in these truths. The Circle.

Pima Solanas Project, 2025

A photographic documentary performance & homage’ to Valerie Solanas. In collaboration with the Pima Desert Arts (Tucson, AZ) and photographer Nalani Tiscareno.

Rhode Island Bio-Anchor, 2025

A Rhode Island Native material-based Bio-Anchor sculpture. It permanently resides at Osamequin Farm (Seekonk, MA) and while it naturally breaks down, it aids as a pollinator habitat, a carbon sequester, and a birds nest.

Cyme Collective, The In-Betweens, 2025-present

The Cyme Collective is a trio of artists - Megita Denton (Coahuiltecan), Sade Dubois (Tlingit), and Epiphany Couch (Puyallup/Yakama). The In-Betweens, a project by The Cyme Collective, is grounded in our lived experiences as artists of mixed heritage and Indigenous descent—citizens of multiple nations, both colonial and ancestral. We inhabit the in-between: a space of tension and potential, where historical trauma and cultural reclamation coexist. Our bodies hold this complexity. They are not just vessels of survival, but carriers of memory, sovereignty, and identity. We exist in a historical moment suspended between the violence of colonization (problem) and the resurgence of Indigenous ways of being (solution). It is in this liminal space—where there is no single truth but layered histories—that we find our work. The In-Betweens becomes not just a theme, but a lived geography. Through painting, photography, and sculpture, we create a collective response that reflects the grief, joy, resistance, and healing embedded in our cultural narratives.

Our current award of The Precipice Grant from the Portland Institute for Contemporary Art proposes a collaborative sculptural installation that focuses on our collective ties to the land via thoughtful ecological sculptural design, vivid photographic paper quilts, and Native Oregon flora renderings—plants that once sustained Indigenous communities and have been displaced alongside the people who tended them. By dressing these proposed forms with hand-painted botanicals, we honor the enduring relationship between land and lineage. In this act, our collective aims to reconnect people to place and to restore visual memory to landscapes made invisible through settler colonialism. This work is not static. It lives at the intersection of care and confrontation, grief and ceremony, vulnerability and power. As a newly formed collective, we are building a language that reflects our shared desire to be seen fully—in all of our complexity, contradiction, and cultural strength. We see our work as a gesture toward a more inclusive understanding of citizenship—one that does not erase but embraces multiplicity, responsibility, and repair.