I am a New York born artist. I was inspired to use my activist mindset to help combat the Dakota Access Pipeline destruction where the rich wanted to destroy native and sacred lands of our American ancestors for monetary gain.

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My original vision was to take the Native American and Cowboy toys I so innocently played with as a child and create statement art by attaching them on hats to symbolize the fight over stolen land. For me it was more of an art piece, but people soon began to wear the pieces as statement activist fashion items.

 

I was pleased to see I could no longer purchase these insensitive toys when looking to create more hats to match demand, and stumbled across miniature animal toys that were used to educate children on extinction. This lead me into my second collection of creating mixed media headpieces using these animal toys. The vision behind this was to shine a light on the animals whose lives and habitats had been annihilated during the drilling for oil in North Dakota as well as globally.

 

After many years of selling in markets and festivals across the country, I went traveling and decided to adapt my art to my new surroundings.

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I arrived in Bali before the pandemic, and decided to stay and grow artistically on this magical island whilst the world shut down and do all I could to help support the local community. I was driving my bike and pulled over on the side of a busy street and met a beautiful family who manufacture recycled leather pieces. After talking to them, I felt this could be a good way to make use of waste produced from leather manufacturing and production, so that no element of an animals life or being was wasted.

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My intuition said to honor and utilise the animals and their by-products. The cattle population in Indonesia is currently about 16.6 million, of which 43% is in Java Island, where my leather scraps are sourced. The average meat consumption was 2.72 kg per capita per year in Indonesia and has increased to 3.36 kg per capita per year by 2020, so I set out to do all I can to create as little waste as possible from the countries agriculture.

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Now, I have also incorporated the use of recycled tires, as well as recycled leather, suede and cowhide into my products. Rubbish and trash either ends up in rivers or being burned in fields here so I aim to prevent as much of this waste from being discarded as possible.

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I believe the little changes we can make in the fashion industry and the ideologies behind our expression will create shift to become the world that we all want to be a part of.

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I hope you enjoy viewing my pieces and understand the ethos behind my creations. Please, feel free to message with any questions or custom requests - want to create for YOU.

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NOVA / TUKII TUKII