November 2022

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an illustration of a fat, feathered, bird-clawed & horned, queer & trans Jewish demon, seated above Yiddish text reading "feygele." the figure is chained by the wrists but appears arrogant & inviting.

a poem with an illustration of bird with a person's head & crown of stars. the title (in Hebrew) is "sheyd

FEYGELE, 2020.

a sheyd (Jewish demon) inspired by two major stylistic influences, Leonard Baskin & Aubrey Beardsley, and also by the #AugustAdiPOSE & #FatArt hashtags on Twitter. the title/text “feygele” is a Yiddish word meaning “little bird” often used as pejorative slang for a queer person – here also playing off the figure’s size & the bird-like attributes of sheydim in folklore. a queer/trans fat Jewish aspiration!

paired with the poem “sheyd” from my chapbook:

commanded, as you are, to love the stranger,

must you not also be a refuge

to the strangest who reside among you?

call us in from the corners, we little birds

who sing in unfamiliar tongues: our cries

also reach heaven.

though our prayers take different forms

we too are people of the book;

we too keep our covenants, in the 

twilight places where we make our homes.

even as you safeguard yourselves fully against us,

so do you imprison a portion of the soul we share—

let there be spaces in your dwellings and your teachings

for us to come and go in peace.

we bring with us both the fear and the joy you have forgotten:

in the dust, in the ashes of your empires

shall you see our footprints.

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Candlelight & Token, published by Glowing Roots Press, 2020-2021.

covers & interior illustrations (left, Forest Angel for Candlelight; right, Nest for Token)

some of my favorite illustration work from the past few years has been for TTRPGs with Gabriel Robinson - Candlelight in 2020 was really my first foray back into ink painting after a long time, & now i can’t get enough of it. very excited for an upcoming project with Gabriel that we can’t quite talk about yet, but i can promise more of this mood.

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the torso of a cow, with blood dripping from the stumps of its severed limbs & head, floats against a smoky backdrop above a magic sigil on the groundALT
a robed and hooded figure with insect wings, whose face emits light and shows one large black eye, sits in front of a twisted tree with paper amulets hanging from its branches. in the background is a field of flowers.ALT

Summoning & Wraith Tree illustrations for The Academy Chrysalis by Pluripotent Press

more moody ink paintings for a game with a great “dark academia” setting. you can hire me to paint floating dismembered bovines anytime!

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a collage and pen image showing a doll's head (with black metal-style corpse paint) and arms on a large mass of textures and images making up a body, including two owls holding a magic book. the doll holds a pike with the severed head of a fascist, and the owls are nibbling on strings of its flesh. the doll's head has a locket with "Minerva" written on it and "metal head" is written across her collarbones.ALT

Minerva Metalhead, 2019 (for Black Metal Rainbows, available for pre-order)

i keep meaning to do more in this vein of collage-with-pen! i was invited to contribute to this anthology & remembered that i had saved the head & arms of a vintage doll ad (“Minerva” was the company, the new metal head was the selling point). it turned into a piece about feminist & specifically anti-fascist black metal, playing on Minerva as the goddess of wisdom, the arts & war. the book the owls are holding is open to images from the Chrysopoeia of Cleopatra, attributed to a foundational woman alchemist from 3rd or 4th century Greece.

also, sometimes you’re out doing errands & you run into a neo-Nazi with an SS bolt facial tattoo, so you come home & draw that on a head on a pike.

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sassylich:

A picture of the RPG book Token by Gabriel Robinson, surrounded by dead leaves and crow feathers.ALT

i just got my copy of token by gabriel robinson (trollhands on twitter) and it’s STUNNING!! everyone go get yourself a copy from glowing roots press! (gorgeous cover art by @sheydgarden)

thank you so much! it’s such a thrill to see these out in the world (and what a beautiful photo to show it off!)

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a black and white drawing of a human shape with Hebrew letters spelling "emet" (truth) on its forehead in the manner of a golem. its body is made out of many different images of architecture, art & other cultural artifacts related to Jewish life in Glasgow, and the text at the top reads "GLASGOLEM"ALT

Glasgolem, 2022

earlier this year i was honored to be asked to do the cover for issue #1 of Golem Zine, a series showcasing voices from lesser-known Jewish communities around the world. this first issue celebrated Jewish life & culture in Glasgow, and creating this cover involved a deep dive into the history of Glaswegian Jewish art & architecture.

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title page illustrations for Dream Askew (left) and Dream Apart (right). the Dream Askew illustration features a derelict frame created out of junk, with talismans and herbs hanging from it, a nail-studded bat, electrical equipment and candles. the Dream Apart illustration features a frame created out of smoke rising from the chimneys of shtetl houses, up into the sky where a multi-eyed, winged angel watches. both illustrations have a sigil/logo at the center.ALT
illustration of two tattered cards, one with a storm cloud that has an eye and the other with a small eye & the edge of a hand.ALT
illustration of a pair of tattered leather steel-toed bootsALT
illustration of a fiddleALT
illustration of a paper amulet with Hebrew text and imagery (a small fish, a Star of David, a magic square)ALT

title pages & interior illustrations for Dream Askew (in green) & Dream Apart (in sepia), 2018, Buried Without Ceremony

DA/DA was my first real TTRPG job & remains one of my favorite projects ever - two beautiful games about survival (queer communities in the near-future apocalypse, Jewish communities in a historic/fantastical shtetl) that truly live inside you once you’ve played them. this was the beginning of the Belonging Outside Belonging system/style (built on the frameworks of Powered by the Apocalypse), which has gone on to inspire many other incredible games!