February 22, 2023

Hi,

It’s been a minute! I’m almost mid way through my 2nd semester at UIC’s art school. I’m now in their BFA program and it has been keeping me busy. I’ve also had the great opportunity to work in the Moving Image and Photography Labs.

I’m in the “burnout stage” of my education and spent took the morning off to work on projects and homework at home. It has been a nice break but I’ll head out for my photo class in about 50 minutes. There’s never enough time in the day.

Currently I’m working on some personal projects in animation, photo, and film production. Not much to update right now but I am investing all working hours to making art and duplicating cassettes without days off. This is the busiest schedule I’ve ever had but I am enjoying it even if my body hurts, and I don’t get enough sleep some nights, it feels like I’m a machine that just keeps working. Yesterday. I spent about 6 hours of frame by frame digital animation and while my shoulder hurt by the end of the night I feel like I made something I can be proud of.

Anyway, here’s a phone photo of one of a couple of my darkroom prints from this semester. Laterssss.

November 15, 2022

I should be working on my homework but I realized that I have a lot to update. I’ve been at UIC’s School of Art and Art History since August. I made a fast pivot from School of the Art Institute Chicago. I’m about 2 weeks away from completing my first semester at UIC and I’m stoked to say that I am learning a lot! I have made some new work that will be posted on this site soon.

June 11, 2022

Hi!

I am excited to share the news that not only have I graduated from Wright Community College and received an AFA Studio degree, I’ve also been admitted to SAIC this fall as a junior to work toward my BFA! It’s been a long 5 years at Wright and I’m looking forward to finishing my BFA at SAIC over the next 2 years and then working toward an MFA wherever my work takes me.

As of today I’ve updated this website to include drawing and stop motion, and I also added some paper works to 2012-2013 as well as some mixed media and my first sculptural work to the new installation category. I’m currently working on a video of the slide projection for warmth and hope to have that updated soon.

Hope you all have a nice summer and thanks for visiting.

best,

billy (they/them)

photo by Greg Fitzsimmons

July 16, 2021

UPDATE: The show at U.S.S. Gallery has been rescheduled for July 23, 2021 from 6-9 p.m. and the piece October 17, 2019 has been edited and renamed Becoming. Hope to see friends at the opening! After the opening the show will be by appt from 7/24-10/2. To schedule an appt please call the number on the flier below.

UPDATE 2: My video for A.M. Stations - Pop to Sunshine has been uploaded to Vimeo. Thanks for all who tuned into PRFBBQ 2021! It was a great time full of positive vibes. I’ve added a new folder on my portfolio named Music Videos, you can find this video there, and hopefully there will be more to come. I really enjoyed the process and you can read more about it on the vimeo link in the about section.

June 24, 2021

It’s been a while since I’ve made an update to this site so I figured I’d put a little bit of time into it today. After going through each page I’m realizing how much I want to make new work and show new work. The last series October 17, 2019 has been framed and will be shown at the U.S.S. Gallery in Chicago on July 18th! This group show will be appointment only and more info will be announced soon!

Considering October 17th, 2019 is complete and debuting soon, I felt it was time to add a new series to my portfolio. Last December I was encouraged to submit 10 photos to the annual Aperture photo competition, I had been processing rolls of film and scanning at home to keep myself busy throughout the year, and with this opportunity to show my work in a larger capacity I started the process of choosing the right photos. When viewing these 10 photos in order the title emerged easily, Memory is the Distance from Lonely to Empty. The title describes a feeling I’ve been experiencing since I film photography resurfaced in my life back in 2016. The absence or distance from people was a stark feeling, but it wasn’t all that new to me, which was proven when scanning. While I haven’t been very good at putting this feeling into words, the photos opened up this reality to me.

In other news, I’m stoked to announce that my debut music video will premiering at the PRFBBQ Streaming music festival this year! It’s a video for a A.M. Station’s song called “Pop To Sunshine” that has never been heard before! It was mostly shot and recorded during the lock down last year. The fest is from July 8-11 and I’ll post all info here on this page when I know more.

Thanks for reading, and thanks for visiting!

<3

billy t.