member's short bios
Serena McCarroll received her BFA in Photography from Emily Carr University of Art & Design and her MFA in Documentary Media from Ryerson University. Her work has been shown in galleries such as Harbourfront Centre (Toronto), Stride Gallery (Calgary), The Art Gallery of Southwestern Manitoba, Paved Arts (Saskatoon), The Nickle Arts Museum (Calgary) & IMA Gallery (as a featured solo exhibition at Toronto's Scotiabank Contact Photography Festival). She has written for Broken Pencil Magazine and The Walrus. She is the author of the book All Citizens, published in 2012 by Conundrum Press.
Leon McCurdy identifies as an invisibly disabled artist. He is primarily self taught, working in painting but steadily moving toward more sculptural work for which he is considering schooling options at the moment. He has experienced homelessness in the past and would like to further get involved in the housing movement to support both himself and other people.
Born in Nova Scotia, Trevor Manson started playing drums at 12 years old and by age 15 had started playing with other local musicians. In 1990 at age 22, he relocated to Toronto and played in numerous bands over the next couple of decades, blessing him with the opportunity to travel to many parts of Canada collecting memories that will last a lifetime. Simultaneously, Trevor spent over two decades in market research, working his way up to senior management roles until developing a neuromuscular condition that abruptly ended both careers. When he started learning the draconian rules associated with our so-called social safety net, he never missed a beat transferring his attention and skills to advocacy and he now participates in various grassroots advocacy groups/activities. Music is still an integral part of Trevor's life and he still enjoys noodling on his electronic kit in his 400sq. ft. bachelor apartment.
Alec Whitewolf Butler is of Mi'kmaw, French, Irish and Afro descent, originally from Cape Breton Island aka Uni'Maki aka "Island of Fog". They are non-binary, trans-masculine, Two-Spirit and Intersex, with butch lesbian history of writing the plays Claposis (1985), Cradle Pin (1987), Black Friday? (1990), and Medusa Rising (Dyke Witches on Hanlon's Point version in 1996 & Gender Queer Circus version in 1999). Since coming out as transgender in 1999, Alec has scripted, directed, edited and performed in the films "Misadventures of Pussy Boy: An Animated trilogy" (2000-2006) about growing up trans in the 1970's, "Audrey's Beard", a short about transitioning from butch dyke to trans-masculine. Last year they screened their film "My Friend Brindley", a documentary about the life and times of a self-proclaimed Lavender Lesbian, Amazon Bike Club member, Artist and Elder at the Elder's Program at the 519 Church Street Community Center to an enthusiastic audience. As Artist-in-Residence at the 519 they created Trans Cabaret, a sketch comedy/cabaret about all things trans. In June 2023, their animated series about growing up queer in the country, "Pussy Boy Trilogy", which won awards in Canada and Europe, were screened at Ireland's first transgender film festival.
In 2014, Alec published the queer novella "Rough Paradise", a story of Two-Spirit young lovers who persist on pursuing their queer love at a time when everyone in their community was against them. Alec has been nominated and winner of awards and distinctions. Their fifth play "Black Friday?" was nominated or the Governor General's Award for Drama in 1991. In 2018, Alec received the Acker Award, named after the feminist punk writer and philosopher Kathy Acker, awarded to mature older artists who are not recognized by the mainstream and have made a career in the fringes of the art, theatre, film, visual art and music world.
Alec is still recovering from a violent attack by a Christian extremist for being Two-Spirit on July 17, 2020, which lead to their housing crisis due to being unable to work as a front line worker.
Currently, they are working on a new play called "Three Maries", a generational memory play about the rise of fascism in Europe, the dangers of Holocaust denial, and the Settler Colonial project on Turtle Island through the stories of two young female diarists on both sides of the Atlantic during World War Two. "Three Maries" is dedicated to Alec's mother, June Marie Butler nee Johnson (June 6, 1930-August 1, 1993) and Ann Marie Frank (June 12, 1929-mid-March, exact date unknown, in Belsen-Bergen Concentration Camp, Nazi Germany, 1945) author of "Diary of a Young Girl", recently banned by the Fascist governor of Florida and a seminal book for Alec as a young queer writer. Alec is also researching and working on a script for a new animated film about a Two-Spirit Indigenous Dancer/Singer/Drummer who disappears into the gay world of Berlin, circa 1923, called "Looking For Alec", based in a true story. Alec is a student at the University of Toronto in the Indigenous Studies and Sexual Diversity Studies Departments, researching and writing a book length essay on Queer Indigenous poetics called "Lay of the Land". Currently Alec is researching and writing their Master's Thesis, as a graduate student in the Gender, Feminist, Women Studies department at York University.
Julie Scrivener (she/her), formerly aka Genova, is a 14th-generation white settler on both sides of her family, clearly an issue for the original inhabitants of so-called North America. Julie is starting to explore the history schools taught versus the reality handed down by non-white peoples and concomitant feelings, privileges and responsibilities.
She has been and/or is a poet-in-residence, filmmaker, playmaker, visual and digital artist, standup comic, composer, musician, singer-songwriter, spoken word performer, both solo and in collaboration, with Being Scene Annual Juried Art Exhibitions, Amadeus Choir Lab, Rendezvous With Madness Festivals, Scotiabank CONTACT Photography Festival and others. Julie has recently taken on multiple roles with Channel 2400, produced by James Buffin for Workman Arts, and continues as an active listener for Workman Arts members both individually and for its workshops, classes and events.
Julie usually feels that she would be thriving, according to her own, not society's, push more often and for longer periods if the world accepted her and others with all their splendid uniqueness; if this could be a planet on which all were simply abled, without the term, and accepted, not made to feel ashamed for any deviations from a prescriptive path.
Julie learned to loathe the term "senior" from her mum's mum, a professional trumpet player and bandleader of 45 women, who rode her horse to school as a child. Like her, Julie doesn't have a fancy résumé, but is proud of the things she's accomplished that took at least 100% of everything she had. She's learning to better balance her priorities, time and energy.
Julie has never really felt she belonged anywhere, or for very long, and had to play catch up in far too many schools for years due to serious mental health "episodes" beginning in adolescence or earlier. She and her nuclear family kept these mostly under their hats with the idea that Julie could then seek and find work. Julie's parents encouraged her always to work or be looking for work rather than to be a perpetual student, to be self-sufficient (hence happy). Sometimes this worked; often not. Her parents meant well and always gave Julie their time, energy and love.
Now that Julie's closing in on becoming a "senior", she is finally unconcerned about acquiring degrees and hopes to leave some kind of positive impact on those she meets, forge new friendships and spread the feeling of belonging. Most recently she has uploaded some digital photography to artcloud.com, with many more types of works to add there and/or elsewhere.
I'mme. I was born in Tiotià:ke-Mooniyang/Montréal in 1968 and am of Irish, Scottish and German heritage. I have lived in T'karonto/Toronto since 1998 in alternately shared, low-cost, unaffordable and not-for-profit arts-mandated housing (now in question). I have a BA as well as education in fine arts at the graduate level in addition to substantive training with master artists in my field. The artwork I contributed to the map has as much lineage in my studio practice as it does in a couple of hours' seminal art play in kindergarten. Thank you, Mrs. Harris, from the bottom of my heart.
Looking back, it's easy to see that I've always been seeking out space and connection with spirit. My most treasured memories of the arts are those of discovery: within myself, within the form, with my students, in the studio, behind the scenes, in performance, in creation, within collaboration. This life is more, and more challenging, than I ever could have imagined.
I am grateful to have been invited to participate in this project. To date I have no personal experience with Workman Arts. Over the last couple of years I've been deepening my understanding and practice of Nonviolent Communication. Within that framework, I'm curious about the feelings and needs of both ddadh and Workman Arts, and what strategies might best get needs met.
Tristan R. Whiston is a multi-disciplinary, trans, able-bodied and housed artist who has worked in Toronto's arts community for over 30 years as a director, dramaturge, writer, performer and community artist. On more than one occasion, with more than one close friend, Tristan has tried to "help", to be a support in the search for a home one can call one's own, in a city that continues to be hostile, with potential landlords that continue to close their doors with ableist discrimination to those friends. Tristan mostly feels helpless, and very naïve.
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