Jaden Leman Interview (Full)

Bio (246 words)

On a blue Louis XV couch, with a dark wooden frame, a threaded pillow depicting an

impressionistic Venetian building. Next to it, trans non-binary artist Jaden Leman

(@frog.scream), sits with long rainbow hair, Crocs, and cream-colored overalls. On one

of their legs, a patch reads “Plant Your City and Eat it, Too.” On their bookshelf, a

pamphlet reads “Stop Paying for Food!”

Jaden sits here and looks down at their drop cloth where a painting is in progress. They

discuss a piece on the wall, “I’m a collector. I like to collect little things and put them in

my art. And there’s my hair in that one,” they point across the room, and the piece is

abstract and consuming in all of the right ways. There are unlimited textures, images,

and movement to be pulled into. Several larger brushstrokes protrude from the canvas.

Inspired by Impressionism and now motivated by the Environmental movement, the

Climate Crisis, Hyperpop, and Cottagecore, Jaden’s work exemplifies landscapes

through abstract means: trash, glued and painted over, in acrylic. It’s an undefined

subject and an undefined movement.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, Jaden founded the queer-led, skill-share group

“Permabuds” which aims to form a community with artists, activists, and everyone else

through permaculture—a land management theory that aims to cultivate biodiversity.

In its founding, Permabuds has sought socioenvironmental justice, a deliberate and

complementary community, and creative liberation, all of this being reinforced with

native knowledge of the region.

Q&A (2359 words)

How would you describe your style? Do you consider yourself a part of a movement? A lot of

your art is sort of nonobjective, abstract, at least as far as mixed media. And if you don't

consider yourself a part of a movement, what would you call it?

I would consider myself part of a movement, but maybe not one typically associated

with art movements. I definitely identify with the environmental movement and the

climate crisis as a general theme of my work.

Who or what inspires you?

Nature, my relationship to nature, and the environment as a way to reconnect people—

to each other and to themselves, with a sense of urgency, for collective action in the

environmental movement.

As far as your tattoo art goes, do you find a lot of the subjects, such as your client's choices, just

so happen to fall in line with what you like to focus on in nature? What's your client base like?

A lot of artists and people who appreciate art. People who are looking for

unconventional tattoos and nontraditional tattoos. So much of what people associate

with tattoos is a very rigid style of art, which is why I got into tattooing because I want

to show people that you can do any style of art as a tattoo. This for example. My

roommate did this, and I've been teaching him how to tattoo. That's not a conventional

tattoo, obviously, and this is kind of a side thing, but, you know, rainbow orbs are a

thing that we've been doing.

Let's talk about your dreams for the future. How do you see yourself pervading with your art—

with respect to the environment, too? I know you're in urban planning [major], so how do you

see yourself there?

Well, I am not pursuing a traditional urban planning path, but for all of my co-op

internship experiences, I've chosen to do environmental and art community organizing.

So, more bottom-up, grassroots style planning where you're working with communities

and using art or other types of programming to get people to come together over

general themes of community development—which can look like lots of things, like

putting art back into your community, or just bringing people together and making

them realize they're a part of something bigger, and then that always plays back into a

larger theme, for me, of the environmental movement.

Is that tied to PermaBuds, by any means, as well?

Yes. Permabuds is my main creative project, and what I was saying earlier about

association with the university, that this always happens to me with PermaBuds people.

It's a UC (University of Cincinnati) thing and it's not—and I really want it to be bringing

in people with different backgrounds and ages. And as I graduate, I'm looking forward

to transitioning to a wider community. But what was your first question? Oh yeah, you

were asking about the future.

Yeah—
—So yeah, I'm choosing a different career path, but I'm still going to be using all of my

urban planning and urban design skills because I still want to do community

organizing, rather than community planning, and lots of grassroots arts programming

and stuff. So, PermaBuds is a lot of that in terms of activities that people can come to

and do for free.

So, did you start Permabuds?

We can talk more about that. We do a lot of stuff here outside on my driveway, so that's

a great programming space even though we're just renters. So. Future goal: I definitely

want a home base that I'm able to use as a space for organizing and community

building that I'm able to shape. It's obviously difficult to make more permanent changes

to your environment when you're a renter but would love to have a lot of

indoor/outdoor experiences, like sunrooms and greenhouses and such. And would love

to have my main painting studio to be in a sunroom in my house. I would also love to

start a tattoo collective, and I have a couple of other friends who are looking to do that

as well. So that's my main career that I'm pursuing, is tattooing, because I'm already

doing that full-time and it's providing me with everything that I need. So, I continue

down that path, and it also heavily inspires all of my other mediums.
I was looking through TranZine.

TranZine was my other big project. Back to wanting to do all of these things, like

activism and planning through a grassroots lens, zines is an awesome example of that

because it's literature that you're putting out from the community and not through

some sort of convoluted corporation, or something with another agenda. So, it's really

hard, in general, with PermaBuds in terms of funding because it's all just coming from

us and from the people who are doing it. But that's also a fun challenge. Same with the

rest of my art of trying to figure out how to do things without so much money and

resources. So, I use trash, and I used mostly reused materials. And also, once you start

doing stuff like this, people just give you stuff. "You would want this large piece of

plastic," and I'm like, "Yes, I would like that."

For, "Mixed Up Midwest" what were some of the themes? Was it sort of political? Was it more

environmental? Both?

Yeah, it's sort of my coming-of-age story. It's a collection of poems written from 2020 to

2022, and a lot of the themes have to do with my identity and my relationship to nature,

and to other people, and the climate crisis as an overarching societal impact while all

this personal growth is happening.

Also, with TranZine? Can you tell me a little bit about that?

Yeah, that is a PermaBud Zine project. Me and a few other PermaBuds organizers led

the project, but I was the main person who organized it and made it happen. Basically,

it's a collection of art from trans artists in the area. That was the main goal. And it really

came together amazing. We kind of wanted to put it out there and see what people

would bring to the table. And at the beginning, I was like, "We could even do it if we

get a bunch of submissions." Submit whatever you want, because even if we got audio

files or weird shit, we could make a digital zine. We didn't end up making a digital

scene because of the submissions we got, but it's such a well-rounded piece of work

altogether. It's amazing that that happened because it was literally just what was

submitted. There was no filter.

It was a perfect amount of visual art with written work and all the themes that are

important to at least my experience of being a trans person. All the good stuff and bad

stuff.

What does your brainstorming process look like as far as tattoos or fine art?

My creative process is interesting. I'm definitely very inspired by whatever I'm exposed

to. So, as someone with a background in urban planning, I understand a lot about the
built environment, and I'm really curious about it, and I really like walking and

traveling and experiencing the world. A lot of my inspiration and creative process looks

like taking things from my environment and my life story and molding that into

something interesting that I can share with another person. I'll do tattoos of just

random, weird stuff. I'm also inspired by more historical and cultural things. I've been

really into Raggedy Annie and, like, Care Bears—anything from our parents’

generation, all of that aesthetic stuff, all of those traditional characters that have some

special cultural significance and I really like giving them a new energy, and a new light

in the context of, like, hyperpop. So. Pinterest.

My creative process for poetry and other writing starts with thoughts and notes, more

like journal entries. And then I'll kind of just take those through a few iterations, turn it

into a poem, and then interact with that poem, sometimes through a visual aspect. My

poetry has some drawings in it as well.

What kind of work were you making as a child, and as an adolescent? How did we form into now

and when did those things start?

I have always been an artist, and my first babysitter, that I really liked, she was really

good at art. That was really inspiring. I also had a best friend who was really good at
art. So, I started, honestly, with mixed media and drawing. In high school, I got into oil

painting, and I was really inspired by the impressionism movement because I was like,

"oh, you can create art that is not so locked down into a form and is more focused on

the lighting and the color and the impression of what you're experiencing." So, then I

started painting, and then I also started exploring themes of identity, and then I got into

mixed media stuff because I wanted to start putting objects into my art that help with

the themes of gender and sexuality. One of the first pieces I made with that just had a

lot of objects associated with boyhood and girlhood. I ended up doing a whole series

about gender expression and gender celebration for my senior high school senior thesis.

And then as I moved more into mixed media, I started doing acrylic because it's just

easier than oil. There were several experiences with nature that got me really invested

in the environmental movement, but, as a kid, I spent most of my free time playing

outside. I also grew up in suburbia, though. Now I'm studying urban planning and

understanding more about why the things are the way they are. A lot of it always

comes back to racism, to be honest, and neoliberalism, a lot of that plays into our built

environment and the way people live their lives.

Several years ago, I was working at a boy scout camp in Wisconsin, and that was when

I was like, "Oh, damn, nature is actually everything and my reason for being alive and

the thing that everyone has in common and the thing that matters most." There was a
really big storm that happened—a big tornado—and so that was my first experience of

a natural disaster, and I was in a leadership position. That was really intense. That was

my first experience living in nature, being immersed in nature, and I realized how

important it was to me and how important taking action for the climate justice

movement and caring about how we interact with our environment, and trying to get

people to reconnect to nature as a way to heal and a way to create community. We've

always had the indigenous knowledge of nature and we've always had our identity

with regards to being a part of the environment and their native ecology, but we

somehow lost all of that in Western society, which is a bummer. But also, people our

age in our communities are realizing that we still have all of that knowledge, we still

have that connection. We just have to put our energy and resources into it and let go of

the things that are hurting us.

Would you have strong opinions on industrialization and such then as well? Because I know in

Eastern Europe and all that, they're really doing a good job of being sustainable and blending

nature with architecture and such.

I'm really interested in design that is conducive and co-evolved with nature instead of

this force that's against nature. So, the movement of permaculture, which is what

Permabuds is named after, is a really inspiring thing to me because it's all about
figuring out ways to reenergize and reinvest in our natural systems and our natural

environment. The main thing I've learned from planning is how to do systems thinking

with design. So, looking at economic systems and all of our social systems, how they

interplay with our natural systems, and figuring out ways to make those harmonious

and not killing the things that we need. Being in the suburbs is to be completely cut off

from nature. Being in an urban environment is to be completely cut off from nature, but

it doesn't have to be that way, and we have so many spaces, like community gardens,

for example, that are just either sitting there or only a few people are involved with

them. We also have all these people that are seeking community and seeking places to

grow food and learn about nature and restore native ecosystems. Especially since

COVID. The whole movement—environmental movement—has been really informed

by COVID. And that's when I started PermaBuds was at the beginning of COVID. It

actually started as Sustainabuds, and then I changed the name to PermaBuds because,

you know, "sustainability," it's been co-opted by capitalism. They can have that one.

it started off as an online community to get people to communicate and keep each other

accountable about making changes in our lifestyle with regards to living more

sustainably and living more in connection to nature, and then the Black Lives Matter

protests were happening, so we kind of moved offline into real life to focus on activism.

We also still focus on that cycle of education and reflection and community building
with activism as well because you have to have both. So, then we started doing stuff in

person, and then we got our garden space, and now we focus a lot on our garden and

learning how to restore native ecosystems in ways that can teach people about how to

do more of that.

I'm just wondering if you could tell us more about what makes skill sharing so important to you.

Yeah, well, PermaBuds is a collective of artists and environmental activists. So that's

kind of our whole thing, being able to teach each other things so that we don't have to

turn to the systems that are broken.

Jaden Leman Interview (for Print) (246 words)

Bio:

On a blue Louis XV couch, with a dark wooden frame, a threaded pillow depicting an

impressionistic Venetian building. Next to it, trans non-binary artist Jaden Leman

(@frog.scream), sits with long rainbow hair, Crocs, and cream-colored overalls. On one

of their legs, a patch reads “Plant Your City and Eat it, Too.” On their bookshelf, a

pamphlet reads “Stop Paying for Food!”

Jaden sits here and looks down at their drop cloth where a painting is in progress. They

discuss a piece on the wall, “I’m a collector. I like to collect little things and put them in
my art. And there’s my hair in that one,” they point across the room, and the piece is

abstract and consuming in all of the right ways. There are unlimited textures, images,

and movement to be pulled into. Several larger brushstrokes protrude from the canvas.

Inspired by Impressionism and now motivated by the Environmental movement, the

Climate Crisis, Hyperpop, and Cottagecore, Jaden’s work exemplifies landscapes

through abstract means: trash, glued and painted over, in acrylic. It’s an undefined

subject and an undefined movement.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, Jaden founded the queer-led, skill-share group,

Permabuds, which aims to form a community with artists, activists, and everyone else

through permaculture—a land management theory that aims to cultivate biodiversity.

In its founding, Permabuds has sought socioenvironmental justice, a deliberate and

complementary community, and creative liberation, all of this being reinforced with

native knowledge of the region.

Q&A (1575 words)

How would you describe your style? Do you consider yourself a part of a movement? A lot of

your art is sort of nonobjective, abstract, at least as far as mixed media. And if you don't

consider yourself a part of a movement, what would you call it?

I would consider myself part of a movement, but maybe not one typically associated

with art movements. I definitely identify with the environmental movement and the

climate crisis as a general theme of my work.

Who or what inspires you?

Nature, my relationship to nature, and the environment as a way to reconnect people—

to each other and to themselves, with a sense of urgency, for collective action in the

environmental movement.

As far as your tattoo art goes, do you find a lot of the subjects, such as your client's choices, just

so happen to fall in line with what you like to focus on in nature? What's your client base like?

A lot of artists and people who appreciate art. People who are looking for

unconventional tattoos and nontraditional tattoos. So much of what people associate

with tattoos is a very rigid style of art, which is why I got into tattooing because I want

to show people that you can do any style of art as a tattoo. This for example. My

roommate did this, and I've been teaching him how to tattoo. That's not a conventional

tattoo, obviously, and this is kind of a side thing, but, you know, rainbow orbs are a

thing that we've been doing.

Let's talk about your dreams for the future. How do you see yourself pervading with your art—

in respect to the environment—socially? I know you're in urban planning [major], so how do

you see yourself there?

Well, I am not pursuing a traditional urban planning path, but for all of my co-op

internship experiences, I've chosen to do environmental and art community organizing.

So, more bottom-up, grassroots style planning where you're working with communities

and using art or other types of programming to get people to come together over

general themes of community development—which can look like lots of things, like

putting art back into your community, or just bringing people together and making

them realize they're a part of something bigger, and then that always plays back into a

larger theme, for me, of the environmental movement.

I was looking through TranZine.

TranZine was my other big project. Back to wanting to do all of these things, like

activism and planning through a grassroots lens, zines is an awesome example of that

because it's literature that you're putting out from the community and not through

some sort of convoluted corporation, or something with another agenda. So, it's really

hard, in general, with PermaBuds in terms of funding because it's all just coming from
us and from the people who are doing it. But that's also a fun challenge. Same with the

rest of my art of trying to figure out how to do things without so much money and

resources. So, I use trash, and I use mostly reused materials. And also, once you start

doing stuff like this, people just give you stuff. "You would want this large piece of

plastic," and I'm like, "Yes, I would like that."

For, "Mixed Up Midwest"(Jaden’s poetry zine) what were some of the themes? Was it sort of

political? Was it more environmental? Both?

Yeah, it's sort of my coming-of-age story. It's a collection of poems written from 2020 to

2022, and a lot of the themes have to do with my identity and my relationship to nature,

and to other people, and the climate crisis as an overarching societal impact while all

this personal growth is happening.

Also, with TranZine? Can you tell me a little bit about that?

Yeah, that is a PermaBud Zine project. Me and a few other Perma Buds organizers led

the project, but I was the main person who organized it and made it happen. Basically,

it's a collection of art from trans artists in the area. That was the main goal. And it really

came together amazing. We kind of wanted to put it out there and see what people

would bring to the table. And at the beginning, I was like, "We could even do it if we
get a bunch of submissions." Submit whatever you want, because even if we got audio

files or weird shit, we could make a digital zine. We didn't end up making a digital

scene because of the submissions we got, but it's such a well-rounded piece of work

altogether. It's amazing that that happened because it was literally just what was

submitted. There was no filter.

It was a perfect amount of visual art with written work, and all the themes that are

important to, at least, my experience of being a trans person. All the good stuff and bad

stuff.

What does your brainstorming process look like as far as tattoos or fine art?

My creative process is interesting. I'm definitely very inspired by whatever I'm exposed

to. So, as someone with a background in urban planning, I understand a lot about the

built environment, and I'm really curious about it, and I really like walking and

traveling and experiencing the world. A lot of my inspiration and creative process looks

like taking things from my environment and my life story and molding that into

something interesting that I can share with another person. I'll do tattoos of just

random, weird stuff. I'm also inspired by more historical and cultural things. I've been

really into Raggedy Annie and, like, Care Bears—anything from our parents’
generation, all of that aesthetic stuff, all of those traditional characters that have some

special cultural significance and I really like giving them a new energy, and a new light

in the context of hyperpop. So. Pinterest.

My creative process for poetry and other writing starts with thoughts and notes, more

like journal entries. And then I'll kind of just take those through a few iterations, turn it

into a poem, and then interact with that poem, sometimes through a visual aspect. My

poetry has some drawings in it as well.

What kind of work were you making as a child, and as an adolescent? How did we form into now

and when did those things start?

I have always been an artist, and my first babysitter, that I really liked, she was really

good at art. That was really inspiring. I also had a best friend who was really good at

art. So, I started, honestly, with mixed media and drawing. In high school, I got into oil

painting, and I was really inspired by the impressionism movement because I was like,

"oh, you can create art that is not so locked down into a form and is more focused on

the lighting and the color and the impression of what you're experiencing." So, then I

started painting, and then I also started exploring themes of identity, and then I got into

mixed media stuff because I wanted to start putting objects into my art that help with
the themes of gender and sexuality. One of the first pieces I made with that just had a

lot of objects associated with boyhood and girlhood. I ended up doing a whole series

about gender expression and gender celebration for my senior high school senior thesis.

Then, as I moved more into mixed media, I started doing acrylic because it's just easier

than oil. There were several experiences with nature that got me really invested in the

environmental movement, but, as a kid, I spent most of my free time playing outside. I

also grew up in suburbia, though. Now I'm studying urban planning and

understanding more about why the things are the way they are. A lot of it always

comes back to racism, to be honest, and neoliberalism, a lot of that plays into our built

environment and the way people live their lives.

Several years ago, I was working at a boy scout camp in Wisconsin, and that was when

I was like, "Oh, damn, nature is actually everything and my reason for being alive and

the thing that everyone has in common and the thing that matters most." There was a

really big storm that happened—a big tornado—and so that was my first experience of

a natural disaster, and I was in a leadership position. That was really intense. That was

my first experience living in nature, being immersed in nature, and I realized how

important it was to me and how important taking action for the climate justice

movement [is] and caring about how we interact with our environment and trying to

get people to reconnect to nature as a way to heal and a way to create community.
We've always had the indigenous knowledge of nature and we've always had our

identity with regards to being a part of the environment and their native ecology, but

we somehow lost all of that in Western society, which is a bummer. But also, people our

age in our communities are realizing that we still have all of that knowledge, we still

have that connection. We just have to put our energy and resources into it and let go of

the things that are hurting us