About the Artist

June Nelson (they/she) is a nonbinary transfemme creator, educator, and organizer rooted in unceded Chochenyo Ohlone land (Oakland, CA). They received a BA in Cognitive Science and Education from UC Berkeley in 2020 and worked as a public school teacher before dedicating themself to creating. A self-taught jeweler, June crafts transdisciplinary bodily adornments through chainmail, metal casting, jewelry fabrication, and a variety of other mediums, toying with expectations of appearance and material. Their work expresses radically queer ways of relating to the world and each other. Deeply dedicated to community, June has stewarded communal makerspaces with Sacred Makers Art Collective, co-produced the most recent Emergence and Immortal Femme Collective fashion shows, organized community arts markets and performance spaces with Trans Joy Community, and teaches various workshops intended to cultivate community and facilitate access to jewelry-making materials and knowledge. Learn more about these projects.

About the Art

My work, like myself, emerges from the in-between: hard and soft, grounded and unbounded, spiritual and profane. It tells stories that would otherwise be buried. It is ritualistic, a prayer for return to reciprocal ways of being.

My metalworking practice developed as a means of exploring and expressing my queerness through self-adornment and has evolved with me through numerous transitions since, ranging fluidly in form and material. I aim to disrupt notions of class and respectability by creating jewelry and bodily adornments designed for marginalized bodies, and to facilitate accessibility by sharing skills and diverting resources to my communities. As a nonbinary transfemme artist, I follow the tradition of my queer/trans ancestors: dramatic, scrappy, and beautiful; refusing to follow norms and expectations. I am also guided by my biological lineage, drawing heavily from the chainmail and metalworking techniques of my Celtic ancestors, as well as their connection to land and natural cycles. Practicing ancestral crafts allows me to explore ideas about time and place, using organic forms and natural materials to examine our modern (dis)connection with ourselves and the natural world.