Everything I draw is a collage of what’s healed me
Everything I draw is a collage of what’s healed me
cozcon
Read on to learn what this year’s TDOR art means to them, and find more of their artwork on Instagram @cozcon.
Drawing and worldmaking were always part of my life. I started scribbling as soon as I could hold a crayon, and I made my first comic in third grade. Growing up adopted with white, conservative parents, I didn’t see myself reflected anywhere. When you don’t feel affirmed at home — the space where you lay your head, where you live and breathe — it can mess with your roots. That’s especially true for your experience of gender. You don’t have the language. You don’t know how to pinpoint it. Everything I draw is a collage of what’s healed me.
Growing up adopted with white, conservative parents, I didn’t see myself reflected anywhere. When you don’t feel affirmed at home — the space where you lay your head, where you live and breathe — it can mess with your roots.
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That’s the power of community: you can be stronger, you can be louder, and you can lean into yourself so much more.
I wish I could re-experience the first time someone told me about the stars: we see them so far beyond whatever state they’re in now, their light reaching us long after they’ve died. Flowers and plants grow, die, and come back. The stars, flowers, and plants in my artwork represent different expressions of infinity. They’re almost like a blueprint of how we understand generations. All these lives have come before me, and every single one of those lives had unique but connected experiences. I’m here because my ancestors survived. When you connect with your past, you feel a responsibility — a kinship with the future. You feel that all at once. It’s all just one thing.
I want this artwork to help trans and nonbinary people know love is real, love is here, and it’s the seed to everything.
We don’t have room for any sense of separation. I think the heart of liberation is pure solidarity. All of us looking out for each other. You can have representation, people saying a string of words, but being seen is not being loved. I want this artwork to help trans and nonbinary people know love is real, love is here, and it’s the seed to everything. It’s the rain and the soil to our gardens.
My experience of non-gender is freedom. It’s another way for me to access all my roots.
With this Trans Day of Resilience artwork, I want all trans youth to know: you’re the answer. I want nonbinary parents to know we see you. I want our trans elders to know thank you isn’t enough — if the greatest version of thankfulness is to survive and choose yourself, then to say thank you for real is to say I’ll keep fighting. And to the ancestors: I feel you with me.