OUT Exhibit
2022-09-01 08:00 - 2022-09-30 17:00 (America/Chicago) | Octagon Center for the Arts, 427 Douglas Avenue, Ames, IA, 50010, United States
On View September 1-30, 2022
Exhibition Locations:
Ames History Museum: “Selfportrait: Flickering” by Sasha Phillips
416 Douglas Avenue; Hours: Tuesday-Friday 1-4, Saturday 10-4
Ames Public Library: “Queer Family” by Charlie Esker
515 Douglas Avenue; Hours: Sunday 1-5, Monday-Thursday 9-9, Friday-Saturday 9-6
Back Alley House Plants: “The Box” by Ashley Vance
111 Main Street; Hours: Wednesday-Sunday 11-5
Dog-Eared Books: “Social Medium” by Lane Maxson
203 Main Street; Hours: Monday-Thursday 9-7, Friday-Saturday 9-8, Sunday 10-6
Heroic Ink: “Mushroom Abduction” and “Portal” by Jennifer Leatherby
211 Main Street; Hours: Tuesday-Friday 11-9, Saturday 9-9, Sunday 12-6
Little Woods Herbal: “2424 2.0 (June 24th)” by Jameson Malone
136 Main Street; Hours: Monday-Friday 10-6, Saturday 10-4
London Underground: “a hot haven” by Piper Smith
212 Main Street; Hours: Monday-Thursday 3 pm-2 am, Friday-Sunday 2 pm-2 am

Exhibition Statement:
OUT extends an invitation to connect to the LGBTQIA+ community with authenticity. Each artwork was chosen because they bring forward key elements of community building like creation and maintenance or people and locations.
The artwork featured in OUT presents communities in a way that contains abundance, masses, and movements that are neither monolithic nor are they stagnant. A few of the artworks invite you to share specifically in the LGBTQIA+ community in hopes that you will understand and see what we know and hold dear. Other artworks invite you to see the more difficult parts of community: the loneliness, the effort, the isolation, and the need to escape.
By actively engaging in OUT, you are actively engaging in the many levels of community in and around the exhibition. You are building a community with the artwork, with the artist, with the people and places the artist calls community, with the Octagon Art Center, with Ames, and with me. Welcome.

~aj castle, Out Exhibit Juror
Juror: aj castle (they,them,theirs) is currently transitioning from full-time creator of programming and resources to support and advance gender equity in higher education to full-time scholar on the intersection of gender and technology. Their specific interests include researching, exploring, and understanding the creation and viewing of digital bodies, digital gender identities, power disparities in social media and user generated content, and the gamification of relationships. Their current multi-media works in progress include an analysis of the technologies of gender in sci-fi/horror films, a body horror short story, and various assemblages of found objects that speak on transitioning and expanding gender.
Artist Bios and Statements:
Charlie Esker – behance.net/profile/charlieesker; @charlieesker
Hello! My name is Charlie Esker (they/she), I am a nonbinary artist born and raised in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. I moved to Ames to study Integrated Studio Art at Iowa State and now work as a full-time artist!
Artist Statement: Often, queer people’s stories get told for them. Whether it be by their families or by the media, queer people hardly get a narrator role when it comes to our own struggles. My art is my way of telling my story and working to heal my trauma through the artistic process. Most of my work revolves around my experiences as a transgender person, both internal and external. Inviting the viewer into my story; whether that be to connect with other queer individuals, or allow non-queer viewers a chance to see queerness through a queer person’s perspective. I strive to depict queer people in all our diverse, divine, glory.

Jennifer Leatherby – @jenleatherbyart
Jennifer Leatherby is a queer multimedia artist who lives in Des Moines, Iowa, USA. She was adopted at a young age and grew up in a town of population 200 in rural Iowa. Her work explores themes of gender, mental illness, death, nature, and escapism. She visualizes her themes through abstract painting and fiber art and with symbolism of black holes, surveilling eyes, hands, psychedelic landscapes, celestial bodies, otherworldly plants & animals. Her work includes drawing, painting, fibers, digital, video, performance, and sculpture.
Artist Statement: My work reflects my life through a mirror of fantasy and abstraction. I am interested in every day connections and contradictions. I explore the time between our first breath and our last breath, after our breath has ended, the space between breaths, and the things that take our breath away.

Jameson Malone – jamiemalone.com; @artbyjmalone
Jameson Malone is a 25 year-old multidisciplinary artist who graduated from Iowa State University with a BA in Biological/Pre-Medical Illustration. They create in various mediums, most commonly known for their digital and acrylic works. Malone is heavily inspired by celestial bodies, musicians, the occult, and the natural world. While infused with themes found in traditional art, their pieces often focus on the understanding of oneself within gender, sexuality, and mental illness.
Jameson is currently located in Des Moines, IA. This is the the ancestral, unceded land of the Báxoǰe (Bah Kho-je) or Ioway, Sauk (Sac), and Meskwaki (Fox) peoples. The Meskwaki Nation settlement is located in Tama, IA, and you can read more at www.meskwaki.org/
Artist Statement: I seldom depict more than one subject at a time in the pieces I create because much of my childhood was spent in isolation. Contemplating how the loneliness of childhood isolation has impacted and informed my young adulthood, I’ve seen how the pieces I create can often reflect the feelings, passions, or subconscious rhetoric that individuals in the community often feel as well. We so often feel we go through hardships alone, but as we reach out to those we care for, often the currents of time are having us flow in the same wave.
Proceeds from this piece will be donated to the Iowa Trans Mutual Aid Fund.
Lane Maxson – maramaxson4.wixsite.com/lanemaxson
Art has been incredibly influential to Lane throughout his life, though it wasn’t until a few years ago that he really started to enjoy and grow in his art. Within the last year, Lane has been able to reflect on past traumas and experiences, which can often be reflected in his work. Through this work, Lane hopes his art can open windows to help others with their own past traumas.
Artist Statement: As a twelve year old, downloading Instagram for the first time seemed like an exciting opportunity. Five years later, my views on social media are far from exciting. From a young age, the importance of likes and followers was forced into my brain and eventually became the only thing I was focused on. With each post, I gained more likes, fueling that need for approval. Before coming out, I wanted to be “good enough” online, and I feared rejection from others if I were to come out. I thought my entire life was based on my presence and popularity on social media. After coming out, my likes dropped, and eventually I started to realize how damaging my mindset had been. Portraying the ‘real’ me opened a new window of healing for me. I learned that you shouldn’t hold back or hide yourself for the approval of others.
Sasha Phillips – @sashablu_art
Sasha Phillips (They/Them) is a Disabled, Non-binary & Queer Artist living in Iowa. They were trained in traditional art mediums under Painter Dixie Schwisher and continued to pursue art on their own over the next 20 years. Specializing in Oil, Acrylic and Graphite they prefer a surrealist approach to art, exploring how nature, the macabre and the fantastic can tell stories about the human experiences of grief, joy and reinvention.
Artist Statement: I create art that blurs the lines between realism and surrealism, between the binary of life and decay. I use acrylic in this piece for its bold opaque pigment to heighten contrast and emphasize that the light of self knowledge and community cannot fully blot out the pressure of our socialization, systemic structures and internal doubts. Freedom is a process, a sometimes ugly, exhausting process, even within a supportive community, when safety isn’t a guarantee. Light is still light, but it can easily be snuffed out.
Piper Smith – @paintdbypiper
Piper Smith is a recent graduate of Iowa State with a Bachelor’s Degree in Performing Arts. She loves to utilize the arts, especially theatre, to contribute to her community and elicit positive change. She also loves painting and the ability it gives her to express herself. She is just getting started as a professional, so she hopes this exhibit can open new doors to her future.
Artist Statement: I feel that I am my most authentic self when I am able to interact with other trans people. It’s not that I can’t be authentic with people who aren’t trans, but there is something special about connecting with people who understand me on an even deeper level. Through my art, I can bridge that gap. Having a medium and also a platform with which to express myself allows me to tell the stories of my experience as a trans woman in a way that can better connect to those who aren’t trans. I believe the greatest struggle for cisgender people understanding trans folks is simply that the stories of trans people aren’t told enough. Even when they are told, it may not always be done by trans people themselves. When trans people aren’t granted ownership of their own stories, the narrative tends to shift into one that demonizes and lies about us. It is vital for us to tell our own stories for us to find that beloved connection, belonging, and authenticity.
I chose peppers for this piece not only because I think they’re delicious, but because they show us a wide array of beautiful colors, shapes, and sizes. Peppers are spicy, yet so are the connections I find with the people in my communities. Just as I am enamored with spicy peppers, I am with the spiciness of my own relationships.
Ashley Vance – @ashleyvance.studio
My work as a printmaker and mixed media artist focuses on issues of social justice and feminism, specifically. As a queer woman I use my experience to inform the work that I put into the world for purposes of awareness and validation.
Passionate about both art and issues of human rights, I combine these to bring awareness of different social justice topics and to validate the experiences of those that are “othered” in society. I use my education in printmaking and women’s and gender studies to create a line of connection and communication from the marginalized to the privileged to further inform those who do not understand, and to stand up for those who cannot stand for themselves. By using methods of printmaking, which is the medium of communication and mass production, I can spread my message to a much larger audience.
Artist Statement: I work with printmaking and mixed media in my work to spread messages of feminism and social justice. The processes I use are primarily print media based, where I use an image to create a printing substrate to create the ability to create multiples of one piece. With my work purposefully spreading messages to the masses, the ability to create multiples is vital to my process and my goals as an artist and activist. By photocopying and resizing my works to make them more accessible, I am furthering my goals of making art for the people; all people.
Events:
Out Exhibit Walking Tour: Thursday, September 8, 2022, 5:30-6:15 p.m.
Join Dr. Ruxandra Marcu, director of ISU’s Margaret Sloss Center for Women and Gender Equity, and Dr. Susan Harper, director of ISU’s Center for LGBTQIA+ Student Success, for a walking tour of the Out exhibit. Dr. Marcu and Dr. Harper will host the tour, offering their thoughts, reflections, and interpretations of the artwork with community members.
Anyone who wishes to join the tour can meet at the Octagon Center for the Arts at 5:30 p.m. Free and open to the public.
Out Virtual Artist Talk: Monday, September 26, 2022, 7:00 p.m. CST
Join juror aj castle and exhibit artists for an informal conversation about the artwork of Out. Register here to receive the Zoom link.

This exhibition is sponsored by the Octagon Center for the Arts, the Center for LGBTQIA+ Student Success, Margaret Sloss Center for Women and Gender Equity, Wheatsfield Cooperative, London Underground, Amy and Jason Popillion, The Women’s and Gender Studies Program at Iowa State University, Tara Fisher and Dave Svoboda, and Dawn Budd.
