Salut, je m'appelle Sy !

Ils/Eux

I'm a community-taught, mixed media artist creating art for kids' books, textiles, and home goods. I have degrees in writng and children's literature and write for both children and adults.

I especially enjoy writing magical realism, verse novels, and picture books with emotional impact, both fiction and nonfiction.

I love texture, loose, gritty lines, and rich, moody palettes. When possible, I use reclaimed materials and packaging, and work with manufacturers who ethically and sustainably care for all creatures--human and more than human.

I love to experiment with word and image and across genre lines to challenge normative binaries, pulling from queer ecology, animacy, surrealism, and more to explore the spaces in-between, the liminal, the mysterious, the magical.; to find tools that better represent those of us living in those in-between spaces, especially in regards to queerness, neurodiversity, disability, and the human and more-than-human.

Why "Lost Button Studio"?

Buttons are meaningful to me because they hold things together, and they are often lost. There's magic in being a little lost, and like many lost things, I love to wander--in the forest, around the world, or in my own head--collecting lost, discarded, and overlooked bits to use in my art and stories.

I also love making one-of-a-kind buttons from clay and leaving them for people to find. Creating art is like a button for me. It holds me together when I start to come apart. I hope my work can be a button for you too.