Jijii Buck is a plainspoken trailblazer seeking to liberate the world through love, criticism and art. Unleashing their power through performance art, poetic essays, and other manifestations, their goal is to make art accessible, and the catastrophic digestible. Over the past three years, Jijii has taken a dynamic lead in numerous initiatives from leading anti-police brutality protests, facilitating harm redux youth groups, spearheading grants at local artist-run centres to create art mentorship programming for BIPOC youth, DJing queer joy spaces, and creating music with multiple ensembles. They’ve extended their talents by offering sliding-scale tattoos to support the Treaty 7 QTBIPOC community, all while cultivating a rich and liberating fine art practice.
For Jijii, everything is rooted in bolstering the oppressed and offending the status quo. With their digital and physical artworks, they revel in exploring the obscure, those truths we’d rather not confront, the secrets we guard, and the uncomfortable realities that bind our shared humanity. They firmly believe that only by honestly examining the sources of our discomfort, the ways we cope, our struggles in finding meaning, and the reasons we harbour animosity towards others can we envision a future that breathes vitality into the intricate fabric of our humanity.
The darkness gives way to light, and without that darkness, there is nothing to give the light its form. This ever-enveloping light is drawn in parallel to our human desire for perfection, a desire for a world without scars, and a bottomless hunger for more. Within Jijii’s practice, there is a narrative that pushes the viewer to question how we can find satisfaction in ruins, what can be considered enough, and how can we rephrase the pain inflicted on us all as we watch late-stage capitalism sink its teeth into our beloveds. Through this undying thirst to unearth the obscure and alchemize it for collective care, Jijii is electrifying the Treaty 7 art scene with each step they take, encouraging a future where voices are heard and faces are seen, even if it hurts.
June 2 2024
I am Jijii Buck (he/they).
Welcome to my Bootleg BFA.
June 3 2024
An exercise in beginning.
Mapping where this adventure might take me.
Here is a sample of my psyche, some things on my peripheral that tint my dealings and opinions.
June 4 2024
CONTE Lesson
Today I focused on graphite and conte.
The focus was to try out some building blocks of drawing, since I am terrified of failure this is something I have put off for quite some time.
This year I found myself avoiding my studio as it’s not the work I’m hesitant about but myself, the vulnerability of showing up for myself exactly as I am, the “check-in”.
It felt right to be in my studio, I felt closer to myself.
Although once my daily 2hrs were up I felt dread creep in, the thought of sharing my exercises with the general public… will they think Jijii is a fraud? Finally, after all this hiding, I will be found out, maybe I can view it as a relief! Or maybe this disturbingly irrational fear will fade back into the nothingness from which it first appeared to me. Either way, I am still here, here in my studio, here making art, and here doing those things regardless of outcome.
Things I thought about: single-celled organisms, spiked hair, Joseph Beuys, throwing knives, and floating.
Day 1 of my Bootleg MFA… done!
Will I graduate…..?
Stay tuned my friends.
June 5 2024
CONTE Work
The infant yesterday’s graphite and conte study bore.
When I look at the finished work together like this, I begin to shoo away all the what-ifs seep into me.
Questions like… why isn’t this better? What you are trying to convey and is this how you want to convey it? Is this the best you can do, and if it’s not.. why can’t you try harder?
Then I remind myself, is it the SECOND DAY of my Bootleg MFA, and if there is a time for doubt, unsureness, and self-consciousness I’d say it would be now. I don’t think these feelings will ever go away for me, but I would assume with gentle effort and muscle memory these thoughts become weaker and my desire to create stronger.
And the desire is already there it just needs a little nursing, after all, it is an infant.
My emotions and thoughts about the process of creating can and will run rampant if I let them, and I do think this is important. BUT.. I would like to talk about the content of these Conte works.
I started this session with a mind map, something that I do often, it’s good for my “yayas”.
The mind map led me here:
I am endlessly enthralled by the resilience and strength of flora and fauna.
Whether I want to or not I find myself constantly dreaming and artistically coming back to the thought of post-human ecologies. How can plants and non-human animals, move through the waste and chaos we have created and alchemize something better than how it was left? What would a plastic-eating flower look like? How about a modular heron? How about a beetle that turns chemicals into biofluorescence? Spikey flowers that sew degredated soil back together? These are some of the things that I dream of.
Day 2 of my Bootleg MFA.
June 6 2024
PENCIL CRAYON Study
….A study in pencil crayon.
I never knew how long it takes to properly let the pencil crayon magic unfold… and I still don’t know… but I now know it starts with layers, and my god… many of them.
Since playing with Conte in the days prior, I’ve been getting used to whipping things out with large gestural and chaotic movements. Drawing with pencil crayons, was almost the exact opposite. Gentle, thoughtful movements, continued repetition. Building colour, depth and textures through these steady movements. It felt like a practice of mediation. Today was difficult for me as I did NOT want to meditate, but rather run in the opposite direction of any internal looking glass. Poor me!
I left this session disappointed in what I made. I still am, but I think that is a part of it. To show up to the work even when I feel uninspired and slow.
Although I had laughably high expectations for today, I look forward to translating what I learned during my focus today into tomorrow’s work. I am dreaming of catholic imagery, thorns, botanicals, and abstracted moulds and spores.
Day 3 of my Bootleg MFA.
June 6 2024
PENCIL CRAYON Work
Me and my pencil crayons, my pencil crayons and me.
One thing I’ve noticed about myself is the need to RUSH!
I want my art and I want it QUICKLY.
Like a toddler throwing a temper tantrum, but the tantrum I am throwing is one of self-loathing.
Working with this medium has been a beautiful chance to make a slow intentional movement. Something capitalism and colonialism do not encourage, but rather villainize. GO FASTER COWARDS
This is still a WIP, and I think that’s OK.
Day 4 of my Bootleg MFA.
June 8 2024
INK Study
…Today we play with INK.
Aside from using pens for most of my artistic career, a bottle of ink never crossed my mind.
I found the liquid to be quite playful in nature. I enjoyed all the different ways it could be contorted and manipulated to create different textures or rather meanings. There is a certain flow of this substance that I will most certainly be revisiting.
Although I was not too pleased with my creations in today’s lesson, I relished just being loose and free with my movements, not giving any one of them too much thought, so as to be sure to not squeeze the life out of them.
Day 5 of my bootleg BFA
June 9 2024
INK Work
Someone something about an ecosystem.
Somewhere beyond the naked eye the natural world exchanges gasses and sips upon sugars, a continuous party celebrating the existence of life.
Day 6 of my bootleg MFA
June 10 2024
MARKER Study
Did someone say markers?
The inner child came out to prance and play today. There is something so whimsical about playing with markers. I had the joy of experimenting with both water-soluble and alcohol-based markers, they both have their perks.
The last time I remember making something with markers I must have been in early grade school, it was a scene of a tropical jungle at midnight. The image is skewed from the years passed but I always think about it when I pick up a marker, I always feel that little tickle of joy in my stomach that I made something I liked.
During this session, I manifested some mushrooms, snakes, and a self-portrait.
Day 7 of my Bootleg MFA
June 11 2024
TW: BLOOD
MARKER WorkBRANDED 4 LIFE
Taylor Swift looked lovely in Yves Saint Laurent last night, did you see?
Have you ever thought about celebrities being cattle branded with designer labels…?
Just me?
Thats okay.
Some upperclass folk say “Diamonds are forever” and those people have CLEARLY never given the old branding iron a try.
Day 8 of my Bootleg MFA
June 12 2024
GUACHE Study
This is my new friend Guache. I like them a lot. It was our first time hanging out but I have a feeling we are going to be VERY close.
Everything I admired about watercolour but not so wishy-washy.
Even the traits I loved about acrylic but not as stubborn.
Day 9 of my Bootleg MFA
June 13 2024
GUACHE Work
I like this Guache character.
I wasn’t sure what I was drawing, but this beautiful side profile asked to be the subject.
Sometimes when I pick up the brush with too much of an objective I end up hating what I see.
I am noticing that I like pursuing paint as an emergent process, I lay down one stroke, then another and I see what wants to be brought into existence.
Day 10 of my Bootleg MFA
June 14 2024
ACRYLIC Study
Now acrylic is the paint I am most accustomed to, but it’s refreshing to know there is still so so so much I don’t have a clue about.
There is something exciting about understanding the layers of something so common, after all this is usually the first or second paint we get to play with, if we are at all, so lucky.
I took some time to research techniques, but I found that colour mixing and theory were catching my interest. The idea of creating a never-ending harmony of colours through just three limited colours almost feels like magic.
Day 11 of my Bootleg MFA
June 15 2024
ACRYLIC Work
I’m not sure if you can tell, but I’m not one for realism.
But I took a haphazard shot at some moss a friend found while staying in the Similkameen Valley.
Luckily, for me, moss seems almost unreal.
I think moss intrigues me as it doesn’t follow any specific rules, there is rarely a hard line or calculated angle. It flows freely and mingles with its relatives in no exact pattern that the eye is capable of seeing. I wish to be like moss.
This stab at an acrylic painting taught me a lot about layering, slowly building shapes and defining their character. I also gathered some information on how I would like to go about painting in acrylic going forward: thinest to thickest!!
Day 12 of my Bootleg MFA
June 16 2024
OIL Study
so OIL…! I have been intrigued and terrified to try oil forever.
It’s what the “masters” have used for ages and what most of my favourite current painters wield.
I bought my first tubes of oil almost two years ago and stared at it and it stared at me. I think it was the number of tools and mediums needed to correctly utilize oil, along with the numerous WHMIS symbols accompanying each fluid.
I mean, we all have heard about Bob Ross after all.
So putting my fear aside I got down to business and studied what would be required for this ride to go smoothly.
A large part of this was finding a well-ventilated space, and it was a nice excuse to create a small oil studio in a corner of my garage. I am excited for a summer of painting in that space, something about being out there makes me feel cradled and safe enough to experiment wildly. As per usual this day in the studio was mostly consumed by colour mixing, oh the joys of casting pigmented spells.
Day 13 of my Bootleg MFA
June 17 2024
OIL Work
I learned a lot today, and I think i’ll leave it there.
Day 14 of my Bootleg MFA
June 18 2024
OIL Work (P.2) I had to do a victory lap of my oil work day as the paint continued to flow steadily after yesterday’s work.
Something I mentioned while working with acrylics, has been wildly applicable for oils: START THIN!
The amount of paint I was using prior makes a grown man wanna cry.
Day 15 of my Bootleg MFA
June 19 2024
BLOCK PRINT Study
okay… I like this.
Something bout the DIY nature of block printing.
Get a block, carve it, the COPY AND DESTROY!
It’s mischievous…. perhaps like I am mischievous.
Now I found that could have started with significantly less detail, but what the hell! This print is definitely looking its best on smooth and even surfaces but I would like to print on fabric with it so we will see how that goes.
Going to go bananas block printing this summer. Coming to a wall near you SOON.
Day 16 of my Bootleg MFA.
June 20 2024
BLOCK PRINT Play
APATHY TRIGGER™
What TRIGGERS ur APATHY?
Maybe I’ll feel okay if I buy one more pair of pants, maybe the fire and screaming will stop if I post the right thing on Instagram…. wait… no Meta.
Maybe this job will make it make sense, or perhaps making enough money to evade witnessing the horrors. IDK!
Fuck it I don’t know.
Day 17 of my Bootleg MFA
June 21 2024
CUSTOM ROLLER Play
Mannnn, this idea seemed super easy… ha ha ha.
I workshopped about 3 different designs each failing somewhat miserably. This design was my best and still not where I want it to be and that’s OK!
This is something I am going to continue to experiment with, through all the failures I’ve learned a lot about what will work and what is a waste of my dear brain cells.
More to come.
Day 18 of my Bootleg MFA
June 22 2024
PRINTING W/ FOUND OBJECTS Study
mmmm… garbage.
I often feel unsure about the consumerism aspect of making art. How many miles did this paint travel to get here? What about the pigments? Paper(s), canvas, paints, pens, inks, brushes, solvents, etc.
Can art be revolutionary if it’s also killing the planet, the answer is yes, but how can we mitigate that? Big questions that I don’t have the answers to.
I don’t know where my printing ink came from or who it hurt in the process of getting here but, I do know that it felt good to print with garbage. The alley behind my house was a treasure trove of forgotten items that will mark the wilt of the 21st century. Usually looking at the scraps of our materialist culture makes me want to close my blinds and shrink into some type of hermit-ism. Maybe the path of an ornamental hermit will do, or rather a process of devolution where I begin to run naked in the bush and shriek at strangers. Either way, this practice filled me with a type of hope that maybe our wrongdoings can become good, or at least some vestige of “good”.
I spent the afternoon in the yard looking for junk, then covering said junk in ink and smashing it to paper at my heart’s content.
The sun was on my skin,
The waste didn’t seem as foreign.
Day 19 of my Bootleg MFA
June 23 2024
FOUND OBJECT WORK (1)
I see candles, pupae, fish eggs, and long iron thorns.
All of these things I find close to me, but never in the same room.
I wonder what turn of events brought them together in this union.
What synapses fired in time to make this story?
The story begins with ritual, birth, and a transformation…
if you have any info on where it ends, please, and I mean please do not hesitate to comment below.
Day 20 of my Bootleg MFA
FOUND OBJECT WORK (2)
What plants could grow out of my dead body?
What plants could reclaim me and turn me into something that would nourish the critters little and big I have taken from my whole life?
What plants and fungi would do this in a way that would transform my proteins into nutrients and my sugars into a new life?
More questions I do not have the answer to but, man, do I love to ask those questions.
One day we will all be made new, and oh the gift it is to be ushered into rebirth by the organisms that made that very life possible in the first place.
When I die, I better be compost….. accept this as an informal decree!
Day 21 of my Bootleg MFA
June 25 2024
CYANOTYPE (DAY 1)
I procrastinated on this project for quite a while, and the sun supported me in that swell. There was something beautiful about the stars (or lack of clouds) aligned to create the perfect day for a cyanotype in the sun.
I invited two humans into this experiment, and it made me think about how much of this residency was done in solitude. There is liberation in my solitude but there is also a liberation of togetherness. As this residency draws to an end, I hope to invite more folks into my practice, to play and dirty our hands as a type of communion.
Day 22 of my Bootleg MFA
June 26 2024
CYANOTYPE (day 2)
over-exposed is a word I would use. ahh the joys of trial and error.
Although these prints did not turn out exactly how I wanted them to, I learned so much through the process.
I am foaming, frothing, and lusting for a summer of cyan. The colour turned out so vivid, and it made me dream of so many different applications.
clothing.. wood? dare I say skin…?
I plucked some leaves and they told me to “fuck” off. I found a hammer, a and a few dyke talismans, a piece of film from a forgotten time and matches from a bar in Brooklyn.
Day 23 of my Bootleg MFA
June 27 2024
WRITING
To close this experience, I write of loss and acceptance.
Writing is something that I used to do a lot of before things became so heavy, to twirl and dance along a page was something that could give me peace but along with it, power.
Sometimes (most times) I feel like my voice is not worth listening to and I stay quiet in fear of being understood.
I am not sure I wish to do that anymore.
As the hammock sways gently, I am reminded of who I am, and the limitlessness of wonder.
Day 24 of my Bootleg MFA
June 28 2024
A farewell and thank you to all the hearts that witnessed a part of my becoming.
This experience has been rigorous at times, illuminating, and vulnerable.
I am thankful for the opportunity to play and learn in public. Hopefully widdling away at my need to prioritize perfection over process. The Hammock has ignited a quiet fire in me that, if tended to carefully, will provide me warmth for as long as I need. I am excited to see the ways this fire might be harnessed, and even more excited to share that with the people that have loved and supported me over the years. The mycelium of connection grows, and I am enthralled.
This is the last day of my bootleg MFA.
This is my graduation.
Artist Quick Links
Jiji Buck
Jijii Buck is a plainspoken trailblazer seeking to liberate the world through love, criticism and art. Unleashing their power through performance art, poetic essays, and other manifestations, their goal is to make art accessible, and the catastrophic digestible. Over the past three years, Jijii has taken a dynamic lead in numerous initiatives from leading anti-police brutality protests, facilitating harm redux youth groups, spearheading grants at local artist-run centres to create art mentorship programming for BIPOC youth, DJing queer joy spaces, and creating music with multiple ensembles. They’ve extended their talents by offering sliding-scale tattoos to support the Treaty 7 QTBIPOC community, all while cultivating a rich and liberating fine art practice.
For Jijii, everything is rooted in bolstering the oppressed and offending the status quo. With their digital and physical artworks, they revel in exploring the obscure, those truths we’d rather not confront, the secrets we guard, and the uncomfortable realities that bind our shared humanity. They firmly believe that only by honestly examining the sources of our discomfort, the ways we cope, our struggles in finding meaning, and the reasons we harbour animosity towards others can we envision a future that breathes vitality into the intricate fabric of our humanity.
The darkness gives way to light, and without that darkness, there is nothing to give the light its form. This ever-enveloping light is drawn in parallel to our human desire for perfection, a desire for a world without scars, and a bottomless hunger for more. Within Jijii’s practice, there is a narrative that pushes the viewer to question how we can find satisfaction in ruins, what can be considered enough, and how can we rephrase the pain inflicted on us all as we watch late-stage capitalism sink its teeth into our beloveds. Through this undying thirst to unearth the obscure and alchemize it for collective care, Jijii is electrifying the Treaty 7 art scene with each step they take, encouraging a future where voices are heard and faces are seen, even if it hurts.
