Violet Austerlitz
Violet Austerlitz is a second-year MFA student at Missouri State University. Her current focus is on re-imagining Springfield, Missouri, as a more human city.
Artist Statement
Recipe for an Epiphany
This is an adaptation of a short graphic memoir comic about the epiphany of realizing I’m trans. It’s a look at cumulative pieces falling into place, building up to an overwhelming moment of realization. I wanted to not only express the enormity of that moment, and the life-changing clarity that it gave me, but also to be honest about the moment that comes afterwards – once we have an epiphany, once we have seen the truth, what do we do with it?
It Takes a While
This video piece is a response to Recipe for an Epiphany. I’m thinking about the seven years that have passed since making Recipe, and the twelve years that have passed since the epiphany itself. I wanted to see what I had learned, to be able to say this is who I am now. But am is a verb, it is the process of being, not a fixed point. Who I am now is permanently unfinished, and I hope I can tell you, with this work, what an unfathomable joy that is.