StuffStudio
Bio
StuffStud.io is a Black, Queer, multidisciplinary artist, ancestor in training, and recovering academic. Best known from decades of work in southeast Minnesota as a mentor, an advocate, a grant writer, and a Somatic and Narrative psychotherapist, --she’d just tell you that her advanced degree is in listening to stories and helping them grow feet.
StuffStud.io crafts spaces for untamed imagination and collaborative dreaming.
You can also find StuffStud.io developing video games with trans, queer, neurodivergent storylines, and
offering a series of community workshops that celebrate collaborative storytelling, honor oral traditions and the sacred art of call-and-response culture embedded in the Black diaspora.
Artist Statement
Black wisdom calls us to transform everything we touch—creating progress, mischief, and magic. Creating something holy out of nothing good. Art is more than a collection of words and technical brush strokes. Our art is the experience of creation itself.
My illustrations preserve the sacred, making fleeting moments eternal in the stillness of the frame. When stillness isn't enough, I allow stories to move through animation and short film. And when the movement is laborious, I facilitate story birth through somatic and collaborative processes.
StuffStud.io honors the spirit of Story in all its forms. The work is a catalyst for venerating lived experiences, reimagining the future, honoring tradition, and forging connections that resonate through generations
Current Projects & Events
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Workshop Series: Familiar Unfamiliar
Made possible by a grant from the Minnesota State Arts Board, Familiar Unfamiliar is a project at the intersection of Black culture, art, storytelling, technology, identity, self love, and a lot of introspection. This workshop series will span across three phases and culminate in a final project viewable by the general public.
- Download the Class Syllabus Here
- Sign Up for Updates Here
- Join in the Discussion Here
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The Future We See Ourselves
The Future We See Ourselves is a multi-media interactive vision board that features contributions from contemporary Black scholars and community leaders answering the questions:
- “If everything that you have been advocating for came to pass, what would the future look like?
- Who would it benefit, and why?
- What do you imagine happened for it to finally come true?”
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In Story Development: Solana.
Solana. A Black coming of age story set in Lowcountry South Carolina.
Genre: Magical Realism
Logline: Captured an eerie sense of familiarity, Solana must push through her timid nature when she discovers three golden skeleton keys that might just be a portal to a beloved place she is told she doesn't belong.
Gameplay is set to be a Dark Souls-lite (sprawling magical narrative with colossal and fantastical creatures, but with adjustable difficulty settings) meets Plants vs Zombies 2 (a strategic interactive combination of magical plants is a large part of the gameplay's defense and combat) meets Dragon Age (fun, chatty party members).
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In Story Development: Winhaven
A Black Speculative fiction with a Majority Black cast from across the diaspora
Mosa is a Black 19 year old deaf, AuDHDer, emerging reporter, alternative/punk rock baddie with a life sized mechanical corvid named Raven. Raven is Mosa's personalized disability device.
Setting: Mosa lives in a fictional Northren costal port city, Winhaven, that is ongoingly being gentrified. Mosa, driven to break into 'real investigative journalism' gets way in over her head navigating the underbelly of Winhaven where secrets rule the streets.
Gameplay: Fast paced Life is Strange/Detriot Become Human (choice based narrative) with an ensemble cast, meets Hitman (stealth, exploration and creative multi-solution strategies) meets, oddly enough --The Sims 2 (character stats, emotions, needs are a part of gameplay).
Collab
Upcoming Workshops
List of Services
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FAMILIAR|UNFAMILIARRESERVE YOUR SPOT List Item 1
ONLINE
Reclaiming Black Archetypes
Participants will work together to redefine and replace colonial archetypes with meaningful Black figures.
Participants will explore Black intersectionality, cultural erasure, Black influence and identity development.
Participants will be able to identify which archetypes have influenced them and which resonate most with their self-identity.
By the end, we’ll distill 40 archetypes down to our top ten.
Activities include writing and reflection prompts, discussions, and meaningful introspection.
This phase is ideal for Black emerging and established writers, helping professionals, artists, and advocates of Black culture and identity preservation. This is a closed cutural practice.
Not Black and want to witness or be a part of a process like this? Join us in Fall 2025 for the open practice sessions and celebrations. Also tune in for other iterations of this project Queer and Disability Aesthetics COMING in 2026.
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MAY 4th [tentative]RESERVE YOUR SPOT List Item 2
Collaborative Storytelling
HYBRID/ONLINE
We’ll transform our top ten archetypes into grounded characters using interactive storytelling, call and response, craft miniature narratives from the voices of these archetypes with our lived experience, and bring them to life through discussing how they should appear in art.
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SEPTEMBER 7th [tentative]RESERVE YOUR SPOT List Item 3
GENERAL ADMISSION/PUBLIC SHOWING
StuffStud.io and emergent MN artists from the FAMILIAR/UNFAMILAR cohort will host a live interactive event featuring the characters and narratives explored in the spring and summer workshops.
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