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I was born in Baltimore, Maryland. In my family, geography, religion, and ancestry were never particularly simple. I come from Gullah Geechee, Cuban, Black American, and Italian people, though I did not inherit all of these histories neatly. Some things came through food, prayer, music, and family stories—others I had to secretly hunt for.

Growing up Catholic in Baltimore with my mother and sister, I learned prayers in Latin on Saturday while singing Kirk Franklin classics in the gospel choir on Sunday. I rounded out my teenage years by attending Hebrew school and spending a summer in Israel studying Judaism before I converted to Islam.

There are gaps in what I know about where I come from. I have learned to live with them; they lie beside me at night, peppering my dreams with mysteries. Sometimes, imagination is how I reach across the distance. While in undergrad, I studied with a Cuban Yoruba priestess, dipped my toe in the Nation of Gods and Earths before briefly finding myself in a cult. Somewhere along the way, I stopped looking for a single tradition capable of encapsulating everything I believed.

I became an amalgamation.

I still am.

I am a witch. I pray. I pay attention to my subconscious desires. I look toward the planets and stars not only as symbols but as relatives. I am made of the same matter I bow my head beneath. For me, the divine has never lived very far from the ordinary.

Neither has art.

I am interested in bodies, language, ritual, memory, and all the complicated ways we construct ourselves from what we have been given. I love beautiful objects and difficult questions. I believe in what I cannot see and remain fascinated by what I can barely touch.

My work begins there.

Lately, I have been thinking about love; truthfully, I always am.

About what Black women know about loving other Black women. About being seen and the very different experience of being watched. About the sacred ritual technologies that exist between us and what happens when those technologies become accessible to the general public. I am thinking about freedom. About what I inherited, what I have given away, and what still belongs to me.

I don't know that becoming has an end.

I am more interested in remaining awake for the journey.

CV

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TRAE HARRIS