FILMMAKER · WRITER · PRODUCER · CREATIVE DIRECTORI tell stories about people, communities, and the complicated ways we put ourselves back together.
Story is the through line
For more than three decades, I have worked across filmmaking, writing, producing, creative direction, design, photography, political media, and nonprofit communications.
Whether I am making a film, developing a visual identity, or helping an organization explain why its work matters, I begin in the same place: with people, their experiences, and the story that connects them.
CURRENT WORKWHAT I’M CURRENTLY WORKING ON
My practice spans documentary and narrative filmmaking, screenwriting, producing, literary and editorial work, photography, research, and community-centered creative projects.
My current practice spans documentary and narrative filmmaking, screenwriting, producing, literary and editorial work, photography, research, and community-centered creative projects.
I am directing, writing, executive producing, and editing Meet Me at the Club: The Castro Country Club Story, a feature documentary about one of the nation’s oldest LGBTQIA+ sober community centers. Built from 56 interviews and approximately 163 hours of footage recorded across six states, the film documents more than four decades of recovery, service, queer history, and chosen family.
My producing work includes the feature film Angels Everywhere. My current film and screenwriting projects also include the feature screenplay Pretty Broken People and the satirical science-fiction short Claude Ostium.
My literary work includes the editorial project Relate on Purpose, the memoir The Simple Life of Johnny Mayhem, a poetry collection, and ongoing research into queer cinematic forms. Through Liberty Lane Films, I also continue to create independent, commissioned, nonprofit, and community-centered, mission-aligned storytelling.
COMMUNITY & ADVOCACY WORKMy COMMUNITY-CENTERED PRACTICE
Alongside my creative work, I organize public programs, benefits, and communications projects supporting the LGBTQIA+ community, artists, elders, people in recovery, and asylum seekers.
Recent projects include Performance with Purpose: Right to Remain, a drag cabaret that raised more than $12,000 for the LGBT Asylum Project; Aging with Pride, a continuing series centering LGBTQIA+ elders, recovery, history, liberation, and resistance; and Safety First, Sexy Second, a public-service collaboration with the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence to meet a community challenge with humor.
I have also served on the boards of California public-benefit nonprofit organizations.
Across this work, I use storytelling, performance, design, and public conversation to preserve community memory, strengthen connections, and direct attention and resources toward people and experiences too often overlooked.
CREATIVE DIRECTIONSince 1999, I’ve used Branding & design to Solve problems for everyone from Fortune 50 companies to small businesses and nonprofits across the globe.
Good design has to be curious enough to explore, disciplined enough to solve a problem, and human enough to make a real connection that inspires action.
Over the years, I have developed and directed brands, campaigns, identities, websites, photography, and visual communications for Fortune 50 companies, small businesses, nonprofits, and artists. My practice moves comfortably between the strategic and the tactile: clarifying a message, shaping an idea, building a visual system, and carrying it through to the details that make it feel considered and alive.
The strongest work is collaborative. It is built through trust, clear thinking, honest conversation, and a shared investment in getting the work right. Whether I am brought in to help define a brand, lead creative direction, or solve a particular problem, the strength of the products we design and develop are built upon the strength of the team. The work we do together makes us stronger.
CONTACTHELLO!
Every great conversation begins with a simple hello.
Have a project, idea, question, or simply want to say hi? Drop a note in the form—every great conversation begins with a simple hello, and yours might be the start of the next one.
-J