My name is Cole Lehto, I am a multimedia artist primarily interested in creating sculptural objects but I do a little bit of everything. I have been making art for as long as I can remember. I’ve always wanted to make things that I see and make things that express how I feel. When I was a kid, I would draw and draw and draw and I’d skip doing my homework during study hall to draw some more or spend time on the pottery wheels at my school. I like to know how things work and how things in our universe came to be. As I’ve gotten older it has been harder to find reasons to explain why I make art, especially in our capitalism-focused society. The starving artist trope is not perpetuated without cause. When I first came into adulthood, I was very lost. my life path had been somewhat untraditional up until that point. Mental health struggles, drug abuse, identity crisises, etc. I realized I was transgender when I was 15 or 16, however, I didn’t really want to be. It seemed like it would be hard. It was hard being queer in the environment I grew up in. I had trouble staying out of trouble as I attempted to cope and figure out my circumstances. But I couldn’t really ignore who I was even when I tried. After graduating high school I moved out of my parents’ house and just worked as a waiter and tried to be happy. Covid shut down my job which allowed me to rethink where I’d like to be and what I’d like to do every day. I wanted to be making art and connection with others. So, I applied to the local university UW Milwaukee, and started school. As I said, I had always been drawing ever since I was a kid, but once I got to college, I saw that there were an infinite number of ways to output visual art that went beyond the 2-D space. And I could make work beyond objective subject matter. I found printmaking, and jewelry making, and sculpture, and I’ve recently been interested in digital fabrication with computer modeling and machine output. I’ve been interested in the combination of the human hand and eye aided by the technology I have at my disposal. I like to make expressive things. I also like to make playful things that allow people to have the same curiosity and wonder that I have. I make kaleidoscopes and other sparkly glass things and I like to combine metal, glass and unusual materials, typically ones that I find on the side of the road or the dumpster. I like to reclaim things that were thrown away or discarded because I get overwhelmed by the excess of things that move through our world all the time. I work as a concierge at a condo building and a portion of my job is to organize and disperse the packages that come through the mail room. Every day, looking at the pile of things that arrived for any number of the people in a 144-unit condo building reminds me of how much moves through our world. I lose things a lot because I’m disorganized and then sometimes I don’t even miss what I’ve lost. Sometimes I don’t even know that I’ve lost it maybe until months or later or at all, so, using things that I find or scrounge up is a way for me to pay homage to all of the stuff that we don’t have that we might need or that we have and don’t need. To make kaleidoscopes, I recycle material from rear projection TVs that people don’t want anymore because they take up too much space in their homes and they want the newer better screens. These old TVs contain large mirrors and projectors that I can repurpose to make something new. A transformation! I currently have been learning basic robotics and coding to try and incorporate movement mechanical movement into my work. I’ve incorporated movement into my work as an interactive experience with a few pieces that I’ve made, but I’m interested in other forms of power and movement. I like the way things change over time. I like seeing weathered things like rusty metal and rocks and bricks on the shore of Lake Michigan that I’ve been worn down over time. I think change over time is a main facet of my attention because of the way I feel like I have changed  and have observed the way other people have changed throughout my life and the way the world has changed and what the future might look like compared to what I thought the future would look like even a year ago or a few months ago. As a trans person, change is a beautiful thing to me even though it can be scary. I think change is fun and exciting. I want to make work that’s fun and exciting but also reminds people to look around and see what possibilities could come with change. I’m not currently offering work for clients beyond being a fabrication assistant to other artists and makers as I continue to learn materials and processes. I would like to find funding to create larger and more complicated bodies of work. I also have plans to create products for my own design line which would include jewelry, clothing, and smaller kaleidoscopes. As I finish my undergraduate bachelor of fine arts, I’m looking forward to the future of my work and practice. I think I plan to continue my education in fine arts through an MFA at some point so that I could teach, however, I still have a year left in my undergrad degree. I think what sets me apart from others is my unique perspective and almost dream-like optimism despite my at times very difficult

experiences as a human and trans person.