"The Nonbinary Tic-Tac-Toe" (XOXO)

12”x12” encaustic/ mixed media on wood panels

The project was inspired by a close friend’s daughter (also a sweet friend), who one day requested to be addressed with a “They” pronoun. I am doing my best to make this mental shift, but I’ve been scratching my head a bit over the grammar. How do we reform a historically binary game into a nonbinary one, in a way that everybody wins? This question must be answered with artistic rigor. Ground rules are: 1. You can draw X, O, nonbinary XO, or neither. 2. You can either fit your image into my narrative or create your own story. 3. You can stick with the 4x4 grid or ignore it completely. 4. Just have fun, laugh and play! (Notice that Xs, Os and XOs have already won on the diagonal!)

Brief explanation of my doing:

A1: Oops, Mary Poppins’ bag popped open! (Pun intended.) X; A4: North Star, XO; B2: Picasso’s Dove of Peace mistakenly picked up Mary Poppins’ green bra instead of its iconic olive branch. X; B3: Sometimes I wish I were a neuronal nucleus, painted on a rainbow-kite. He? She? It? They? All of the above, XO; C2: Da Vinci’s Vitruvian Man is practicing their cheerleader moves inside of an exploding dandelion-zorb. XO; C4: My cat got Klimtified again, while they were playing with their colorful neuron-kite. XO; D1: Don Quixote (XO) landed upside down in another dandelion-zorb because D2: they stared at the windmill-giant for too long, meanwhile their horse got bored and decided to jump onto a nearby tambourine.