Kal demaree

Art

“Not gay as in happy, but queer as in I love you”

Created in 2023, and exhibited in 2025 in Shades of Us, in the Indiana University Indianapolis Campus Center Cultural Arts Gallery, curated by Sophia Dewitt.

Love, but radically. Love, but in defiance. And I don’t mean love is love either. I mean love like militant solidarity between queer women and queer men, and all other iterations and permutations of both and neither and something else. I mean love like trans self love. Like decolonizing gender. I mean love like found families, like vows beyond and intentionally distinct from marriage. I mean love is a riot. I mean a love that transcends hunger. I mean love like disruption, like breaking concrete foundations like frost and thaw because to love otherwise is unthinkable or unlivable, or simply and plainly unwanted. I mean queer like a shot glass or a sledgehammer. Something that shatters borders, that tears down walls and does not, cannot build them. I mean queer like we’re here. A community that came together to care and support, to love each other and fight together for their right to exist safely and happily in a world that has always told them no. I mean queer as it is intentional, of purpose, and is meant to take up space. I mean queer as you cannot insult me by lumping me in with the most marginalized and scandalous among us because I am unabashedly for their quality of life and not just my own. I mean queer as in pride. And I mean queer as in I love you.

Read the Campus Citizen’s Article about the ‘Shades of Us’ Exhibition here

“317-770-4415”

In 2025, I created a wearable textile art piece about the Fox Hollow Farm Murders, to bring awareness to the free DNA testing made available by the Hamilton County Coroner’s office to help identify the victims. I wore the piece to various Pride celebrations around Indiana in 2025.

In late 2025, I was invited to display the piece at the Indiana University Indianapolis Campus Center’s Cultural Arts Gallery as part of an exhibition highlighting LGBTQIA2s+ students, titled “Shades of Us”, curated by Sophia Dewitt.

Find me in the future

In 2022, a project I was working on was defunded; after a year of hard work – all of our work was scrapped. At the same time, my supervisor, who I had grown close to, was leaving her position to start a new career. Find me in the future is both an honoring of our relationship, as well as a reference to the film Howl’s Moving Castle, which is both my, and my then supervisor’s favorite film.

This piece was made as a gift for her, gifted on our last day of work together.

Advocacy

March for Our lives

In 2022, I was part of the team of students that started the Indiana University chapter of March For Our Lives, a student led gun control advocacy work. I was the Public Policy Chair on the Executive Committee.

Bloomingout Radio Show

One of the United State’s longest running LGBTQIA2s+ oriented radio shows (22+ years running!), BloomingOUT is a radio show that is recorded live from WFHB Community Radio in Bloomington, IN. I am proud to say that I was/am a co-host, writer, and assistant producer for the weekly show.

Listen to BloomingOut Here

Colorguard & Music

I participated in Color Guard/Winter Guard/Marching Band for 8+ years, growing from rookie to instructor. I competed in the Indiana High School Color Guard Association, the Indiana State School Music Association, Bands of America (BOA), the Midwest Performance Association, the Tristate Marching Arts, Winter Guard International (WGI) circuits.

In 2019, I was awarded the IHSCGA’s largest scholarship ever, in honor of Tod Hilton – a late alumna of my high school, as well as a notable music educator.

I grew up playing bassoon and flute; in 2017 I preformed at Carnegie Hall in New York City, and in 2019 I preformed at Disney World. I did solo and group contest in the Indiana State School Music Association circuit. When not in rehearsal, I often spent my afternoons volunteer playing at my paternal grandmother’s memory care facility, in partnership with the caretaking team, as a method of music therapy for my grandmother and her neighbors.

Mid-way through my preforming arts career, I had to undergo emergency major abdominal surgery in Fall 2017; I only missed 2 rehearsals for the hospital stay – throughout my recovery I sat on the side lines and repaired ripped silks and costumes, or transcribed music. In 2020, I was forcibly retired after contracting Covid-19 and Long Covid, which caused a loss of fine motor skills and proprioception (which were re-developed via physical therapy), right before my age out of Drum Corps International eligibility.