Arts
Using art as a way to stay connected to the Earth, Elijah June has mastered many media and dabbled in even more. When they’re not out adventuring in nature, you can usually catch them and their art hanging in Rugged Grounds, their favorite coffee shop in Provo. They’re about to take on their biggest adventure yet, leaving behind the comfort of their home to lean into travel and explore more of the world around them.
Every month, SLUG Style features a distinct member of the community and asks them why they do what they do. Exploring more than just clothing, SLUG Style is an attempt to feature the people who give Salt Lake City flavor through personality and panache.
How does the way you express yourself via styling clothes, your hair and makeup compare to the way you express yourself via visual art?
A lot comes from my imagination and intuition. I am punk, pink and inspired by the earth.
Everything I create is part of my healing journey. I am trying to knit myself back together by sewing love into every shadow and light part of myself.
My styles in clothing and art range through many different expressions, because that is how I integrate. I try to start each outfit and each art piece by going deep within myself, holding the parts of me that want to be seen.
My values are the throughline in everything I create.
I choose to believe that everything I make for myself can inspire or bring comfort to someone else. Art is energy work. I create to empower individuality and encourage everyone to be everything that they are — multifaceted.
What are your stylistic influences? This could be a band, decade, fictional character — anything.
My imagination, my mom and nature are my biggest inspirations. I’m very influenced by animism — the idea that everything has a soul or consciousness. Trees, praying mantises, spiders, rivers, buildings, birds, cats and rocks inspire me.
I also find a lot of inspiration in queer and neurodivergent people’s styles. Utah’s counterculture has been super inspirational to me, along with the punk and fairy people of Eugene, Oregon.
What are your interests or hobbies? What is the hobby or interest that you have that no one would realize to ask you about?
I cut my own hair. I’m a rock climber, and in Oregon I had a job for three years as a routesetter. Since I’ve been back in Utah, I’ve been learning how to grow things, fix things and build things. I grew up a dancer, I write and I have always loved to model in and photograph shoots.
I’m very interested in energy work and learning everything I can about theories of spirituality and metaphysics. I love studying people, both individually and sociologically.
I’m one of those people who appreciates the journey more than the destination, at my core. I love the merging of self and others. I love to learn, and I love to create for the sake of creation. It’s in how I dress, photoshoot, engage with the people I love and the people I don’t know and in the way I make art.
Tell me about your family’s decision to sell your house and travel the country. What does that sense of freedom and adventure mean to you? What are you hoping to gain from the experience?
I’m going to completely lean into a new, grubby, campfire-reeking, car-camping self. I will leave all my old mediums behind for a time, to form a deeper connection with the earth, my eyes, my heart and my body than ever before. I hope to unlock a new level of deep embodiment and self-trust. I have a lot of privilege to be able to do this. I have my super solid support system and the funds for now. It’ll be us and our cars.
I want to build the foundations for me to fall into myself and learn to build through my fears. I want to fall and get back up over and over again and internalize that I can always get back up.
Artistically, I want to lean into land art, photography, grubby style, graphic design and music. I’m excited to be immersed in a lot of new cultures and nature and to gather inspiration from them. I want to build new ways to create and new ways to share what I’m learning online. I want to learn about how to have a community when I’m on the road.
Are you always “on” or would someone see you at the grocery store, for example, with fewer elements of your style?
I absolutely fluctuate stylistically.
My hair is my favorite thing to style when I don’t feel like dressing up. I also keep two little septum rings in my right earlobe.
Those, and my big black boots tend to be my trademarks when I feel like wearing a hoodie and khakis. Sometimes I wear a red panda onesie to the grocery store.
If you had to describe yourself in three words, what would those be?
Soft
Sharp
Shape-shifting
You’re a master of many mediums: crochet, painting, sculpture. What are some elements of your art that remain consistent throughout the mediums, and how does your approach to each differ?
My approach to each medium stays rooted in wanting to explore every piece of the earth that I can. I want to touch and craft it all. I’ve tried welding, sewing, plumbing, stand-up comedy, sculpting mud, stacking rocks, digging holes, paper-mache, energy work, coloring with crayons, acrylic painting, oil painting, ceramic sculpture, ink drawings and sooo many other mediums.
It all feels the same. It’s cyclical, layered, repetitive, hard work and requires all of my artistry. With each medium I’m working through different blocks and building different skills. The only reason I’ll gravitate toward one medium or another is for balance.
I love to work on a bigger scale, and I have recently enjoyed land art and paper-mache because they make my hands dirty and require me to move my body a lot more. This has helped balance my insides. More technical and smaller-scale mediums like colored pencil and acrylic painting take me out of my body and into my head, so I’ve leaned away from them lately. I’m sure I’ll come back around to them, but for now I’m leaning into a new, more embodied way of making.
How has your personal style evolved over time?
It evolves every single day! Being exposed to new cultures and gathering inspiration from everyone I see on the streets allows me to find and explore new parts of myself. I love to try on everything and everyone, keeping what fits. As I’ve grown older, I’ve found more and more that fits me, leaving old versions behind that weren’t authentic to my core.
I’ve noticed that I’ve gravitated more toward earth tones and punk styles since living in Oregon. Since coming back to Utah, I’ve started to lean into my hyper femme side and begun exploring again with new eyes.
If you could give a piece of advice to your younger self, what would it be?
Keep going. You’re doing better than you think you are. And I will take care of you. You keep investing in your future self.
I will keep investing in you and bridging the gaps between us.
You are worth staying alive for and listening to. And you will get to decide who you turn into and whether your dreams will live, die or evolve.
Read about other local creatives expressing themselves through fashion:
SLUG Style: Veronica Clark
SLUG Style: Braxtyn Birrell
To help SLUG continue its support of local artists, consider joining our community of donors
