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An interview and photo series dedicated to our past selves and their dreams of our current reality.

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Sitting around the table in Darkhorse Coffee, and later on the ground in a public park, I got to know the five-piece Hardcore band, Dear Evangeline. 

Beginning our conversation with the band’s origins, Xingyu, the band’s guitarist tells me they started as “a Veruca Salt band” and found their way to Hardcore later. “I was super into Riot Grrrl… we were all into femme-punk-y stuff, but we were also all fans of Kittie.” When Kiki, the band’s lead singer (and screamer) learned how to scream on YouTube, it “completely altered the trajectory” of the band. Originally founded in 2021, the current lineup came together in July of this year. The majority of the members grew up in Brampton, Ontario, and the band credits the Brampton community as much of what led them to be the musical powerhouse they are today. 

“I think [The Brampton community] made Dear Evangeline Dear Evangeline. We only found Hardcore through DoFlame, Offleash, and Dear-God… all those Brampton bands, because they play locally… I think that put us in the direction of heavier music.” Robyn, one of the band’s guitarists, adds “Especially because [the community] is so small too—when you find your people you guys have to stick together.” 

Here, I ask the members about their childhood relationship with art: “Did you all want to channel your creativity through music?” This is met with all yesses and Primrose—the bassist—adds that she took classical piano lessons as a child. This statement is met with an instant chorus of “same”s and “me too”s, the members all shooting enthused but sympathetic glances at their bandmates. “I did piano for the longest time,” says guitarist Xingyu, “and then I stopped in the seventh grade because I was like, ‘this is not for me,’ so I thought ‘oh, I just hate playing music,’ but no, that wasn’t true.” There is an agreement, here, among the members that finding the guitar or the bass and experimenting on their own terms allowed them to rekindle their enjoyment of playing music. When I ask them whether their childhood relationship with music lessons quelled their young creativity, the players confirm. “I think doing classical piano…it makes music very rigid.” says Primrose.  “I thought I didn’t enjoy it and I quit in fifth or sixth grade…and then for a long time after that, I didn’t really touch instruments…I don’t know, I think being able to perceive music in a way that isn’t bound to a specific structure makes it [better]…I feel like I was taught music in the wrong way and this is fixing that.” 

I ask them what advice they would give to that young version of themselves having now found joy and expression in music, and Robyn responds succinctly and beautifully: “Don’t lose your own spark…don’t ever lose your spark, because it’s so easy [to]. Especially when you’re young, you have it, it’s there, and then as you grow up everybody’s telling you either ‘no you’re not good enough,’ ‘no you can’t do this,’ [or] ‘if you’re not playing it the way it should be played then you’re not talented’ so it’s really easy for a kid to lose their spark” Xingyu continues, “Cool things come from people who don’t pay things the way they’re supposed to be played.”  

The band’s drummer, Olivia, chimes in: “I think we were all traumatized by piano lessons.” Xingyu, here, gives a nod of appreciation to classical musicians who bring their own unique style to performance, naming Chinese pianist Lang Lang as an example. The band concludes that the uniqueness of musical expression is what makes the performance engaging, and they emphasize the importance of individuality in music. “You learn to break outside the boundaries you were forced into.” 

When asked about whether they expected to end up where they have with Dear Evangeline, the band’s response is a testament to persistence. 

“I never thought doing this would be possible,” says Kiki. “I just thought it wasn’t realistic…a lot of people are like ‘go get your dreams’ when you’re a child, but I was very much in the mindset of ‘art can be good, it can be a good side project, but it’s not something I’m going to be able to succeed in in my life,’ just because of how unlikely that is. Just because you have to be really lucky, you have to find the right people. And obviously we have—we’ve found each other.” She continues, “It helped that when we started there was no pressure to have this be a career, this was just something we wanted to do because we love music. But now it’s developed so much, where we’ve been able to do so many things, that it’s like ‘okay, I can see this being long term’.” 

Robyn, the band’s second guitarist, adds, “and we realized that people have started to realize that we’re lowkey good…and playing shows, like we have fun, we play the shows, and then later they’re like ‘oh yeah, you guys made this amount of money’ or whatever, and it’s like oh! We actually are profiting!” 

“Yeah… it’s never been about that so I’ll literally forget…about the money.” says Kiki.  

Robyn continues, “[Starting the band] was an investment, obviously [the founding members] had to use their own funds… but then as you keep playing and you keep progressing… now it’s paid off because we’re getting to do so much cool shit…like History, we got to play History, and that—me personally that was my dream venue… and opportunities like that are coming in and it’s like, ‘woah, this is actually something that could be really really great, and it is… It’s so hard because there’s so many talented people who can’t express themselves freely because of the lack of funds, and not everybody gets dealt the luckiest cards, but… we’re able to do this and we’re genuinely having fun.” 

The thesis, truly, of my conversation with Dear Evangeline is the value and importance of community—whether that community is your bandmates and co-creatives or your audience. “Even just having one [person] there who cares about the music, that’s all that really matters…it’s just about being able to have that bond with someone in our community over music—over a message,” says Kiki. “And even if we have a bum crowd, as long as we’re together and we’re having fun it doesn’t matter… because we like this,” Robyn continues. Primrose sums the sentiment up, saying: “I think hardcore is unique and reciprocal with the audience in the way that no other genre is…both need each other.” Dear Evangaeline’s story is one of persistence, belief, community, and expression—and their music beautifully reflects their vision. 

Dear Evangeline can be found on social media at @dearevangelineband. 

Hairstylist Athena Abraci comes from a long line of hairstylists, but never expected to become one herself. Originally from Italy, her grandfather and his brothers were hairstylists. The career passed down through another generation with her mother and aunt becoming hairstylists as well. Athena tells me that she never considered it as a career until she was working a front-desk job at a hair salon in Ottawa and was able to see a different side of the medium. She began considering it an art form. 

“It was really cool to make that click in my head… I knew I wanted to do something to help people and make them feel good, I knew I wanted to be in a cool workspace… I didn’t want a desk job, I knew I wanted something semi-creative.” As it turns out, hairstyling checks all those boxes for Athena. While in Ottawa, Athena saw the Ottawa salon’s stylists experiment with competition and editorial hair which emphasized the creativity that the medium allows for. This, in conjunction with the feel-good elements of salon styling, inspired Athena to begin her own hairstyling journey.  Now in Toronto, Athena does both in-salon styling and editorial work herself. The artistic approach to each is different. 

“In-salon, doing really lived-in, subtle, soft looks…it’s like honing that in for that person, and really giving a unique and individual result for whoever sits down. I don’t do the same formula twice, every single time I’m creating something to make that person feel like themselves. Verses when I’m doing more editorial work I feel like I’m creating for…the designer…or for myself—what I really think [will work]. It’s creating for someone else versus creating for art…but the intuition has to come through for both of those areas.” Later, she adds: “doing [editorial hair] on the side actually really changes the way I think about doing hair in the salon, and it kind of re-inspires me when I do those odd things because I can take myself so much out of the textbook of how I learned how to do [hair].”

Athena tells me that connecting with others is a large part of her creative work, and creating art that her clients love is what allows her to channel her creativity. “I feel like I’ve always been a people-person, all through high school I worked in the restaurant industry…I’ve always been the one who got in trouble in school for talking…I’m a chatty gal.” 

Born in Venice Beach, California, Athena grew up in Toronto’s own Beaches neighborhood. On her childhood dreams, Athena had this to say: “I always liked drawing and painting and writing, and all of that stuff, [but] I never had any career ambitions as a kid.” Laughing, she adds, “You know those kids that are like ‘I’m gonna be a scientist’? [That was] never me. I never knew…but I was always finding myself making things.” 

 The physicality of hairstyling is something Athena understands to be fundamental to her artistry: “I like to knit and crochet… I like to do meticulous tasks with my hands that take a long time… it’s always [about creating] with my hands, something tangible—something that exists physically.” 

Athena tells me her mother is an ongoing artistic inspiration for her work. “She was thrilled that I decided to go into hair. She was sort of semi-retired when I [started]… I feel like I’ve almost re-inspired her and she re-inspires me, so it’s a really nice symbiotic relationship in that regard.” 

Growing up, Athena had a different perspective on hairstyling: “Growing up in The Beaches, it’s a pretty wealthy area, I remember always being a little bit embarrassed by [my mom] being a hairstylist because I always was afraid my friends would look down on it. I never saw it as an art form—she was always really creative and into music and visual art—but I never actually saw her work as art… and I’m not sure if she saw her work as art… it was kind of a change in mindset [that] there’s nothing wrong with going into a creative field.” 

As a child, Athena dreamed not of an extravagant career, but of a life filled with love, creativity, and lots of pets. When she did draw and paint as a child, she always drew and painted people—more specifically, women. Now, her clientele, as she describes it, is “probably 90% women, 8% queer folks, and like 2% men. Majority women and female-identifying people… another part of what I love about what I do is being able to uplift women literally for a living.”

When I ask Athena about her relationship with money and its effect on her art, she offers a unique perspective. “It’s hard because it’s art, and it’s also kind of an act of service. Sometimes I’m struggling…to charge my worth. I kind of put the money part aside, when I shouldn’t always.” The connection and joy that comes from hairstyling for Athena sometimes disconnects her from the business side of the industry. She continues, “I find myself [not wanting to charge] a lot because it feels so human, and money doesn’t.” 

Here, I ask Athena what advice she would give to her childhood self. She responds humorously: “Don’t listen to your dad—you can totally be an artist.” We both laugh, and she continues, “I think I was taught from a really young age that making money was the priority, like having a high-paying job—and hair can be high-paying…especially in the city—but I think…every time I had a passion I kind of backed myself down from it because [I thought] ‘oh, this won’t be lucrative’ because that’s the way I was raised. So I would probably just tell myself [to] do what feels right. If it’s in your heart, it will be lucrative. If that’s where you’re setting your ambitions and your energy and your talent, you can make that work for you.” 

Athena can be found on Instagram at @hairxathena, working in-salon at Untitled by Flaunt Boutique, and as a Key Hair Stylist for Fashion Art Toronto. 

My interview with Toronto-based tattoo artist Proxii began with a search for a place where we could sit and talk. Our walk around UofT’s Wycliffe College ended with us settling into two seats among probably 70 others, in a hall that I can only imagine is used for ceremonies or church services. We sit across from each other in the back, not venturing to sit in the three ornate thrones on the platform at the front of the room. 

She begins by telling me about her journey into tattooing. Proxii describes tattooing as a field she fell into by way of a passion for drawing that she’s held since childhood. 

“I would always doodle in my notebooks while I was supposed to be doing homework instead,” she tells me, laughing. “I definitely did not have any awareness that tattooing could be a possible career for me. Back then, there was a very gated culture in the tattooing community.” 

Proxii first began tattooing during the COVID-19 pandemic, citing the era’s ‘DIY tattoo movement’ as inspiration that allowed her to break into that world. It began as a non-committal, experimental hobby: “I’ll just tattoo myself, and tattoo my friends, and see if it’s fun at all.” She tells me that the moment tattooing shifted from a hobby to a career was when she realized her friends were willing to pay her for her work. 

“Honestly as a kid, growing up never believing that you can make money off of art, it was such a big mindset shift. I’ve always been told by people growing up that you can never make money off of art—and it is really challenging… but it’s just been amazing to be able to support myself somewhat through tattoos, and to see that it can actually have an impact on people around me. When I see my clients coming back for more, or clients showing each other the tattoos I’ve given them, it reaffirms how important it is, and how valuable my work has been to other people, and that’s so affirming.” 

The two-way relationship that emerges between creator and client in tattooing differs from Proxii’s past approach to drawing. She tells me that as a child, she was hesitant to show her art to others. “I always thought I was either too cool, or I was too self-conscious to even acknowledge that I drew something.” In adulthood, sharing her art with others is what has allowed her to support herself. 

Proxii tells me that making a living with art has changed her relationship with her artistic self in both positive and negative ways. On the positive side, she says it has pushed her to become a more reliable and consistent artist—“A producer of art.” She highlights how important it is in her field to create finished pieces and to show up for every client. On the negative side, she tells me about how commoditizing her art can dampen her artistic voice. 

“It starts to become a product for other people. And while that’s good because it pushes you to try new things you haven’t really explored before, it becomes like a separate entity from yourself.” 

Proxii was born in Korea and came to Canada in her very early life. She grew up in Mississauga with her three siblings, two older sisters, and a younger brother. “I tended to be on the quieter side growing up,” she tells me. “I didn’t talk much on the outside, but I always was doodling and drawing, and writing things down on paper… I spent a lot of nights alone drawing in my bedroom, filling up sketchbooks.” 

“Think back to your childhood self, what was your dream?” I ask. “Flash forward— you’re five years old thinking about your twenty-five-year-old self—what did your five-year-old self want your twenty-five-year-old self to be doing?”

“It’s hard to recall,” she answers. “I feel like instead of having a concrete idea in mind, I had more of a feeling that I wanted to feel. I wanted to feel at peace. I wanted to feel free, I’m pretty sure. I love being given the space and time to explore my inner world, and really I had no intentions other than that.” 

When I ask her if she feels like she has that space and time now, she says she does. “Sometimes you have too much freedom,” she adds. “The lines between your identity and your art kind of become blurred when you’re a full-time artist because you’re putting so much of your own character, or your identity, into your work”.

I ask her if she still feels connected to her childhood artist self, and she tells me that it’s difficult to connect with that version of herself. 

“When you’re so keen on becoming a full adult, you kind of forget about the inner child and what they wanted in life. I know that I’m responsible as the adult to kind of lead them through this life as well, to show them how I can still respect their wishes and their desires, but through the realities of living in this world.” She tells me each past version of herself has something to show her, and that her inner child reminds her to have fun with her art, and to not take things too seriously. 

Proxii works out of Zero Studio in downtown Toronto, and can be found on Instagram at @proxii_dream.