still chugging along…

an update from Lauren - April 2026

A year ago, I completed a residency at Studio By The Tracks titled Becoming Wormtrain. Rather than focusing on producing a traditional body of objects, I structured the experience around what I think of as enthusiasm sharing.

During the residency, I worked alongside Jordan, an artist with a focused enthusiasm for trains. Over time, we developed a rhythm of parallel play: each week, he would bring a train and trace it, and I would respond by transforming it into a worm. From this process, a series of “wormtrain” drawings emerged.

While these drawings were later mounted, framed, and exhibited publicly at the Samford University Art Gallery in Fall 2025, they were not the central focus of the residency itself. Instead, the primary “outbreath” of the project took the form of a publication titled The Wormhole, an artist newspaper reflecting on my experience as a late-diagnosed autistic and ADHD artist.

The culminating event for the residency centered around this publication, taking the form of a participatory gathering rooted in play, exchange, and a shared love of worms and trains. Rather than centering finished objects, the work circulated through the printed essay, shared materials, and collective experience.

Over the past year, Becoming Wormtrain has continued to surface through exhibitions, talks, and informal distribution. I’ve shared the project in artist talks and residencies, allowing it to move through conversation and circulation rather than remain fixed in a single form.

Throughout my Spring 2026 sabbatical from my role as a professor at Samford University, I’ve been reflecting on how this project continues to inform my work. It has shifted from a discrete body of objects into an ongoing framework—one that sits at the intersection of creative process, neurodivergence, and embodied ways of knowing.

I’m currently developing future iterations of The Wormhole, and envision this site as a living space for the project—housing writing, documentation, and ongoing inquiry.

Becoming Wormtrain remains in process.