My name is Lyra McMahon (she/her). I am a multi-media artist and novelist living in Seattle, Washington. I create visual art and sound art and write fiction.
My recent works include: the true onion collection (a photography and digital art project) and who's watching me? (an electronic album).
I have one album in-progress: waterslides. I also have four novels in-progress (yes, I know, it's a lot, but I like to keep multiple projects in the mix at once): Light-Roasted Spider Fems, Tree Bats on a Waterslide, Skunk Book, and Alligator Crip.
I use my art to document my lived experience as a human on an emotional and spiritual journey to make meaning out of the world around me. My work is not memoir or autobiographical, but I do take a lot of inspiration from the small, forgettable details of daily life, which I collect and use to create something new and cohesive. I approach my art as an act of personal healing and political resistance as a disabled, mad, and transfeminine person against forces who wish to dispose of people like me.
Lyra McMahon is a pen name that combines my mom's birth name (which reflects my Irish Catholic heritage) with the name Lyra (which is a reference to the stars and to a woman who became part of my chosen family). I work as a public health data analyst and writer under my actual name, Dielle Lundberg. I share about my background and positionality and how it informs my art and other work on Medium. I also think the art we admire (e.g., albums, movies, and tv shows) conveys something about what we are after in our own artistic efforts. I've shared some of mine here.