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Mike Hooves

@mikehooves

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🎨 Illustrator + Muralist 🎨
🎀 Stage 4 Breast Cancer 🎀
🌾 Prairie Queer - Treaty 7 🌾
✨ Drag Thing @mx.jendr ✨

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I sat outside with my coffee this morning as I did most of the summer. But it’s dark now and 3 months have gone by since you’ve been gone @mikehooves . I can hear the city waking up and cars heading to work. Life does truly move on but a part of me feels the before and after since you left. Some of me is left behind. I spoke with my dear cousin last night who shared a thought of peace. That’s the only thing that makes me feel slightly better is thinking you have no more needles, meds and pain. Rest well my first baby. ❤️

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Mike Hooves left a deep and lasting mark on our community. Please join us in honouring Mike by adding a “Flower for Mike” beside their installation in the +15 galleries.

Although the Calgary Queer Arts Society installations have come to an end, “Rhinestone Cowfolx” by Mike Hooves and Bryce Maruk will remain on view until November 2nd. We invite you to leave a note, memory, or drawing on the back of their artwork, “Trans is a Flower”.

Since 2019, Mike Hooves / Mx Jendr has transformed the galleries, stages and classrooms at Arts Commons/Werklund Centre with their incredible artistry. We’re grateful for their legacy and lasting impact as a leader in the arts. <3

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A visit to Werklund center on Saturday with a tour from Mike’s friend Wilmer, showcased Mike and Bryce’s art. A memorial to Mike with so many memories and encouraged visitors to leave a message for Mike. So much talent gone too soon 💔RIP my first baby. #missingyou #fuckcancer #gonetoosoon

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My first baby. It’s been two months since I last held your hand. I think of you every day. You lived your life authentically and I strive to do the same. You touched so many lives in your short 34 years. Time is frozen for me on that day but the world continues to spin. Fly free my baby ❤️ #grief #gonetoosoon #fuckcancer

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👻 Major Agency Update: Embodied Resource Guide for Support Workers

I’m so happy to be able to offer readings that include a new deck, created by my moon sisters to offer embodied, somatic support for people who put their bodies and nervous systems on the line to support people. Tarot divination with Alexa and Rianne, two of the creators of this community co-designed deck, has been a huge part of my spiritual journey.

This tsismosa parlour simulation that is the Spirit Detective Agency is borne out of my mourning and celebration of great spirits that have shaped my life by teaching me what it means to share a just community. People like JD Derbyshire, our beloved departed (and exhibition member) Mike Hooves, and my dear sweet brilliant Baby Zahra. My desire and conviction to manifest their love sustains me in the midst of the terrible things happening in this world. I feel immensely grateful that knowing that this guide deck, which is such a gentle complement to the Kapwa Tarot, derives its lineage from people Zahra loved as chosen family.

Just look at the winning smiles and brilliant auras of just some of the Agency’s guests who have received readings (and used mahjong to shape their fortunes) since I was gifted this new deck.

Please visit www.movementclassesforsupportworkers.com to learn more about the deck, the beautiful process that it emerged from, and the support worker community in Vancouver that imagined it with their bodies ❤️‍🔥

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It’s been 45 days since our Mike’s energy returned to the universe. I had the privilege of being their friend for 14 years and it’s impossible to sum up all that metamorphosis in words, though I’ve been trying my best as I wander around looking for traces of them in the places and people that they knew. I wish they were here to roll their eyes at all this.

Every time I crossed paths with Mike they had some sort of gift to give me, an obscure treasure that no one but them had the insight to find. Mike was the first person to teach me how to smoke weed out of a green glass rat in the back of a parked van. Mike always cut straight to the truth and laughed in the face of falsehood. They were a brilliant curator of images, people and songs and their knowledge was vaster than they ever let on. They were the funniest, most generous, most tenaciously fearless artist I ever had the privilege of knowing and I curse the years that were stolen from them by a blind, stupid and pointless disease.

I wish I’d been there for you more in the last year, Mike. I wish I hadn’t been so afraid of losing you that I pushed you away. I wish I’d been bold enough when it counted and said the things I needed to say before the gulf between us become infinite. In the end I have to believe you knew all that stuff anyway, and those of us you left howling in this tomb-world will be joining you sooner rather than later. Please accept my pitiful reliquary offering and my love and my tears. Goodbye forever, I’ll look for your letters in the mail.

“La Maladie et la Mort font des cendres
De tout le feu qui pour nous flamboya.
De ces grands yeux si fervents et si tendres,
De cette bouche où mon coeur se noya…

Noir assassin de la Vie et de l’Art,
Tu ne tueras jamais dans ma mémoire
Celle qui fut mon plaisir et ma gloire!”

The Flowers of Evil

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MX JENDR ❌ ASHTRAY WILLIAMS‼️THE GAYEST GROSSEST UNCLE / NEPHEW DUO IN ALL TH PRAIRIES‼️

So honoured to be able to show these pictures we took together. The beautiful @lockedgroove7 took these photos and edited them thank you so much!! The last picture was from the @shyfriendlol show October 10 2025 and our photo shoot was January 31 2026.

Today is mikes life of celebration and I’m so excited to be performing. I wanted to show these pictures of us to commemorate today. My entire wardrobe was borrowed from mikes gore closet. In fact I will be wearing this corset for the performance today. They gave me the corset after the photoshoot ❤️

When I think about Mike I think about how much fun they were to be around. Mike had a good time and was a goober and hilarious. This photoshoot is so special I’m so glad our chaos was able to be so beautifully and professionally captured. Bryce these turned out fantastic seriously so good.

Love you unc🫶🏻 im gonna make ya proud (forever bummed we never got to do our little shop of horrors duet)

#drag #trashy #weirdcore #prairiequeer #johnwaters

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Attention Calgary! This Saturday, August 15 from 12 - 2 p.m., Gabby’s Barbershop will be at McMahon Stadium before the Calgary Wild FC PRIDE Match giving ICONIC MOUSE MULLETS and collecting donations in honour and memory of our friend and community member Mike Hooves.

📍 McMahon Stadium
🗓 Saturday, August 15
🕛 12 - 2 p.m.

Thank you so much to @gabbys.barbershop for their kindness and honouring Mike in this way. Mike meant a lot to both our communities, and we’re grateful to be part of this opportunity to remember them and work with a small business that shared that connection.

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It's hard to write about Mike because I've never wanted to have to write about them in the past tense. What an incredible friendship, what an immense loss. They were the brightest light, they were an anchor, they made navigating life a bit safer for everyone around them. They were frank, they spoke from their heart, we talked in a way that I always needed to hear. I felt wholly understood and seen, and loved, and cared for, and I was lucky enough to love and care for them in return. I will always remember the absolute ease I felt doing anything with them, which is a feeling more precious than gold. There isn't a point where I would have been able to say goodbye, even with another 50 years I would have bargained for more time. I will never have another friend like Mike.

We saw so many transformations with each other. I will remember your gifts, because you gave so many to the world. You might not have categorized yourself as generous, but anything you gained, you shared - and spread out with those around you. You lifted people up with you as you climbed. You made every part of my life better, and I owe you everything. I would have given you so much more if I could. In the end I know we both understood how much we meant to one another.

I wish I took more pictures of them, but I know where they were just outside of the frame in so many more of these. We made a good little team together, and there was so much we got to do. Every day was a gift, and I will try to give as much forward as I can for the rest of my life, because you taught me how to live my life in so many ways.

Much love to Mike's family, friends and incredible partner Bryce right now. I know we are all missing them hard. One day at a time for a while, and lots of love sharing memories of them for as long as we can.

Be at peace my dear, dear friend. Your light will shine on and on through all of us now, and we'll keep it burning as clear and bright as we can. I'll look for you everywhere. I love, love, love you.

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🧺 QAS Members ANIMATOR PICNIC was a hit! 🐝

🌭 So awesome to get together, bask in the summer weather, talk about animation + future projects, pet a dog, slam a glizzy, and be a weenie 🔥🐶

Photos by @simonchanister @heckinweens and @von_hagler

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We are honoured to share ‘A Life Across Disciplines: Celebrating Mike Hooves,’ a special gathering taking place during this year’s BUMP Urban Art Conference.

Working closely with Mike’s partner, Bryce, as well as their friends, we aim to create a space where our community can come together to honour and celebrate their life. As a friend of BUMP, Mike was a featured artist, collaborator, and member of our jury. Their generosity, playfulness, curiosity, and belief in the power of art left a lasting mark on our festival and on countless people across Calgary’s creative community.

This gathering brings together some of the artists and friends that knew Mike best, to engage in an open conversation that celebrates their life, art, and passion for shaping communities. The conversation is preceded by a retrospective featuring their art, animation, films, murals, and public projects.

We invite you to gather, share stories, remember, and celebrate an artist whose imagination and generosity will continue to ripple through Calgary for years to come.

A Life Across Disciplines: Celebrating Mike Hooves
August 14, 2026 | 4:30 - 6:00 PM
Contemporary Calgary
Free : RSVP at the link in bio

This event is free and open to everyone - friends, collaborators, fans, and anyone that wishes to learn more about Mike and their art are warmly welcome. We please ask that you RSVP so that we can ensure there is space for all.

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How do I even being to describe @mikehooves

Mike was an incredible artist, cherished friend, bombastic drag performer, queer activist, etc. the list goes on and on. It wasn’t until I started sifting through my hard drive—looking for photos of them, that I realized how often I was a part of Mike’s creative orbit.

Looking through these images I remember one summer where I sat with them in the blistering heat of a parking lot while they were painting a concrete barricade for BUMP. Or that time they performed an absolutely diabolical drag number to a Mindless Self Indulgence track (teen me literally screamed in delight). Or that one year at Sled where we were table buddies hawking our wares at We Are Not an Island Zine Fair at the Calgary Library.

One thing that stood out while I was sorting through these photos was how often I asked Mike to sit in front of the camera for me while I dialled in my camera settings. I’m grateful they always said yes and that I captured all these in-between moments of them goofing around, vogueing for the lens, giving little mischievous smirks.

It’s hard to accept the loss of their presence. They had the magical ability to draw everyone towards them and to make you feel at ease and instantly included. They were undoubtedly the life of the party and the funniest enby around (in case you didn’t get that gist from these photos).

I miss you so fucking much friend, rest in power.

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