November Vela was born and raised in San Jose, California and moved to Sacramento during the pandemic. Their art is often inspired by their spiritual + bruja combined heritage, struggles with disabilities, and his connections to the people and things that he loves.

After moving to Philadelphia to seek higher education at Moore College of Art and Design, Nova has found a home within their art and the worlds they are able to explore through creation. His favorite part of this career is seeing how others might connect to the themes and messages that he conveys through their work.

Nova is the current host (most frequent fronter) of the November System, a dissociative identity disorder (DID) system of alters. This disability creates a unique perspective for the system to use in their art and is the main reason for their wide range of visual techniques. This is because different alters will have different ideas of how a piece should look and what the process is to get there. Similarly the system’s autism, for better or worse, shifts their neurodivergent perspective of the world.

Some names you might see on our work include, but are not limited to: Nova, November, Hope, Ember, Ash, Misti, Gabby, Gabriella, Jeremy, Ella, Autumn, Mitsuri, and Nico. To learn more about our system we invite you to view our (non-business) YouTube channel @thenovembersystem or find us on instagram @novaandco.art.

Nova is engaged to Estelle Lampron Pacheco and lives with 4 roommates and his cat, Emrys, in Center City, Philadelphia.