So, I’ve been wanting to (and been to sick to) do a new, more science fiction æsthetic’d series for about a year now. I also find deadlines helpful to push past my pain and fatigue.

So, with Photolucidia’s Critical Mass (a photography portfolio review opportunity), I decided I was going to use the month-ish between starting and the submission to bang out an entirely new series. We’ll gloss over the arrogance of that sentiment, or that I ended up incapacitated by a tooth infection for a week.

Now, I want you to look at the Artist Statement, I’d written about 2 weeks before the deadline:

Rainbow Horrorshow.

I’d like living in the dystopian hell bigots envision. This imaginary place where queerness is mundane. Where vending machines dispense gender affirming care. Where men can be househusbands. A place decoupaged in rainbows and glitter.

It’s a nightmare to them, but a fantasy to me. Members of the LGBTQIA+ community continue to be victimized and rejected by cisheteronormative culture and structures. But, to have this boringly queer reality, requires visualizing a world with it.

For the series title, “rainbow” is easily apparent—an international symbol of the queer community. “Horrorshow” (taken from Clockwork Orange’s Nadsat slang) presents as a contronym: something awful or something good, dependent on the speaker’s group membership.

This dichotomy resonates with the LGBTQIA+ experience, a community of outcasts. We see ourselves in horror fiction monsters and queercoded Disney villains. Our favorite holiday is always Halloween, a socially-sanctioned opportunity to dress however one wants. We adopt one another into our found families.

To the people who hate me, I want a “Rainbow Horrorshow.”

And, I know, they’re going to lose. Because, they can imagine the same future as the one I’m making.

A Gender Vender.

Well, fuck. I didn’t have a queer care vending machine. I could rewrite the statement, but… that felt wrong. That mental image of your identity being instantly changeable and reconfigurable? That is the core fear the bigots I’m criticizing have. Having the bodily autonomy to do whatever one wants with their own self.

I tried to work around it. Taking other shots. Integrating sugar pills.

I even started to make a mockup of a vending machine. With the deadline rapidly approaching, I felt debilitating anxiety.

So, I stopped.

I submitted other work to Critical Mass that I’m not entirely confident in it. I doubt I would be confident in any submission, to be honest.

I’m trying to take a break this week. Recovery the many spoons I spent.

And next week? Next week, we start the arduous task of building fictional brands. Rainbow Horrorshow is shaping up to be quite bigger than I initially thought. Maybe I’ll make T-shirts.