So, I have two photos up at two different LGBTQIA+-themed group shows here in San Francisco. I’m trying to be better about applying to local shows, so I can do networking (and, hopefully, get better with my social anxiety).
Undersea
I’m trying to be better about creating art even when I’m not feeling well.
I had originally made these jellyfish back in October.
Funnily, I had gotten the fabric with the intention to construct wings. (Ovid’s description of Cupid’s wings as “petal pink” is one of those scraps of literature that still rattles around my mind.)
White Out
I’ve been playing with high-key photography. More testing the limits of my camera than composing a project.
Moments In-Between
I’ve been shooting a lot of self-portraits lately. Largely, as a response to anxiety and the need to reassert my ownership of my body.
My body is a disabled one. A trans/nonbinary one. An assigned female one. A body that is maligned as a social burden, undesirable, inferior, and fundamentally broken. A body open to public commentary and political restrictions.
Well, this is me. And I am the only person who gets to speak on my body.
Rainbow Horrorshow; or Why You Should Write the Artist Statement First
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.
It's 2 AM. And I am in too much pain to sleep.
So, while waiting for meds to kick in, going through photographs I took yesterday.
This one is nuts. In addition to the prism, the 0.8 second exposure was just long enough to catch my eyes blinking, so you get this weird open/closed eyes optical illusion.
I want to get a new series done for Photolucidia's Critical Mass program this year. Critical Mass is an opportunity for emerging/new art photographers to get a digital portfolio in front of 200 galleriests, museum curators, and others who could give artists opportunities like exhibitions and representation/sales.
(Traditionally, portfolio reviews are done in-person, and are significantly more expensive.)
❥ Canon R5
❥ 24mm lens
❥ f/2.8
❥ 4/5 seconds
❥ ISO 100