statement of purpose
On days like this, when it feels hard, I have to ask, why I do this work?
When I was a child I loved art and performance and music. My brother and I would put on shows, recruit the neighbor kids, any holiday was an excuse for a performance. I have attempted for quite some time to not be an artist. After all, its an extremely illogical profession. How will I ever make a living? But alas, we don't get to choose our passions, they choose us.
But you know what sucks? The world is a really unfair place. I was blessed with a loving, supportive childhood and somehow missed the memo on how fucked up the world can truly be. But then I discovered my own queerness, and the whole world changed in a moment.
Suddenly I began to see the truths of the world. It's amazing how we are able to buy into the lies we are told, as long as we are benefiting enough from them. I experienced blatant discrimination and it shifted my life trajectory. I abandoned my engineering degree, guaranteed job with Intel, my class-ensuring path. Because I knew that I just knew I couldn't sit in a cubicle and be a cog in the machine of an unfair world.
So I learned about this unfair world, about how homophobia, sexism, racism, classism, how they are built into our systems. How they play out in our world and in our every day lives. I started to own my own privilege, and try to listen to others with different experiences, to understand how the world treats them.
My female body and my genderqueerness rarely allowed me access into mainstream art forms. But my genderqueerness opened up the Drag King world to me, where I finally had space to step onto a stage, and be a queer artist. Through drag, i begin creating space for myself, and other queer art stage-orphans.
So this is why I do it. Because I can't not. Because being an artist is part of who I am. I am an optimist and a dreamer. I crave a stage, and an audience, for myself and others who rarely get a stage, a voice. And if that means I have to build that stage from scratch, that is what I will do, and will continue to do.
I believe deeply in my heart that the world should be less unfair. Less mean and violent and oppressive. I have been accused more than one time of "censorship." But the truth is, when it is my stage, I decide where to draw the line. I have spent my life building this. The time and work and financial debt is on my shoulders. As are the final decisions. So it is time for me to step into my role fully.
Issues of racism and oppression are not cut and dry. We are all socialized with so many fucked up notions. But we do decide whether or not to do the work to unlearn them. It's up to us to choose whether or not to do the work to try to make the world less unfair.
I don't have all the answers. But my goal is to continually strive toward a better understanding. Constantly trying to better articulate the line between radical art, and art that re-enforces the oppressive dynamics of the world. Chances are, there will rarely be easy answers or easy solutions. What I ask is for a willingness to engage in the conversations. What I am creating is not just an event, just a stage. Together, we can create a magical world, where we can strive for better. Where we can learn and grow, have the difficult conversations, and deconstruct the idea that only certain privileged bodies get to be artists. Get to be seen. Us queer outsiders have important creative shit to say, and it is my goal to get us heard.
There are so many movements before us that stopped short, didn't do the hardest work. It's easy enough to yell at your oppressors, but how do we fight our own privilege? How do we acknowledge it, and unlearn prejudices, do the work without beating ourselves up over our inherent participation in the very system that beats us down?
Here is the peace I have chosen to make with myself and the world. I am white, able-bodied, thin, and come from upper-middle class privilege. I acknowledge that it is easier for me to walk around in the world than it is for many of the people I love. I choose not to throw that away or pretend it doesn't exist. I choose to use my privilege to try to make the world a little less unfair. To be the best ally I can be to people of color and others with less privilege than I hold. I choose to create a space where we do this hard work together. I choose to step up and hold other people accountable, even when it sucks and is hard. I choose to prioritize the politics of the space over profits or popularity.
Our community brings together so much difference that we are often forced to have the really hard conversation, and do that work. Of acknowledging privilege, of unlearning prejudices. And while it can be infuriatingly difficult at times, it is also one of our greatest strengths. As queers, we band together because we have felt the weight of the unfairness of the world. Let's use these lessons we've learned together to help create a better world. Create a creative, magical space that is as free from the unfair oppressive dynamics of the world as our complex human selves can possibly make it.
That is my vision.
When I was a child I loved art and performance and music. My brother and I would put on shows, recruit the neighbor kids, any holiday was an excuse for a performance. I have attempted for quite some time to not be an artist. After all, its an extremely illogical profession. How will I ever make a living? But alas, we don't get to choose our passions, they choose us.
But you know what sucks? The world is a really unfair place. I was blessed with a loving, supportive childhood and somehow missed the memo on how fucked up the world can truly be. But then I discovered my own queerness, and the whole world changed in a moment.
Suddenly I began to see the truths of the world. It's amazing how we are able to buy into the lies we are told, as long as we are benefiting enough from them. I experienced blatant discrimination and it shifted my life trajectory. I abandoned my engineering degree, guaranteed job with Intel, my class-ensuring path. Because I knew that I just knew I couldn't sit in a cubicle and be a cog in the machine of an unfair world.
So I learned about this unfair world, about how homophobia, sexism, racism, classism, how they are built into our systems. How they play out in our world and in our every day lives. I started to own my own privilege, and try to listen to others with different experiences, to understand how the world treats them.
My female body and my genderqueerness rarely allowed me access into mainstream art forms. But my genderqueerness opened up the Drag King world to me, where I finally had space to step onto a stage, and be a queer artist. Through drag, i begin creating space for myself, and other queer art stage-orphans.
So this is why I do it. Because I can't not. Because being an artist is part of who I am. I am an optimist and a dreamer. I crave a stage, and an audience, for myself and others who rarely get a stage, a voice. And if that means I have to build that stage from scratch, that is what I will do, and will continue to do.
I believe deeply in my heart that the world should be less unfair. Less mean and violent and oppressive. I have been accused more than one time of "censorship." But the truth is, when it is my stage, I decide where to draw the line. I have spent my life building this. The time and work and financial debt is on my shoulders. As are the final decisions. So it is time for me to step into my role fully.
Issues of racism and oppression are not cut and dry. We are all socialized with so many fucked up notions. But we do decide whether or not to do the work to unlearn them. It's up to us to choose whether or not to do the work to try to make the world less unfair.
I don't have all the answers. But my goal is to continually strive toward a better understanding. Constantly trying to better articulate the line between radical art, and art that re-enforces the oppressive dynamics of the world. Chances are, there will rarely be easy answers or easy solutions. What I ask is for a willingness to engage in the conversations. What I am creating is not just an event, just a stage. Together, we can create a magical world, where we can strive for better. Where we can learn and grow, have the difficult conversations, and deconstruct the idea that only certain privileged bodies get to be artists. Get to be seen. Us queer outsiders have important creative shit to say, and it is my goal to get us heard.
There are so many movements before us that stopped short, didn't do the hardest work. It's easy enough to yell at your oppressors, but how do we fight our own privilege? How do we acknowledge it, and unlearn prejudices, do the work without beating ourselves up over our inherent participation in the very system that beats us down?
Here is the peace I have chosen to make with myself and the world. I am white, able-bodied, thin, and come from upper-middle class privilege. I acknowledge that it is easier for me to walk around in the world than it is for many of the people I love. I choose not to throw that away or pretend it doesn't exist. I choose to use my privilege to try to make the world a little less unfair. To be the best ally I can be to people of color and others with less privilege than I hold. I choose to create a space where we do this hard work together. I choose to step up and hold other people accountable, even when it sucks and is hard. I choose to prioritize the politics of the space over profits or popularity.
Our community brings together so much difference that we are often forced to have the really hard conversation, and do that work. Of acknowledging privilege, of unlearning prejudices. And while it can be infuriatingly difficult at times, it is also one of our greatest strengths. As queers, we band together because we have felt the weight of the unfairness of the world. Let's use these lessons we've learned together to help create a better world. Create a creative, magical space that is as free from the unfair oppressive dynamics of the world as our complex human selves can possibly make it.
That is my vision.