Much of my practice involves trying to rewrite my personal story in which I have lived for the last twenty-four years. So much of my life, and my life’s work, has been spent trying to figure out why the femininity of a man is something to be laughed at or scolded. I wondered why my actions as a young feminine boy were not nurtured and encouraged in any aspect or degree at all. 

            Today I use paint as a way to create a revision. I am able to visually show what my life could have been, and more importantly what it will be going forward, had the ‘heteronormative vision’ society put upon my me and my fellow LGBTQ+ community. My past deprived me of the joy and the human right to be exactly who and what I am. Today, there is more opportunity for gender nonconforming expression. This can come in many forms such as: a woman dressed in men’s clothes or vice versa, or someone transitioning with medical assistance to put themselves in the right body, or even a version of their body which is closer to the ultimate vision they always wanted to be. For me, it is about removing the limitations of what I can wear or how I style my hair or wear makeup if I choose to or not. 

          My art provides me a place to express these concepts. I prefer it to be feminine and delicate while showing the fight against the hetero normative standards that is our society. In order to break through the stress that comes from society’s heteronormativity I have to disrupt these norms through my work. I do this by understanding the key points between the two genders and then purposely mix them up, putting aspects of one gender to the other. One of my earliest memories is being in my room and pretending to be Cinderella.  After just watching the Disney movie of the same name I would reenact scenes and make my own dress up clothing – typically out of a blanket and articles of clothing turned into long flowing hair. At the time I started doing this, I also adopted other behavior that was opposite to the gender I have been given. 

During this time, as well, was a pivotal moment in the LGBTQ+ community as the murder of Matthew Shepard had just occurred. Out of fear my parents and other family members wanted to keep those types of behaviors in the shadows. Based on the proof shown in the news about what happens to gay people for just existing – the most important thing for my parents was to maintain life at all costs.  Instead of nurturing the girlish behavior, I was told to stop or to act in the opposite way. For a long time, it was very tragic to think I was not accepted or wanted based on just existing. It has taken me until very recently to realize it was out of preservation of my life that my parents wanted me to be what society claims is normal rather than be authentic to my true self. 

Though most of my work is abstract and incorporates elements of what is stereotypically feminine, such as girlish colors and rhinestones, recently I have been trying to use figurative elements alongside the ‘abstract’ to narrate the story of my life. In my two recent pieces (figures 1 and 2) I depict the dress transformation scene from Cinderella, but instead of the title character I put myself in the famous gown. Never forget who you were as a child, shows me as a child wearing my dress up clothes, large smile on my face ready to play, transforming into my adult self with the beautiful gown. I made this to express that the thought of even being able to wear the dress isn’t just pretend anymore, it can be real, it’s tangible. Which led me to use this same concept of transformation – using abstract elements with the second piece, Just Leave it to Me What a Gown This Will Be. This ‘showing myself’ in the present day also transforming into a gown is done to demonstrate how even at twenty-four years of age, I am still transforming and changing. Still trying to live and be my authentic self while working through the trauma of being told no and being told by others on the outside of my own family that not only are my behaviors not permitted, but they are disliked and to be ridiculed.

 These discoveries have not only come from my own epiphany but from the writings of Judith Butler. In her book, Undoing Gender, she discusses and breaks down the social construct of gender and explains why it exists and how it affects us as a people. “The norm governs intelligibility, allows for certain kinds of practices and actions to become recognizable as such, imposing a grid of legibility on the social and defining the parameters of what will and will not appear within the domain of the social.” What Butler is saying is that society places the actions associated with a gender into a grid or diagram demonstrating ‘which action goes where’. This exposes how stereotypes dictate what young girls and boys are destined to enjoy and not. Starting at birth with the basic color association of pink or blue, Butler continues by claiming that there is a paradox of thinking that comes from being outside a gender norm. Because although a boy can be girly, and a girl can be a tomboy there is still a hold on that thinking by continuing to compare yourself to what is already established by the social construct. 

What is so strange about society is the way people can pick and choose how norms get twisted to the point where there is a ranking system between the male and female genders in our misogynistic social system. In most cases a girl who is a tomboy or is just one of the guys is considered a good thing because society has claimed masculine qualities superior to feminine. But when a boy is fitting in just fine with the females, he is a faggot. One of the most important things I want to be taken away from my work is the power that comes from a man doing or wearing feminine things. When you put a man in a dress, perhaps in drag, or give a young boy a Barbie doll you challenge the optics of masculine identity by making him look weak. Heteronormative people fear that the stereotypical man can change in an instant by being influenced by the gender-opposite behaviors. As though a man might go to the dark side and disturb the balance of the world. My hope is that the viewer of my work who does hold that fear and that rejection of an opposing way of life is by the unavoidable joy that is also obvious in my work. Joy – not just by the action or gesture – but the materiality as well. Glitter and rhinestones do not have a built in negative meaning in society. But when these objects are associated with a man it can be perceived as dangerous in that way because although a life isn’t what is threatened, masculinity is. In our current society masculinity is power. If women and feminine men begin to rise and gain power, this leads to the fear of how easily that power can be taken away. This same can be said about other elements in the work, such as color choices, expression, or even the fluidity of the paint. 

In rewriting my story, I have gained more information about myself and the world around me. What is personal for me is how I am able to fix what was broken – and give back what was taken – to become whole again. To be a well-rounded person in society one must find the lessons that are taught through their own life experiences and teach others so that they can effect and bring wholeness back to those who may have lost something along the way as well. With this gift that we as artists have, and can give, hopefully, we can break the excluding walls we learn about from Butler and allow new spaces that incorporate and honor all people. Maybe then, we can bring new visions and ideas for re-composing our society.