Windy City Media Group Frontpage News

THE VOICE OF CHICAGO'S GAY, LESBIAN, BI, TRANS AND QUEER COMMUNITY SINCE 1985

home search facebook twitter join
Gay News Sponsor Windy City Times 2023-12-13
DOWNLOAD ISSUE
Donate

Sponsor
Sponsor
Sponsor

  WINDY CITY TIMES

Gallery Brings 'Vision' to Transgendered Artists
by Hunter Clauss
2006-06-21

This article shared 4251 times since Wed Jun 21, 2006
facebook twitter pin it google +1 reddit email


Pictured At the Be-All Conference. Coordinator Olivia Conners. Photos by Chuck Kramer

Tony was in his 20s and living in San Diego when he felt that something needed to change. At the time, he was working as an engineer while also delving into the arts. He dabbled in different mediums—anything from acting to painting with watercolors—but would always move on to something new and different.

This need for creativity was not sparked by an interest in becoming famous. Tony, who was born as a female, was grappling with his own identity as a transgendered male.

'If you can't fix yourself right away, you need to dive into something else with intensity,' he said.

Tony, like many other transgendered people, views art as a way to explore and understand issues of identity, acceptance and other matters that face members of this community. That is why organizers of Be-All, a transgendered convention that regularly takes place during Pride month in Arlington Heights, decided to include the Visions Gallery in its list of festivities for its 2006 conference. The inclusion of such art exhibitions is a growing phenomenon among transgendered conventions and, according to organizers of Be-All, is most likely going to grow at conventions in the future. This year's Visions Gallery accumulated work from 12 artists from as far away as Los Angeles and New York.

'What we're asking people as they come in and see [ the Visions Gallery ] is to get in touch with who we are as transgendered men and women,' said Lorie Fox, a featured artist in the exhibit who also helped organize the exhibition along with Leeta Lake and Jaidee Campbell.

Be-All, which attracts around 400 people from around the country and took place from June 6-11, is one of two major U.S. conventions for transgendered people. The other is Southern Comfort, in Atlanta each September.

The idea to include an art exhibit showcasing transgendered art was on the minds of many participants of Be-All and Southern Comfort, which broke the seal with its first transgendered art show in 2005.

'It was a parallel thought,' said Lake, who is a frequent Be-All participant who had her work displayed in the Visions Gallery. Among her work at the Visions Gallery was a piece entitled 'High,' which is a computer-enhanced image of a sculpted woman emerging from a stiletto high-heeled shoe.

Lake had played around with the possibility of a transgendered art show and asked friends if they knew of any such exhibitions. When friends told her that Southern Comfort was having its own showing, she jumped at the chance to submit her work but with some regrets.

'I was like 'Oh man. I thought I had an original thought,'' she said. 'We're a community that should really stick together and work with each other, but there is a competitive edge that's between one convention and the next.'

Word of Southern Comfort's art exhibition caught on to the organizers of Be-All, who were also toying around with a similar idea. Months before this year's Be-All conference, Campbell, Lake and Fox embarked on a massive e-mailing campaign to inform conventioneers that they could have their artwork displayed during the conference—a first in Be-All history.

One of the 12 artists whose work was included in the Visions Gallery was Tony, who is now in his 40s and living in the Chicagoland area. Among the many pieces Tony had on display was a portrait he did of his personal hero, actress Katherine Hepburn.

In the late '90s, he created the rendering using graphite pencils mailed the piece to Hepburn once it was completed. 'I got a nice thank-you note back from Katherine Hepburn,' he said. 'I thought it was very sweet because I know for a fact she doesn't send notes to many people.'

Tony refused to give his last name due to an experience he had when he came out as being a transgendered man while working in San Diego. 'I told my boss … and he kept it in his desk for some time,' Tony said. 'He had to tell the higher-ups, 'Tony's leaving,' and they wanted to know why. He told them and they said, 'OK, [ but ] if you're late one day for work, I don't care if you're smeared up and down Highway 8, you don't have a job. Let the ambulance driver take you home.''

While he faced not only unemployment but also being blacklisted from his profession, Tony was also seeing a therapist who wanted to 'fix' him. 'The only thing that was going to fix me was a surgeon,' Tony said. 'Having a psychological background, this was not what this person felt. So I can be a very private person.'

Tony does not create as much artwork these days due to Graves' disease, a hyperthyroid disease that causes his hands to shake. But Tony said he doesn't mind. For him, art was a way to cope with the frustration he faced with being a transgendered male.

'I did art for the same reason I was an actor for some years,' he said. 'It was not to produce anything; it was to let something out. As I got more and more comfortable with who I was, I stopped doing it.'


This article shared 4251 times since Wed Jun 21, 2006
facebook twitter pin it google +1 reddit email

Out and Aging
Presented By

  ARTICLES YOU MIGHT LIKE

Gay News

Lambda Legal Launches "Speak OUT" awareness campaign uplifting trans, nonbinary voices 2024-03-28
--From a press release. VIDEO BELOW - (NEW YORK, NY — March 28, 2024) In advance of Transgender Day of Visibility, Lambda Legal, the nation's oldest and largest legal nonprofit working to achieve full equal rights for LGBTQ people and everyone living with ...


Gay News

Nex Benedict's autopsy report released 2024-03-27
- The full autopsy report for Nex Benedict (he/they)—a 16-year-old transgender and Indigenous student from Oklahoma's Owasso High School who died in February a day after a school fight—has been released. The Oklahoma Office of the Chie ...


Gay News

An interstate trans healthcare crisis: Illinois prepares for influx of people seeking gender-affirming care 2024-03-26
- With hard-won rights, such as access to hormone replacement therapy or permission to use one's chosen pronouns in school, breaking down in states across the country, trans residents of all ages are left with a choice: ...


Gay News

No charges filed in Nex Benedict fight; campaigns call for Walters' removal 2024-03-22
- In Oklahoma, Tulsa County District Attorney Stephen Kunzweiler announced that no charges will be filed in connection with the fight that happened the day before transgender, nonbinary high school student Nex Benedict died by suicide, NBC ...


Gay News

JP Karliak morphs into non-binary character for Disney+'s X-Men '97 2024-03-22
- series X-Men '97, a revival of the popular X-men: The Animated Series that's both continuing the ongoing mutant storyline and breaking new ground along the way. The character of Morph now looks more like the comic ...


Gay News

NATIONAL Va. marriage bill, AARP, online counseling, Idaho items, late activist 2024-03-21
- Republican Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin signed bills protecting same-sex marriages at a state level, surprising some, WRIC reported. The bills—passed out of both chambers along mostly party lines—will require clerks ...


Gay News

Almost 8% of U.S. residents identify as LGBTQ+ 2024-03-16
- The proportion of U.S. adults identifying as LGBTQ+ continues to increase. LGBTQ+ identification in the U.S. continues to grow, with 7.6% of U.S. adults now identifying as LGBTQ+, according to the newest Gallup poll results that ...


Gay News

WORLD Leaked messages, Panama action, author dies at 32, Japan court, out athletes 2024-03-15
- Hundreds of messages from an internal chat board for an international group of transgender health professionals were leaked in a report and framed as revealing serious health risks associated with gender-affirming care, including cancer, according to ...


Gay News

NATIONAL Missouri measure, HIV/AIDS Awareness Day, judge, Texas schools 2024-03-15
- In Missouri, a newly proposed law could charge teachers and counselors with a felony and require them to register as sex offenders if they're found guilty of supporting transgender students who are socially transitioning, CNN noted. ...


Gay News

College athletes sue NCAA over transgender policies 2024-03-15
- Former Kentucky swimmer Riley Gaines was among a group of college athletes who filed a lawsuit against the NCAA on March 14, accusing it of violating their Title IX rights by allowing trans swimmer Lia Thomas ...


Gay News

SHOWBIZ Lady Gaga, 'P-Valley,' Wendy Williams, Luke Evans, 'Queer Eye,' 'Transition' 2024-03-15
- Lady Gaga came to the defense of Dylan Mulvaney after a post with the trans influencer/activist for International Women's Day received hateful responses, People Magazine noted. On Instagram, Gaga stated, "It's appalling to me that a ...


Gay News

SPORTS Red Stars prepare to kick off NWSL season against Utah Royals 2024-03-15
- It's been a busy winter for the Red Stars, and it's time to put their work to the test. Following a last place finish in the 2023 NWSL season, Chicago has had an active offseason transforming ...


Gay News

LGBTQ+ people attacked by mobs in Greece 2024-03-14
- Just weeks after a landmark law granted same-sex couples in Greece the right to marry, nearly 200 people dressed in black chased a transgender couple through the town square in Thessaloniki, the country's "second city" and ...


Gay News

Howard Brown experts discuss advocacy and allyship for Chicago's trans community 2024-03-14
By Alec Karam - Howard Brown Health's Trans & Gender Diverse People's Rights & Patient Care panel convened March 12 to discuss both resources for—and opportunities to provide allyship to—the city's trans and gender diverse communities. The event hos ...


Gay News

UPDATE: Nex Benedict's death ruled a suicide; family responds 2024-03-13
- A medical examiner's report concluded that the cause of death of Oklahoma student Nex Benedict (he/they) was suicide, media reports confirmed. Benedict—a 16-year-old transgender student—died Feb. 8, a day after ...


 


Copyright © 2024 Windy City Media Group. All rights reserved.
Reprint by permission only. PDFs for back issues are downloadable from
our online archives.

Return postage must accompany all manuscripts, drawings, and
photographs submitted if they are to be returned, and no
responsibility may be assumed for unsolicited materials.

All rights to letters, art and photos sent to Nightspots
(Chicago GLBT Nightlife News) and Windy City Times (a Chicago
Gay and Lesbian News and Feature Publication) will be treated
as unconditionally assigned for publication purposes and as such,
subject to editing and comment. The opinions expressed by the
columnists, cartoonists, letter writers, and commentators are
their own and do not necessarily reflect the position of Nightspots
(Chicago GLBT Nightlife News) and Windy City Times (a Chicago Gay,
Lesbian, Bisexual and Transgender News and Feature Publication).

The appearance of a name, image or photo of a person or group in
Nightspots (Chicago GLBT Nightlife News) and Windy City Times
(a Chicago Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual and Transgender News and Feature
Publication) does not indicate the sexual orientation of such
individuals or groups. While we encourage readers to support the
advertisers who make this newspaper possible, Nightspots (Chicago
GLBT Nightlife News) and Windy City Times (a Chicago Gay, Lesbian
News and Feature Publication) cannot accept responsibility for
any advertising claims or promotions.

 
 

TRENDINGBREAKINGPHOTOS







Sponsor


 



Donate


About WCMG      Contact Us      Online Front  Page      Windy City  Times      Nightspots
Identity      BLACKlines      En La Vida      Archives      Advanced Search     
Windy City Queercast      Queercast Archives     
Press  Releases      Join WCMG  Email List      Email Blast      Blogs     
Upcoming Events      Todays Events      Ongoing Events      Bar Guide      Community Groups      In Memoriam     
Privacy Policy     

Windy City Media Group publishes Windy City Times,
The Bi-Weekly Voice of the Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual and Trans Community.
5315 N. Clark St. #192, Chicago, IL 60640-2113 • PH (773) 871-7610 • FAX (773) 871-7609.