A friend of mine living in Albuquerque posted about an art project s/he recently completed, and I messaged hir to find out more about it. What follows is an interview with the artist, Harley Kirschner, in which we touch on toxic masculinity, safety, artistic processes, and a whole lot more!
Kam: How did you get involved in it? Did you propose the idea?
Harley: I work at Winnings coffee shop again, after a few years in plumbing and pipefitting , unemployment, self employment and other jobs. We have artists do murals in our bathrooms and it was time for a new one.The need was expressed and I jumped on the opportunity. I got free reign over what I wanted to do and as a trans artist who is getting into what I like to think of as oversized zines, naturally I created a zine installation about using public restrooms as trans in a public restroom.
Kam: Is it related to your plumbing career, your art career, or both? Can you elaborate on that?
Harley: My plumbing career collapsed which I now see as a blessing. However, in that collapse, after living stealth 24/7 I really collapsed emotionally. Everything about my art and my loud trans non-binary self is because I failed at fitting the mold of what a plumber or pipefitter or man is supposed to be. Trying to be someone that I’m not almost killed me as I was terrified and disassociated all the time. I do share my experience with how bathrooms were such a huge part of that in this installation. However, although I would usually put my name on my story, due to the location being my place of employment and coming to embrace myself as non-binary and using mixed pronouns when I feel safe, I felt too vulnerable. I thought about censoring my story but felt the content was important so I chose to leave off my name.
I found empowerment in taking a bathroom and making it my own and a safe place for trans people after my experience in the plumbing industry which has rules (which are laws under the guise of safety… Most are.), about gendered bathrooms. That was one issue that I always had issues with myself. My experience in the plumbing and pipe fitting industries was heavy industrial for the most part so I did very little in bathrooms and actually very little with water. Mostly, I piped refrigerant and coal. I still use some of my skills in doing irrigation.
When my plumbing career fell apart and I started talking about it in zines and about how toxic masculinity makes me want to kill myself, I started getting recognized for my art and it was very clear to me that where my art had been lacking in the work that I had been showing wasn’t in the technical sense but rather in the voice. I knew that if I wanted to achieve what I wanted with my art, to make trans people feel beautiful, I had to use my own voice and make it loud. I had been very scared to do that. Partly because it was incredibly unsafe in my plumbing career and partly because I didn’t want to pigeonhole myself. When I had nothing to lose career wise and my sanity and breath depended on taking up queer and trans space I knew that taking the steps to enhance my literary voice would give my fine art real value.
Kam: What are your goals with the project? What would you like people to get out of it?
Harley: To make Winning Coffee Company the most queer and trans friendly coffee shop in Albuquerque. To take back bathrooms after they made me feel so unsafe. To embrace the diversity within my community by feeling the love and support of not only trans people but of all the people who love my work. I feel that it is very new to me to feel the amount of love and support around being trans from cis people that I do and I would like to offer that same safe feeling in a public place in Albuquerque for all trans people. I am very lucky to have such great supportive coworkers that helped make this happen, including making the bathrooms gender neutral (a few years ago) and helped me paint the walls.
Kam: Do you see ways to expand on this? Other places or other ideas?
Harley: I would like it to be an ongoing conversation. As the installation deteriorates and get tagged (unfortunately a given with the Winning’s bathroom-nothing offensive just disrespectful in general) I would like to replace the paper with different stories. People are encouraged to contribute any stories they have about using the bathroom as a trans person. I have thought about doing this bathroom in other spaces but am too busy artistically to take on another project right now.
Kam: What did your artistic process look like for this?
Harley: I used matte black paint on all the walls but chose to keep the ceiling white and paint the door white so it didn’t create a feeling of being trapped. There was a metal frame that used to have an advertisement poster in it. The advertising company closed but the frame was still there. It reminds me a lot of the welding that I was working with at the job that I reference in my story so I chose to keep it and decoupage the plexiglass that it holds. It works very well with the symbolist element of my work. I wallpapered large photocopies of stories and photocopied collages of images related to being trans and using bathrooms. I incorporated images from my time in the union, including an image of my shadow where I look like I’m holding a gun and I’m going to shoot, an image of a sign that says “ouch”, and images from one of my textbooks. My favorite part is the dictionary words “restricted” followed by “restroom”, nothing could have been more appropriate. In my photocopied collages I incorporate transfers to overlay images. There is a grainy quality in oversized prints that I find particularly appealing.
Kam: Anything else you wanted to add that I didn’t ask about?
Harley: Thank you very much for asking me to talk about my work on your blog. Your writing has always inspired me and I hope that my voice will be as touching to others as yours has been to me.
Back in October, I was asked to be a part of a group performance art piece, an interpretation of John Cage’s Variations III. We were given a sheet of transparent plastic with 42 circles on it. Our task was to cut out each circle, take a 11 X 8.5 inch sheet of paper, drop the circles onto the white paper, clear any circles that landed outside of the paper and also any circle that wasn’t overlapping with another circle. Then we took a photo of our “circle configuration.” Mine looked like this:
We were then supposed to distill this pattern into a “score” that would span 2 hours (including 5 minute breaks for every “event.” According to the directions, “Starting with any circle, observe the number of circles which overlap it. Make an action or actions having the corresponding number of interpenetrating variables (1+n). This done, move on to any one of the overlapping circles, again observing the number of interpenetrations, performing a suitable action or actions, and so on. Some or all of one’s obligation may be performed through ambient circumstances (environmental changes) by simply noticing or responding to them. Though no means are given for the measurement of time or space … or the specific interpretation of circles, such measurement and determination means are not necessarily excluded from the ‘interpenetrating variables.’ Some factors though not all of a given interpenetration or succession of several may be planned in advance, but leave room for the use of unforseen eventualities. Any other activities are going on at the same time.”
So, in less dense terms, 24 performers were given a space of roughly 4 feet by 6 feet, all in one big room. And we could do any activity we chose, for a length of two hours, off and on, as was guided by our circle permutation. So, basically, I had 9 circles which meant 9 events, and I tried to have each overlap “dictate” how each of the 9 events was structured. The performance was on December 1st.
I decided mine would be about doing drag. There was really nothing else that made sense. Drag has been the only form of performance art I’ve done, and I was excited to, in a way, deconstruct and leave up to chance, the way it played out.
I brought an alarm clock radio with a tape player, 100 cassettes tapes all in a display case, 9 wigs & hats, 4 skirts, 2 pants, one dress, a bunch of shirts and coats and belts and cumberbunds, 4 shoes & boots, a makeup bag, 4 “microphones,” a mirror, a blow dryer, and a hair buzzer. I think I was the performer with the most “stuff,” and over the course of 2 hours, I proceeded to make a mess of all of it, within my space. This was reminiscent of any time I would do drag. After a show, my room would be a disaster of dress-up options.
So, for each of the 9 events, I threw “circles,” onto the ground (including cds, tokens, bracelets, and mason jar rings). I then pretended to have these circle formations dictate what I wore and what tape I played. In a vague sense. It all did work out in the end – I had 9 different outfits and 9 different songs, all chosen at random. Some of those included REM – Drive, XTC – Summer’s Cauldron, Tears for Fears – Shout, and Kate Bush – Jig of Life. I didn’t know these songs by heart, so I just pretended to lip-synch. Due to the cacophony in the room though, I was the only one who could hear the clock radio anyway – I had to hold it right next to my ear!
Other peoples’ actions included baking things, bicycling, playing instruments, creating play-dough art, playing video games, reading aloud, dancing, and much more! Observers just walked among us. It was unclear whether they were supposed to engage with us or not. One guy did come up to me and ask if he could talk to me. I said, “Sure.” He said he thought earlier I had silver lipstick on and now I don’t, so what happened? I said, “Oh, that lipstick was so old it didn’t go on right. It was all clumpy. So during one of my breaks, I went to the bathroom to take it off.” “Was that part of what was supposed to happen?” “No!” And we both laughed. He asked more questions about why did you do this, why not this?
Afterward I talked to a handful of acquaintances – it felt good to be social. That guy came back up to me and said, “You know, when you put on the lipstick, you really had me convinced.” “Convinced of what? That it looked bad?” “No, that you were a woman.” “Oh, whoa, OK, so, I’m a little bit of both. As is all this stuff.” I gestured to all my clothes and junk, still strewn about. My two friends I was talking to backed me up, which felt awesome.
I think ultimately, I was going for that response, for people to be confused about what genders I was playing out or not playing out. So even though his forwardness made me uncomfortable in the moment, it was an important element, or “takeaway,” from the night.
I’ve been corresponding with Linda Coussement, a video artist from the Netherlands. She reached out because she recently made an awesome short video (3 minutes) about a transgender artist in Berlin. She thought people who read my blog would enjoy it. So, here it is, along with further information about Linda and a short interview:
Miss Tobi is a 44 year old anarchist who makes amazing metal sculptures, plays in several performance art groups, and is also a part-time physical therapist. Check out the video!
Linda: “My background: Well, my name is Linda Coussement, I’m 36 years old and I’m from the Netherlands. […] I’ve only recently decided to step out of the business world and follow my (he)art on this epic adventure. I used to work as a business coach but I now plan to make a living through these videos somehow. On the short term I will probably have to get by on donations and funds, on the medium to long term, I plan to have books, events and workshops to sell.
What’s perhaps also good to know is that I’m not just doing this for myself and my own personal growth as a human being. I ultimately wish to inspire as many people as possible. To show that we’re all human beings, no matter what we look like, where we’re from or what we do. We all love and fear. We all have hopes and dreams. And we all sometimes struggle with relationships, money, confidence and loneliness. Personally, I’ve learned that the moment you realise this is the moment you can empathise with another person and because of that build a meaningful relationship. And that’s what I would like to see more of in the world!”
JQ: How did you get into this project? What inspired you?
LC: I’ve spent about 12 years in the business world (amongst other things as a business consultant and startup cofounder) but I’ve always had a keen interest in the more human side of life. This expressed itself through teaching yoga, doing lots of personal development training courses and coaches and being overall very reflective of myself and life in general. Though this question popped up in my head a few years ago, it was in May of this year that I realised that it was this human side that I wanted to explore more at this point in my life and I made a spontaneous decision to ask the question ‘how is it to be you?’ to all sorts of people around the world (hence renting out my house and traveling) and document it through blogs and video.
JQ: Is this video part of a larger series, or does it stand on its own?
LC: This video is the first of a much larger series. There will be supershort videos on Facebook (where I randomly ask people in the street this question), these 3 minute videos (the next one will be about a banker turned hand made paper maker in the Czech countryside) and ultimately a book, a long documentary and live events. Concerning the video of Miss Tobi, it’s very likely that I’ll also make an 8 minute version that will be sent into several festivals.
JQ: How did you meet Miss Tobi? What came first, meeting her, or the idea for the video?
More information can be found here: How It Is To Be Miss Tobi: I Don’t Feel Like a Woman, I Don’t Feel Like a Man, I Feel Transgender
My partner and I met up with friends in Pittsburgh last week. We did a bunch of fun stuff – Andy Warhol Museum (on his birthday!), ate at a church converted into a brewery, saw an outdoor concert at an art gallery…
But I was most impressed by a contemporary art museum called The Mattress Factory. It was housed in 3 buildings on the same block. There were some permanent art installations that took up whole rooms and kinda blew me away. One in particular was called, “It’s all about ME, Not You,” by Greer Lankton. I’d never heard of her before, so I did a little bit of research (both at the gift shop and later, online).
The room was a fantasy version of her actual bedroom in Chicago. It had an astroturf carpet and was filled with hand-made dolls and shrines. Shrines for Jesus, Patti Smith, Candy Darling… There were Raggedy Ann dolls and Troll dolls. It’s hard to see, but the bedspread and floor next to the bed is overflowing with prescription bottles (all hers).
Greer Lankton was born in 1958. She transitioned in 1979, which was so long ago that it’s still simply stated that she had “sexual reassignment surgery,” or “a sex change,” as if that’s all that transition entails, as if that’s an appropriate way to sum it up. I wonder what it would have been like to transition in that era. She went to Pratt Institute and lived in NYC for years before moving to Chicago. She made a name for herself in the art world by making realistic dolls of friends and celebrities.
Wikipedia says she transitioned while she was a student at Pratt, and it states, “She had previously been the subject of a local newspaper article about people transitioning to a new gender.” I tried to search for this newspaper article online with no luck. I am so curious about what it would have said!
She struggled with drug addiction and an eating disorder and passed away in 1996, shortly after finishing this installation at The Mattress Factory. It became a permanent room in 2009.
At the gift shop, we saw a poster that featured Greer Lankton and many other famous transgender people. My partner ended up buying one and so did our friends. The posters were made as a way to raise funds for MOTHA (Museum of Transgender Hirstory and Art.) This is a museum that is not physically in existence yet, but it will be once enough money is raised. It’ll be in San Francisco (of course!) Even though it’s not yet built, the MOTHA is already doing all kinds of stuff – just check out their website.
If you’re ever in Pittsburgh, make sure to check out The Mattress Factory, and especially this one particular room on the third floor of the main building! And if you’re ever in San Francisco at an unspecified date in the future, be sure to go to MOTHA!
My partner and I attended the opening exhibition for this ongoing project that has been really gaining momentum in the last few months. Rhys Harper launched an indiegogo campaign to raise funds for a cross-country road trip this summer, photographing trans and gender-non-conforming people along the way. The results are beautiful 24X36 inch black and white portraits, along with brief bios of each subject, to illustrate who they are as people, beyond their gender identities.
I first heard about the project in May and donated immediately to the campaign. We exchanged a few emails and then I met Rhys in person at the Philadelphia Trans-Health Conference. When he asked if I’d like to get my photo taken by him, I said, “yes, definitely.” Not realizing he was taking photos right there at the conference! (I think.) I said it more as, yes, let’s set that up! D’oh, haha. Since then, we’ve been messaging further, and I’m very much hoping to be a part of this ever expanding collection of photographs which are gaining visibility and audiences!
My partner and I made a trip of it this weekend – we went to a vegan restaurant, book store, art museum, Mediterranean restaurant, and then to the event. It was a blast; nice to get out of town. The art museum portion of the day was totally bizarre and surreal. The docent seemed surprised we wanted to pay the full $5 each suggested donation. No one else was in the museum except for her and a very friendly (and bored?) security guard. Or so we thought, until we headed toward the stairway to the bottom floor – there were loud banging noises and the sounds of screaming children en masse. I just kept visualizing a stampede of school-aged children horsing around and slamming into the glass cases housing invaluable ceramics. I wasn’t too far off – it was indeed a stampede of children, but they were contained within a “play area.”
We wandered around for a solid 2 hours, and were trailed by the guard for much of that time. She made sure to let us know we could take photos of the ceramics, as long as we didn’t use flash. She pointed out some specific ones to us, commenting, “this one fools a lot of people,” etc. She asked us if we’ve ever heard a player piano before (part of one of the exhibits) and we felt obligated to follow her back into a room we’d already been in, because the piano was rolling out the music. I asked her how many times the piano kicks on per day. She said, “three or four.” There was an A/V exhibit where you could record a 10 second digital video of yourself, while manipulating special effects. So, we went ahead and did that, and playback mode shows what you just recorded, followed by everyone else’s segments… Our block was followed by 10 seconds of the guard, pacing the room at a slight distance, all pixelated and swooping (she must have recorded herself earlier in the day). It was a distorted version of our real life experience, at the art museum. It was a moment.
The gallery event was incredible. Very well attended. Lots of snacks and drinks (I usually make a bee-line for the free snacks at these kinds of things). Seeing these images (many of which I’ve seen online) on these white walls, in person, felt really powerful. There’s an Episcopal nun. A fire fighter. An ex-military person. A cat rescuer. A MMA fighter. A DJ. And so many more. I think Rhys’s project is going to go far. He’s already going far! He recognized me right away, and we talked further about my being photographed in the future. We also talked about being introverts and stuff like that. He invited us to an after-party outing which was super nice, but we politely declined (since my partner and I are such introverts. Haha.)
The opening was a joint effort with Gavin Rouille, a conceptual and graphic artist living in Minneapolis. gavinlaurencerouille.wordpress.com. If you go to his website and click on “personal” (personal work), you’ll come upon a lot of really cool visual stuff.
The text on the card reads: “Dear friend, I am a boy. I am sure you did not realize this when you called me, ‘lady, girl, miss, she, her, or ma’am.’ In the past I have attempted to alert people of my gender identity in advance. Unfortunately, this causes them to react to me as pushy, or socially inappropriate. Therefore, my policy is to assume people don’t make these assumptions about me, and to distribute this card when they do. I regret any discomfort my presence is causing you just as I am sure you regret the discomfort your assumptions are causing me.”
Edit: I JUST saw this: this article about Rhys’s photos was published 2 hours ago in Cosmo. (!!!)
Cosmopolitan article: 14 Beautiful Photos That Will Change How You See Gender Forever