In a nutshell, art serves one primary purpose: an expression of self and identity. This especially rings true for the LGBTQ+ community, as Pride month is a few short days away.
Globally, same-sex marriage is only legal in 22% of regions, and the queer community is only legally protected from discrimination in 36% of regions, according to Equaldex — a site dedicated to statistics about LGBTQ+ rights.
Because of the lack of legal rights and a rampant spread of homophobia even where there are legal protections, it is vital for queer people to have a space to be themselves.
Here are the stories of four local LGBTQ+ artists who use art to help express, empower and find comfort in their identities.
Reclaiming identity with faces
Because of certain stereotypes around having short, bob style hair and glasses, a style that Kayla Lockwood has, she said she is either bisexual or a Filipina grandma — according to those around her.
Lockwood, an art and technology major, has received many jokes and comments about this in the last several years. She has straight hair coming down slightly past her chin, in a bob. It perfectly fits the description of a “bisexual bob” — a stereotypical hair cut for bisexual woman, with hair cut in a straight line around the head between the chin and shoulders.
Lockwood said she found this humorous, as those making these jokes had no idea she is actually bisexual. Inspired by the irony, she started drawing herself with the “bisexual bob.”
“I started drawing myself with no face, just with hair,” Lockwood said. “To represent people joking about my sexuality without actually knowing my sexuality.”
Drawing herself in this way allowed Lockwood to reclaim her hair style as a form of her own expression — not just a stereotype forced on to her. Her experiences led her to focus on reclaiming or deconstructing stereotypes through her art, she said.
“I try to use either my personal experience or a stereotype that’s been brought up based on my personal experience,” Lockwood said.. “To highlight that it’s a form of me reclaiming my personal identity.”
Much of Lockwood’s art specifically has to do with deconstructing myths about bisexuality. An example from her personal experience is being told she is faking her relationship status, simply because she is in a heterosexual, straight-passing relationship, Lockwood said.
“That led to me drawing my boyfriend and I a lot, but also distorting it,” Lockwood said, referring to other people’s doubt and erasure of her sexuality, “to show that it’s a healthy and normal relationship, but at the same time it’s different.”
For Lockwood, reclaiming stereotypes or myths doesn’t end at her sexuality — it intersects with her racial identity as well. Lockwood is half white and half Filipino and said she began getting comments that her hair cut in combination with her glasses made her look like a “Filipino grandma.”
Finding this second stereotype interesting, Lockwood turned again to drawing faces to reclaim her haircut for herself.
“I went from drawing this blank face with just the hair cut to this face with my glasses and my hair,” Lockwood said, “further going into these intersections of how my appearance is now these two stereotypes.”
Art is Lockwood’s way of combating the stereotypes and myths she has faced around her sexuality and its intersection with stereotypes about her racial identity — proving the ways creativity can empower marginalized voices.
That said, art can also give the LGBTQ+ community a place of safety and comfort in an often unsafe society.
New worlds for intersectional representation
In an alternate, science fiction universe, a half-Lebanese girl with a secret past and a deceased father is raised by her grandparents — only for them to be kidnapped by her mother.
This is one of the worlds Sage — who requested her last name not be used to protect her identity from those she is not “out” to yet — has created through her writing. She herself is part Lebanese, which intersects with her queer identity along the aromantic and asexual spectrums, she said.
Sage’s intersecting identities come out in her writing through representation in her characters, like the half-Lebanese protagonist. She said representation of multicultural LGBTQ+ people — particularly with Middle Eastern and North African communities — is important because there is a lack of it.
“For me, it’s about helping young queer people who are Middle Eastern and North African,” Sage said. “Your culture does have a place for you, and you deserve to feel at home in it.”
In Lebanese culture, there is little acceptance of homosexuality and gay marriage is illegal, according to Equaldex. Because of this, Sage said she often feels she doesn’t fully belong in the United States or in Lebanon — but writing allows her to create a world that includes her true self.
“It’s a place for me to explore that and write about the things I love about my culture,” Sage said. “And not have to hide the parts of myself for being queer.”
The idea of using art as a way to be your truest self is something that Jackson Fryer, front person for Corvallis-based band Onion Machine, can relate to.
Fryer is not a man, but can very easily pass as one, they said. Like Sage, they grew up in a rural area with little exposure to LGBTQ+ people. After moving from Massachusetts to Oregon 10 years ago, Fryer was able to begin their queer journey, in both gender and sexuality — and this is often reflected in their lyrics.
“I feel like a lot of my lyrics focus on identity,” Fryer said. “And the truth behind figuring out that identity.”
One of Onion Machine’s songs, “Mutts,” openly discusses a multi-spectrum queer sexuality.
“Pigeons and doves: they are the same thing,” Fryer sings. “Light on love, I’m going gray in the wing.”
Fryer said these lyrics sum up their feelings on love: Love is love, regardless of it being “a pretty white dove or a stinky old pigeon.”
Much of the band — including Fryer — often performs in drag, wearing dresses and makeup. For Fryer, nothing in their life can compare to the feeling of sharing themself in their truest form.
In their words, it’s like riding a storm as a Valkyrie.
“It’s euphoric, and simultaneously one of the deepest tragedies of my life,” Fryer said. “Because there’s no coming back from that feeling; I feel so muted in the rest of my life.”
As shown through Sage’s creation of sci-fi worlds and Fryer’s euphoria in performance, art is a place for the LGBTQ+ community to find who they are and find peace in it.
Finding peace through performance
Walking in to the Candy Land event at Spectrum, a local queer bar, a few weeks ago, you may have found a lobster on stage.
Performing to “Rock Lobster” by the B-52’s, drag king Edd Zackly was wearing rubber lobster claws on his hands and a lobster tail on his back. Goofily mouthing the words to the song and dancing in his lobster costume, Zackly entertained the crowd with a comedic performance of gender. In other words, an exaggeration of a male gender persona for the show.
Growing up a cis-gender woman, Zackly said he often felt pressure to be more feminine or pretty and was bullied by other girls for being too goofy and awkward to be feminine. This expectation of a sexualized femininity took a toll on his confidence, he said.
But Zackly said he finds that performing in drag — whether that be a masculine biker man or an oddball lobster — is an escape from societal expectations for women.
“Especially if you identify as female, it’s a way of breaking free of the weight of femininity in our society,” Zackly said. “A moment to feel strong.”
Zackly added that performing as a drag king is an outlet that allows him to be comedic and goofy without being sexualized as a woman.
Zackly said performances themselves are empowering, yet he has also found a confidence boost outside of drag as well. The drag community has provided Zackly with the love, acceptance and empowerment that allowed him to explore and find his queer identity.
“The more I was around queer people, I realized that I really fall in line with these people,” Zackly said, adding that being a part of the queer and drag community led into becoming a drag performer himself. “I feel like drag has been the biggest helper in me finding my identity.”
While being a performer has helped Zackly in so many ways, there are also some challenges in it. Drag culture has become so infused with pop culture that sometimes it is not taken seriously as an art form, Zackly said.
Because of a societal lack of understanding about drag, he wants to be clear: It requires just as much dedication as any other performance art, like theater or music.
“We make art like everyone else; we put in the work like everyone else,” Zackly said. “There is no reason to say what we are doing isn’t hard work, and that it’s not art.”
Across all kinds of art, from performance to visual to written, the LGBTQ+ community finds solace, empowerment and a space to explore who they are. With increasing representation of people all across the rainbow spectrum in the community, art is a growing space for inclusion.
In that spirit, Fryer has one last statement for the queer artists out there that are hesitant to share themselves with the world:
“We love you; there’s no time like now,” Fryer said. “And the world needs you.”
Editor’s note: Kayla Lockwood worked on the Daily Emerald’s design desk last year. Lockwood had no role in the reporting or editing of this story.
