Text highlighted with yellow highlighter, I directly quoted in my research paper.
Text highlighted with pink highlighter, help provide context for my research paper, which I would recommend reading.
Sections 2-5 are relevant for the research paper.
Dividers are in place sectioning the interview for easy referencing.
I made contact with artist Evan Schwartz, to discuss his practice, current trans debates, and to find out more about some of my favourite artworks that inspire me as a fellow transgender artist.
I've taken out the main introductions and general conversation at the end, but below is the fully edited transcript of that conversation:
Section 1: Introduction
AB: It’s great to talk to you, I’ve been following your work for a while now, I'm definitely- that it was the period one that I spotted first and was like “wow!” completely resonated with that
EG: I'm so glad! It's always interesting which pieces resonate with what was with people and I find yeah most people who are under the trans umbrella they’re like “yes! Yes! thank you!” and then just a lot of people that like they're like “I just can't” I like other people who are also like “I don't- I'm not ready to go there yet sorry” so it's always nice to hear, because I feel like that one doesn't get it attention like it should. How did you find out about me I’m curious?
AB: That was through TransVegas that I found out about you
EG: Oh yeah, awesome, that's great!
AB: Yeah, it was just kind of a weird chance where I hadn't kept up, where I've been to a previous TransVegas event, but then I haven't kept up with them and then over lockdown - the first UK lockdown last March - I was Googling to find more transgender and trans masculine and non binary artists to be writing about in my sketchbook for my work, and then a new TransVegas event popped up. I was like “oh! I haven’t kept up with these people” so then there was another six new artist I can be looking at that I hadn’t heard of before – it was great.
EG: That's awesome, well what did you wanna talk about? I'll probably have to sign off at around 11 my time so in about 45 minutes and hopefully we don't have too many technical difficulties.
AB: Well, I listened to your SoundCloud interview you did that talked about your practice, and putting yourself in the images is a way for you to deal and process things and that, which I also completely got. One of my first big art pieces I did when I did art foundation, before my degree, was all about myself presented as a mirror as what it was like growing up, versus what it could have been like growing up if I were born a boy, that helped me process before I started to put myself outside of that box to make artwork. I'm only just now starting this semester to look at my own experiences again, and that's thanks to the period photograph where that’s kick started me wanting to instead look at animation of what it's like dealing with periods in men toilets where there's no sanitary bins and stuff. The experience of hiding tampons in socks because you don't want tampons falling out of pockets and things like. So yeah, I listened to the podcast and that covered a lot of stuff and I just wrote down a few bits where it was information I was more interested in, so how do you feel your artwork fits into contemporary society and debates around gender politics in America at the moment?
Section 2: Gender Politics
EG: How do I see it fitting into gender politics at the moment? I don't know… well maybe I'll start with… because you brought up the one with the boxing gloves and also that one with the underwear and the period.
I think the one with the boxing gloves was the only one I was purposely trying to give commentary to politically what was happening when I made it. It was in 2018 I’m pretty sure, or maybe the very beginning in 2019… it was when over on the East Coast there was a bill that was trying to get passed basically saying you had to use the bathroom that went along with your anatomy that you had at birth and what you were assigned at birth and you couldn't use any other restroom or or what not and that was up for debate and luckily it did not pass. But that was going up to the house here to get uh… Oh no it wasn't because it was in North it was in the Carolinas it was in one of the Carolinas, I can't remember right off the top of my head right now, but so while that was happening was when I decided to take that photo.
So, I guess the answer is I think my art does have a place for political commentary, but I don't make it to have political commentary on anything. I think initially it's more for personal reflection or personal need, and whenever I talk about it I think the purpose is not for people to become- I mean if they decide to become outwardly politically active that's great, but more than anything, like when I give talks and talk to people, I always just say like “hey you might look at these and feel elation or you might look at these and feel very, very confused or you might look at these and feel kind of repulsed and disgusted and that's okay. Please be mannerly to me and treat me like a human being, but all of your reactions are okay, you are allowed to have your reactions. I ask you to pause at all of those reactions and ask yourself the question of why you are having that response” Right? So I think if there's anything political about it, at least when I talk about it it's that of like at least question why your thinking patterns are this way, not even saying that they're wrong, just ask yourself “why?” because so much of it is completely arbitrary and it’s founded on nothing, but anyway so I'm kind of going all over the place, I don't know if that’s actually answering your question.
But back to the boxing gloves one again, even though when I decided that I was going to take that photo and it's the only photo in the whole series that's taken outside of my home, for a couple others like I found a bathroom that allowed me to use it and do a shoot and all that kind of stuff, but I had the boxing gloves for two years and decided I was doing a different portrait that didn't make it to the part of the series where I put sand all over it to make a form? And I liked that idea of like that abrasive grit that is required to make a Pearl, like you need something you need that bit of sand that like abrasiveness that thing that feels uncomfortable for like that Pearl to be made and I love that also is like this idea to cover the gloves of like something to defend yourself, something that feels really powerful, something that feels protective covered by something that been through a lot and bend your transformation in and of itself and is also very, very delicate and very precious so I made the gloves and then sat with them for another year not knowing what to do with them. I loved the object, but I had no idea what the photo was going to be.
That's another thing with the process, sometimes it's inspired by an object and the photo goes right along with it or sometimes I alter or shift the meaning of an object that has a certain gender connotation and then still don't know what to do until eventually, way down the line which was the case but this one when the bill came out that's when I was like “oh okay, now I know where these boxing gloves are needed”, which is in a bathroom. Which for me is so clear, I'm like “that's so on the nose! Such an on the nose photograph! I'm in a bathroom, I'm wearing boxing gloves, they’re adorned with pearls for fucks sake! Yes this is about bathroom rights!” and like I've still been at art shows where people are like what the fuck is this about? Oh! You know nothing? You have no awareness to what- yeah, which still shocks me. I think one of the things here when they were like what's this one about and I was like “well, I'm always intrigued first, I don't know if there's right answers, what do you see in it?” And he said “I don't know, first world problems - so much bling, having a hard time wiping your own ass?” and I was like “…did you even read my artist statement?!”
A bit of that wake up call of like… because it's so much of my life, and my awareness, the political aspect of it, the emotional aspect of it, how the queer community and trans community and everything is doing in my city, in the state, in the country… that it kind of always boggles my mind that it's just not on a lot of people's radar. Because it’s so on my radar all the time, because it affects just going to the bathroom, or going out in public places, or going out to rural areas. I don't know if that's really answering your question.
Section 3: Legislation
AB: So I guess that almost covers the next question a bit, how do you feel about the trump legislation and the changes he brought in and undid that affected trans people? Like not letting students use the bathroom that they identify with, then revising title seven of the 1964 Civil Rights Act to clarify that it does not prohibit discrimination in the workplace on the basis of gender identity, and banning trans people from the military etc.?
EG: What do I think about all that? About the horrors that he- I mean it was terrifying, on a large scale. It was difficult and challenging. I came out and started transitioning publicly four months before he was elected, maybe three months. So… when I think about it now, I guess that's when I started the series… the very beginning of it. So yeah, it was horrifying, it was terrifying, I think with anything everybody- I just needed to find my way to cope I guess with all of it? And sometimes it was outrage and writing letters to- and also to give context, where I live – which is in Portland in Oregon – and especially in Portland there’s a hyper per capita population of trans people, especially trans masculine people, so it felt like a little bit of a safer bubble for sure. Being here, even though that was happening all over the country, it didn't directly impact my day-to-day life, but I know that for lots of other people all over the country it very much did.
How I reacted to it depended on the day, and depended on what my stamina was: sometimes it was getting engaged politically and writing letters and calling congress people, sometimes it was reaching out to other people I knew in the community. A lot of the time, because I was just coming out, it also made me really scared to reach out to other people in the community for some reason? Having him get elected, and me being really (from my perception) late in life to coming out publicly after so long of trying to abide by the rules of femininity and continually failing it felt like, it was just another level of pressure and an extra scrutiny of feeling like I really needed to toe the line or bad things would happen. It just added onto that feeling since being a kid, with Trump being in administration, so yeah, I think I definitely went to art.
And when I started making art, it was a lot more… how do I say this? It was a lot more of investigating and looking at that self-hatred and fear and shame within myself… but it lacked any form of celebration, it lacked any form of rejoicing in this part of myself and my identity. So early on, and this was probably about the first year after he was elected, I was looking at what I was making and I was like “okay, this is cathartic for me in some way”, and it almost felt like the safest way for me to take pictures of my experience of coming out, because that was a coping mechanism of “if I already show you how ashamed I am of myself, if I show you all the levels of projected disgust that I have interpreted on my being, that I'm wading through in a horrible trauma - then you won't come after me. Great. Awesome.”
It took me a second to realise that that's what I was doing. It was a question from a friend, because I was showing them my pictures, and they were like “why?” I had a picture of me in the bathtub with my packer on, and then I had another picture that was all about self-hatred, nods to self-harm, all that kind of stuff and when I went to the one of the bathtub I said “this ones really hard for me to show you” and they said “why is this one hard for you to show us and not this one that's like super intense?” and that’s when I realised “oh. Oh right, this is the safe way for me to share this and what feels like edge-pushing and dangerous, but also exhilarating, to find the parts that I can celebrate in myself” and I think I talked about that in the in the soundcloud thing or maybe I didn’t, of getting to add on to the pieces later and stuff, so that's where originally that all really came from. Miraculously, I did not have to do that with the period underwear! That was like “need for halo! This is fabulous! My body bleeds once a month and it's fucking amazing and you all have to deal!” Anyway, so I would say long answer of that's how that dudes presidency affected me and my art.
AB: So again, that partly covers my next question or leads into it. My next question was: do you feel like your artwork was affected by it, and did it become a way to respond to cultural stigmas that were forced on you by Trump and Trump's views? Another question was: how do you think your artwork will change over Biden’s legislation?
EG: I'm sure it will, I don't know how. Not only by who’s in office, but I'm a very different person then too. Working through over four years, unpacking a lot of that, being way more comfortable being out and correcting people on pronouns, accepting certain slights in social situations and not having it derail me. I'm also just not needing to process things in the same way, so I'm sure it will shift both on the environment at large and just cause I'm in a different place. It’s actually a question I'm sitting with a lot – even if I want to keep on poking through the shallowness of gender norms, and being like “hey this is so fragile, can we just break this?” I'm coming at it from a really different spot, so the pictures that I'm making now just feel really different. So, I’m at a place of trying to decide “is this part of that series? Or is it something totally new?” Because it has a very different emotional tenor.
Section 4: Pride
AB: So even if they end up looking similar, there's completely different contexts behind the work that puts it in a separate category. Would you be able to tell me more about particular works, like the period one, Pride? There’s a few that I'd love to know more about, like material choices: why floral for a lot of things? Softening has the floral background, the six-pack one?
EG: Right, yeah, that's one I don't share that much. It doesn't get that much attention, it just has a personal resonance for me that one.
There's floral and organic nods throughout the whole series. In the image My Kingdom with the crown, there's a rose in one hand and a sword in the other. Then there's the roses in the background Strength. I can't remember what plant it is, but it's a tropical plant that's pink and it has both the stamen and pistil, and it's placed over where my genitals would be. I think with a lot of the plant stuff, it's conscious, because most/all Flowers have both a pistol and a stamen, and I just love how much we want to gender plants so we can understand their reproduction? But really they’re so queer-gendered beings at the same time. And for a rose, I like that it's such a sign, especially pink), challenging all of the notions of that. Where did how did we land on pink? That was a very different thing from 100 years ago, let’s look at colours that we have certain ideas/connotations of/between them. Also, the reason I like roses in particular is because they are very, very gentle and soft and yet harsh and protective at the same time with all the thorns and everything and I love the duality nature of those.
So, I would say every object that I bring into the series, I'm either trying to question and poke at the notions people have and their first reaction to it, and try and go what's underneath that? Can we flip the script a little bit on that, or bloom the script, or expand the script on that? So it's not just a certain bit of the population that can really own this.
A little bit of back story for the Pride one, and this mostly has to do with the title. I honestly can't remember how it came about, the inspiration of that image, it just kinda went “poof!” I think it was because it was a month or two after I got my first packer, and was loving that and enjoying that. And also the difficulties of keeping it clean, and it’s a little bit more difficult especially when you're bleeding. It was just a bunch of things coming together: looking at advertisements for underwear, and the different angles that you get depending on the gender of whose underwear it is. I just wanted to mash up two things that are seen as very awkward and taboo, no matter what gender you are, when you're coming of age.
I don't know what it's like to get a random boner when you're thirteen at school, I have no idea what that experience is. I can imagine it's awkward, and I hear jokes about it all the time – there's always jokes about ‘pitching a tent’. But I definitely know the awkward moment of what it is like to have that gush feeling and be like “fuck! I have a stain in my pants… can I sit down?” and I feel like both of these things don't ever get talked about. I think there's more of a stigma around bleeding, then there is around public hard-ons, but they both have their levels of threat to people, you know what I mean? And for some reason I thought it would be a good idea to put them both in one picture, to have a semi-hard packer and then – I tried to make the bulge as visible as possible, not everybody notices, it's subtle – and then get the blood stain on there. And people don't get it, it's the same thing of people who know that experience are like “thank fucking God!”, they are so appreciative of that photo, and then other people are like “…what are you talking about? Huh?” It’s because that does not affect their life, at all. Which I find shocking, because you who are saying this are a person who bleeds, how is even THAT not coming? But it's that challenge of they don't know what they're looking at, because it's so ingrained that we don't talk about that, let alone show it in a photograph.
So I had the photo “in my pocket” and then I was at the beach and realised I needed to post something to Instagram for the algorithm, and it's the start of pride month in June. “Okay cool, this seems like a good one” because I was at the beach, having a hard time, was really kind of grubby and not feeling up for the “glitter” and the “glamour” and the “fabulosity” at that moment that IS Pride - which I love, but I also wanna be like “hey! Can we have pride in things that aren't as glittery and fabulous? Can THAT word, that we associate with Pride month, really encompass EVERYTHING about the queer, trans, gay community? Not just what is a party and colourful and all that- which again, is great, but let's remember this started just so people could be out in the world. So that's where the title came from, because when I posted it, I was like “Oh yeah, that seems good, let's call you Pride” and then there's the novelty of Instagram of “Oh my God I only got 75 likes, it’s a horrible image, nobody likes it” so hilarious!
Section 5: Wear Bravery
AB: Let’s see we talked about Pride, Protection… would you be able to talk to me about Wear Bravery as well? That’s the one with the police vest isn’t it?
EG: Yeah, some of the objects that I get have been given to me throughout the years – there’s the more fem objects that people gave me
AB: Like the tiara?
EG: Yeah, and some I’d find on the side of the street, or I’d get at a second hand stores. So I found a boxing helmet, and the boxing gloves, and that chest armour all in the same day. I think it might be for like BMX biking or something? I don't know, but I knew exactly what I want to do. I knew I wanted to have it pressed against my chest, and it was again that thing of waiting for a while because I thought it would be cool to have something twining through it? And again, most of these are taken at my house, or in my backyard, and I have a passion vine so I was like “that's kind of cool, that could work? I don't know.” And it was my friend Irish Mishanya who said – because I was doing some gardening, and we had a neighbours hop vine that was taking over in a tidal wave over our fence, and I was saying how I was gonna cut it back because it was choking out a bunch of stuff - “well when you do, just make sure you wear gloves” and I said “oh yeah, cause it's abrasive?” and she went “no, it's because topically hops have a whole lot of oestrogen on them. And people who work on hop farms, if they do not wear gloves, their breast tissue will get enlarged because of the topical oestrogen that is on hops”
AB: I didn’t know that?!
EG: Yeah, I didn’t know that! And it's f*cking ironic as hell, because beer is the ultimate “dude-manly-manly” thing. So that was the plant that I'd have surrounding me, with the hops entwining through, because it was such a double thing of – it has a thing that affects your breasts to enlarge them –
AB: And then wearing something that then compresses them, and does the opposite?
EG: Exactly, and I like the idea of the nod to binding a bit, of having a compression vest on. But also giving a nod of – I’ve said this in talks, I doubt this translates or comes through to anybody unless I tell them explicitly – as me being like “THIS: my choice to ever bind with tape, or binder, or whatever for ME? I'm not trying to conceal or fool anybody about anything, it's not about y’all. It's about how for that day, or days, or months, it makes ME feel really good in my body to do that. It's really for me, and I'm not trying to trick you.” The clear “I'm not tricking anybody about my body parts, but sometimes this feels really great to see my chest flattened like that”, so I liked that those two things of the hops that affect the breasts, all the different ways to express breasts in a way that really feels best for the person, because other people that have that extra breast tissue love propping them up which I think is f*cking bananas and very uncomfortable. But people look at me and I'm sure they think pressing my breasts down is bananas and really uncomfortable, but saying to each and to his own what they want to do with that extra tissue!
AB: It’s not for other people to comment on.
EG: Exactly, so that's what it was and then I put the gold Halo on it to go “This is a beautiful thing. This is not a hiding thing. This is not a painful thing I'm choosing to do to my body. This is a beautiful thing that makes me feel quite glorious” and that's the gold paper that's add on later, and I came to the title Wear Bravery because if you look up bravery, it has a couple different meanings: one of which is “going forth”, “being courageous”, “facing fears” – all that kind of stuff which I expected. But when I looked at the third or fourth definition down, brave or bravery has a connotation which is: “fine clothes: wearing their Sunday bravery” and “showy display: the streets strewed with flowers and full of pageantry, banners, and bravery” so it's like wearing splendour, so that's why I chose the title for that one.
AB: I'm now liking the middle name I chose more – my middle name’s Casey, which means bravery!
EG: That's so great, I love that!
AB: So that was just me and mum discussing names and coming up with things, and – because my name before was Alyssa – wanting to keep the same initial. My little sister at the time was only 3 ½, so trying to make it understandable for her and a bit easier, rather than something completely different for her to catch onto. And in discussions mum said “what about Casey as a middle name? That means bravery, that's very fitting isn't it?” And I said I like that!
EG: Oh, I love that! That’s so excellent!
AB: That’s amazing, I had no idea that that came under the definitions, about wearing it, that’s great!
EG: Yeah, it's fun finding out where words come from.
Section 6: The Right Body
AB: So, The Right Body, that's one I love, with is it gold leaf you’ve used for facial hair? Would you be able to tell me more about that one, that one’s great!
EG: Yeah, the idea to do the gold beard came from where there was a beard dazzling fad, there were all these pictures of people with luscious, big beards with Flowers all in them, and I was a little jelly of them. I have accepted the fact that I will probably never be able to grow beard, but I was beard-lusting, and thought it would be cool – because I was using gold leaf in the other photos – I was like “oh, let's do that!”, and a thing that I've learned in the process is I try a whole lot at the very beginning and then have to edit back. I think at the beginning it was the gold beard, with antlers, and rocks – I was just trying to hammer on a whole lot of symbols, and it just wasn't working. I was trying to bring more outdoor elements, and it wasn't working, and so out of a moment of just being really tired, I put my reflector behind me in the backyard and it just came together. Then I did the slight “Venus” pose of covering the breasts, which I again really like, that felt like a lovely paradox – I could have done a more masculine pose, but that wasn't the point of it? And it was one of those things that just came together really organically, and I loved looking at it, so I didn't need to do the “blessing” with gold on it afterwards as I already had the gold on my face, but it does have that very subtle Halo behind. I don't know if you can tell in the photos, it has the purple around my head.
It's the great thing of critique, some stranger (I submitted myself to a thing, and they give you free critique back) and they were like “this is am okay image, it's really great, maybe think of…” and they gave me different hand symbols that were more masculine oriented, that people did in the Renaissance, and I was like “No, you're missing the point, I'm not going to do that. You’re missing the point entirely, I'm not trying to be a man. This is my version of what being masculine means to me.” and then the other thing that this person said, was that I should “use gold leaf and make it more clear” and I was like “no, I don't need it because that’s a real intentional process for when I choose to bring that in, and I don't need it here I f*cking love this photo”, and so I decided to use the charcoal. The great thing of critique is it solidified why the heck I was doing it, not just “oh that looks nice” and asking, “why the fuck am I doing this?”, because a lot of trans glory and celebration has been erased and still has the ability to have that happen. A nod of it's still there, even it we can't fully see it in all for its glory. The transcestors and the trans history, and all of the ancestors that came before, who did that glorious, beautiful work of paving the way for me to be able to do this way back when and continued that thread of knowing their existence was not wrong, but something glorious. That is hard to find in history books, but I know it's there, so we'll just give that subtle nod of glory there, but also the erasure of it as well.
Section 7: Everything Is Partly Something Else
AB: Is it Everything Is Partly Something Else, where you’re holding the eggs? It's that one, and Real Enough-
EG: The embroidered bloomers. Everything Is Partly Something Else was one of the earlier ones, in 2017 so really early on, and I was listening to a podcast at the time called Gonads by Radio Lab, have you listened to it? It's really great, I liked it, it had many many different elements. That image was challenging because it has the eggs. So I have eggs, and a uterus, but it was also challenging – it was after listening to the podcast, feeling rather annoyed and angry – because of the belief that a chromosomal makeup typifies what my behaviour is going to be out in the world, and knowing of people who have had children who had XXX chromosomes and the doctors being like “okay, so they're gonna be really, really shy, and very demure”, and the doctors giving a prophetic statement based on f*cking nothing, of what their child was going to grow up to be like based on some chromosomes in their body, and that's just so much bullsh*t.
So, in the pictures it's got the X's and the Y’s, but it's very subtle how on each of them they’re slowly coming apart. The X’s aren't connected, the Y’s aren't connected, I think there's a couple of stars in there too. Its really subtle, and it’s one of those things where – its only first people ever ask me, because there's only so much I can talk about in an artist talk of what each photo means, but all of those objects are magical, intentional altarpieces to me that I bring in to these photos. I drew on them, added some stars to this idea of “it's not a bunch of chromosomes, it's the stars for Gods sake, there's as many genders as there’s are stars in the f*cking sky!”. Paired with that plant, that I still have growing in my living room. Putting it on there because I love the nod to the fig leaf, which is covering our “little bits” in all those paintings where we say “okay these are holy, religious paintings, but we shouldn't see peoples bits, we shouldn’t see their genitals” and nodding to the feeling of “both” for me and my body.
Somebody used the term “clitoral-phallic” around me around that time and I was like “yes! That is the thing – holy, literal, phallic nature of my pleasure”, and then finding out that plants and Flowers specifically that have a spadix – when it's both the pistol and the stamen – I loved that, even though I identify and use he/him pronouns and really identify as male, I also identify as non-binary. So, this feeling of both things being true, I don't want to negate a part of my body to make another part of myself feel real or valid, so I really loved feeling like both things could exist and in an area of intense pleasure too.
Section 8: Real Enough
AB: And very quick as well, before I have to let you go, I was hoping to be able to talk about the Real Enough one as well?
EG: Yeah, and I had the bloomers for a long time when I was trying to be very femme. Somebody made a comment to me, than still p*sses me off to this day, “because of my actions, because of my behaviour of trying to be nice and not ruffle feathers in a situation, you are trying to be a woman in your behaviour”, but really all I heard was “you are trying to be a woman”. And this was six months after I came out, and I was like “what the f*ck?” and burst into tears and had so many reactions, which led to so much anger of “what's it gonna take?! Is it behaviour that makes me a woman or man? Is it the way I dress?” I was fed up of feeling like there was somebody holding up a tally chart of “well you're doing enough of these masculine traits, and you’re blessening these feminine traits, okay so you pass then!” and it was just making me so I rate, and I realised that when I’m irate, I use humour, it's my way to say “f*ck you!” to people with kind of a joke. So, from that anger, “I'm going to embroider a c*ck on these bloomers, that’s awesome”, and the title was the same thing of “hey, real enough for me! If it's not for you, I don't f*cking care, deal! Use he/him please, and if you don’t think I’m being man enough for you? Shit!”, because that hurts, that idea hurts everybody: it hurts trans, it hurts cis men, any idea that you have to get to a certain level of masculinity to be “man enough” is the biggest crock of sh*t I've ever heard, see even talking about it makes me so mad! But I’m happy for that anger because I got to make than glorious piece, which makes me laugh, and it's a wonderful outlet, and saying “yeah, f*ck you. I'm actually not going to engage with that game with you. I will laugh at you for believing in that game. Yeah, there you go, and I will laugh from afar as I know I am enough”
Comments