The Art of Being Queer

“When I was in the third grade I thought that I was gay, because I could draw.” – Macklemore 2012

 

Comical as this may be out of context, the implication remains that a proclivity towards the arts is commonly associated with queerness. You may think this is merely the work of outdated stereotypes, but from Sappho to Ocean Vuong, the link between queerness and art is undeniable and certainly one that impacts my practise as a writer.

I grew up in Northern Ireland’s answer to suburbia, just shy of Belfast, meaning it was not yet legal for me to marry in my own homeland. At school, you could count the out-LGBTQ people on one hand, me being the only lesbian among them. Queer playwright Lorraine Hansberry claimed that “The thing that makes you exceptional, if you are at all, is inevitably that which must also make you lonely.” I don’t know if I would have thought of myself as exceptional then, but I knew I was different, and with that difference came a plague of isolation and dejection. The only space in which I felt unburdened by judgement and able to indulge in complete freedom of expression was in my journals, a place to retire to at the end of hard days navigating a society in which I did not naturally fit.

The beauty of Hansberry’s quote is that it can be applied both to queerness and to artistic practice. Art can be a solitary hobby. Theorist Danielle Knafo suggests that artists “withdraw from the general course of life, returning to aloneness for the purpose of creating a product that speaks in a new way to others about existence.” Artist, as a moniker, often conjures images of eccentric recluses locked in their rooms, engaged in the frantic passion of creation. Poet Emily Dickinson was known for her tendency to speak to guests through a locked door, an early example of the reliance of queer artists on solitude. It’s no surprise that a group already marginalized by the mainstream is drawn to hobbies and occupations in which solitude is welcomed and they are provided a non-discriminatory avenue for purging emotions. Gay novelist Marcel Proust stated that “Ideas are like goddesses who appear only to the solitary mortal”, suggesting that solitude was integral to his very ability to create.

However, although the solitude of art may be an element of its appeal to marginalised people, as we emerge into a more connected and accepting society than those in which Dickinson and Proust operated in, art can also provide a path to community and belonging. Amy Keating suggests that queer people use art to “create their own spaces of belonging” and that “In a world “unhappy” with queerness, art and aesthetics make room for queer joy.” Although my own writing practise is therapeutic, only through seeing my experiences paralleled in the literature I consume and engaging with other queer writers do I experience that queer joy Keating speaks of. Whether it is published and acclaimed work like Alison Bechdel’s graphic novel Fun Home, or the wealth of emerging artists that can be found online, we are lucky to have such a diverse library of queer art at our fingertips.

Through writing this blog, I want to deepen my understanding of the intersection between my art, my queer identity, and my wellbeing. More importantly, though, I want to hear from you. How do you utilise art as a wellbeing practise? What queer artists inspire you to create? How does being queer impact your relationship to art and wellbeing?

Today I will leave you with a prompt through which to approach this connection between queer wellbeing and art.

Think about a time when you felt isolated and imagine you are able to go back in time and talk to that version of yourself. Free-write about what you needed to hear and then turn that freewriting into a piece of art of your choosing.

If you feel comfortable sharing your piece you can do so through the hashtag #UOBQueerWellbeing, but even if you don’t, remember that the most valuable thing is making time for yourself and prioritising your emotions.

Here is a poem that I wrote based on that prompt:

Keeping Up Appearances

Your interior design was inhumane,
tyrant mother frothing Rabies Grey.

You’d invite me over to bathe in my shades
Offbeat Green                    Outlandish Red
splayed out, for a moment, on your bed.

When you claimed she had relented
to your demands of repainting
I had to go away

but was sustained by thoughts of your freckled face
sprayed with a rainbow of renovation,

Callous Graphite at last replaced
by Easy Tangerine.
Miles of Spirited Cyan tiles pasted
where Charcoal Nonchalance had been.

When I came
lonely
restless
for a peek, I expected brushes, rollers, buckets
of Euphoric Purple                      Alluring Pink,
a heady technicolour dream,

but not a rainbow could be seen,

curtains drawn.

I stole a glimpse through their Ivory Silence,
found every surface just as I’d left it

Smoke.
Fossils.
Ashes.

 

Bibliography

  • Hansberry, Lorraine To Be Young Gifted and Black: Lorraine Hansberry in Her Own Words, ed. by Robert Nemiroff (New Jersey: Prentice-Hall, 1969), p. 137.
  • Keating, Amy, ‘Laughing (until/because) it Hurts: Finding Time for ‘Queer Belonging’ and ‘Queer Joy’ through Art and Aesthetics ‘, Western University, (2021), in <https://ir.lib.uwo.ca/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1213&context=inspiringminds>
  • Danielle Knafo, ‘Alone Together: Solitude and the Creative Encounter in Art and Psychoanalysis’, Psychoanalytic Dialogues, 22.1, (2012), 54-71.
  • Macklemore, Same Love (Macklemore LLC, 2012) < https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hlVBg7_08n0>
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