Sunday, November 10, 2013

Original Art Sundays no. 168: Great Transsexuals: Kate Bornstein

Okay, taking a respite from the end of the Surrealist Cowgirls story to work on some Tranny Towers stuff, with an eye towards putting up a Kickstarter by December 1. For some strange reason, Blogspot is being very fussy about text input, so if this does not format correctly, please forgive.
I first met Kate in 1992 (I think) at Program in Human Sexuality. A bunch of us went out to dinner after a performance of one of her plays, where I told her my idea that we do not become fully who we are meant to be for seven years after surgery, since that's how long it takes the body to recycle all its cells (except for the brain). She liked the idea and included it in her next book.
We met again at Intermedia Arts in 1995. I had 10 Tranny Towers pages in a show called The Genders That Be. There were several other trans artists in the show, and I had included this piece, not realizing she would be in attendance. To my relief, she loved it and bought the original- my first professional art sale! I considered updating it, but finally decided that it was of its time. There are three other pieces in this series: one on Jayne County, one on Bernadette from Priscilla, Queen of the Desert, and an uncompleted work on Dis from The Crying Game. I may pick the series up again in relation to the Kickstarter (which will include other new work), but until then, I want to get the extant work out.
To that end, here's the previously unpublished page. Note: there's some fussy text below this that just won't go away.
Next week: either the Cowgirls or another new trans themed piece.

Backstory: I first met Kate at the U's Program in Human Sexuality in 1994, when she gave a talk in conjunction with a performance of one of her plays. Afterwards, a bunch of us went to the sadly d