SPILL
QUEER ARTS MAGAZINE FALL 2016
letter from editor the
H
ey friends,
Since then we’ve grown a fair amount, and
What you’re holding in your hands is the
this second issue contains works from all over the
culmination of the hard work of our staff, the
United States and several from out of the country.
vision of our founders, and the continued support
Though we are still a start-up, and we have a long
and submissions of you, our readers. There have
way to go, we are growing and improving every
been a lot of hurdles, a lot of stepping on toes,
day and I’m excited to see where this magazine
a lot of clashing philosophies and a bit of shade
goes in the future.
thrown. But there has also been celebrating and
We hope this magazine becomes a symbol of
community and passion, and we are all proud to
community, pride and love in the coming days.
present this issue to you all.
The overall Queer and Trans communities have
If you aren’t aware, Spill: Arts Magazine
been through so much in 2016, and many are
was started just over a year ago, Fall 2015,
lacking resources and platforms. Sometimes
when Carolyna Gullien saw the need for an arts
you don’t want to write a think piece, you want
platform for LBGTQA+ individuals. She hired our
to draft a poem or paint of canvas or express
first editor-in-chief, Nicole Whisenthal to see her
yourself using any of the arts. We’d like you to
vision through, and the two of them built a staff
know that you’ll always have a voice with us.
dedicated to lifting up the voices of Queer and Trans folk on the UF campus and in the greater
Thank you,
Gainesville area.
Zoey McShane
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Editor-In-Chief
Zoey McShane Managing Editor
Theresa Chapman Print Editor
Mireillee Lamourt Print Editor
Vincent M Marketing Director
Raina Barnett
FALL ‘16
Layout Director
Lauren Johnson Art Director
Oswaldo Jimenez Social Media Manager
Gabrielle Bautista Web Designer
Lissandra Dyer Illustrator
Michelle Buxeda-Roque Staff Writer
Rachel Pimienta Staff Writer
Kayla Martin Copy Editor
Tristan Czarnecki-Verner Cover Artist
Leah Brand
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By: Charles Pratt
Additional Information: I would like to thank FAU First Wave Grant, FAU SURF Grant, and Friedland Grant for providing funding that supports the production of this documentary photography project.
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A
lthough LBGTQ people currently experience unprecedented visibility in American media and popular culture, those representations are flattened images that reduce complex individuals into simplified and limited categories of identity. I am creating this documentary to blur the boundaries currently restraining the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer communities through the production of theoretically informed photographic images. Working with Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick’s concepts of allo and auto identification, and Judith Butler’s notions of performance, intelligibility, and justice in order to form a more nuanced understandings of possibility for queer individuals. Sedgwick and Butler’s work will be supplemented with the work of queer theorists such as Michel Foucault, Octavio Gonzalez, and Michael Warner as well as transgender theorists such as Julia Serano and Jack Halberstam. These photographs form a response to concepts surrounding domestic spaces, misinterpretations of the LGBTQ community, and show the stories of members of the community. In totality, I intend to pluralize and complicate notions of identity and bodies. Each set of images functions as a mini documentary that becomes part of the collective documentary Queer Images: Portraits of LGBTQ Americans. By talking to my subjects well taking the photographs I develop a short biography that allows for context to the images.
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Gerald Arroyo-Prada, born December 8, 1987, grew up in West Palm Beach, Florida. He started performing as Ariel Rimm-Chanel when he was 22. He sees drag performance as a creative outlet and a means of self-expression. He enjoys Disney and the Jonas Brothers. He lives by the idea all our dreams can come true if we have the courage to pursue them.
S
ergio D. Rivera was born in San Salvador, El Salvador on June 24, 1989. His family migrated to Naples, Florida when he was 11 years old. His father migrated first and, after three months, Sergio came with his mom and sister. Sergio became a resident of the United States in 2012 and has since worked as a horticulturist. His hobbies include cooking and caring for his house.
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Brendon Lies, age 25, is
identifies as bisexual. His illustrating, vaping, spen playing with his dog Wil at South Florida Gay New
Scot Blumstein, 55, was born and raised in New York. He currently lives in West Palm Beach, Florida. He enjoys gardening, the music of Barbra Streisand, going to the gym, and the leather subculture. He was Mr. Ramrod Runner Up 2015.
a transgender man. He s hobbies include writing, nding time at the beach, and llow. He is currently employed ws as the art director.
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By: Erin Voss
TRANSNESS 8
He ties my hands; peels the transness off my skin. “Fag� is his safe word. I am his canopy. My genitals are his caricature. Cisstraightwhiteman Bites into me like dragon fruit. He bites into me once more until I am no longer political.
“Write This D
By:Raina Barnett
� own I once wrote a poem Admitting to myself Who I really was It is now long gone Erased out of fear and self-rejection I am ___________
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By: Yingying Zhang
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By: Erin Voss
Chalks on boards and nails against teeth. I go about my days wrapped in blankets of assimilation. I often don’t think much, maybe not at all. My body is concave, rigid, and grotesque. I don’t know what it means. I don’t know what it means to have thighs too big, torso so short, or hair too long and not feminine at all. My body parts are bullets to my head. My heart is virile, so virile to the bone but my body resonates with the fragrance of effeminate tales. A dissonance so sharp it cuts my tongue. My belly is bloated with transgender death. My legs are scarred with fake liberal sympathy. My eyes are dulled with blues and reds. Take my pain away. Take it away with the sting of your cisgender ignorance. Convert me, kill me, make me assimilate. Turn this politicalization into a person. Take these breasts, these succulent pink fruits, and seed them with your dominance. Cisgender white man, please take my hands, my marked hands which are covered in the blood of my siblings. Dip them into the waters of Christian faith. Strip me of my identity. Make me the majority. Accessorize me as your only conquest. Take this distorted canvas and colonize it as your own creation. Give it the meaning I never could.
Dysphoria Anthems 12
By: Anonymous
I look around desperately for a flag, a T-shirt, a pendant in my colors, for my identity, made with me in mind. “It doesn’t matter,” says the gay man surrounded by rainbows, “just have fun. It’s a community event.”
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Millimeters to go H
unter Gavin sat on the curb hyper-aware of the chilled night air and the twinkling city lights and the visible breath unceremoniously
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escaping from her companion’s mouth. And she was aware of a hand. It was small and warm and probably soft. Bitten nails, freckled
knuckles, barely visible calluses from guitar; It was right there, inches away. Hunter focused on her shoes, ballet flats that she’d never
normally wear, fighting her pinky’s urge to reach slightly to the left and close the gap. She could sense her companion’s pulse through the pinky
By: Gwen Dawson
tip that was almost, almost touching hers. She could hear it. No, that wasn’t right. The sound was her own pulse, her own heartbeat, growing louder and more frantic, racing across her body,
pounding in her ears. She’d done something like this before. Scratch that. She’d never done anything like this before. Hunter’s only prior experience with a woman was a drunken
hookup her junior year of college with a girl mildly obsessed with Less than Jake who smelled vaguely of oatmeal and cigars. It wasn’t a pleasant experience, and Hunter never even got her name. Her two relationships with men started after years of friendship. They lasted long, they were serious, and they developed naturally. No butterflies. Jeremy was her college friend and roommate, always there to hold her hair back and stay up watching “Say Yes to the Dress” and other atrocities. They’d fallen into the relationship. Hunter woke up one weekend and realized it was their anniversary. Someone had to have confessed to someone because they were together from then to almost a year ago, when she filed for divorce. Before him there was Daniel, her high school boyfriend and first kiss. They’d known each other for three years before he invited her to their sophomore Homecoming, which would have been rude to decline. It took Hunter three months to realize she wasn’t interested in him, even as a friend, and another month to actually tell him that.
But now she was here, on a curb in the middle of the night in a foreign country with a school-girl crush on a pink-haired woman five years her junior with that “new grad” smell. Five days in, and she was already so aware of her hands, her lips, her awkward laugh. Daniel, drunk girl, Jeremy and now Annie. Annie with her piercing blue eyes, her radiant smile, her affinity for hiking boots and her small hand so close to Hunter’s. She glanced up at Annie, chewing gum, smiling, laughing at her own jokes. She watched her fast-moving painted lips and her pinky started to move millimeter by millimeter. Pulse throbbing, thumb starting to tremble, Hunter halted. Closer, but still not touching. Annie gave her an inquisitive look. Shit. She had to respond to something. What had she been talking about? Film festivals, voice actors, time travel paradoxes? “Right,” Hunter said in the most neutral tone she could muster, hoping it made sense. She was being awkward. She knew she was being awkward. Why was she like this? Annie had to be used to it by now. Two days
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ago, she caught Hunter mumbling the lyrics to Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star into her phone to look like she had a reason to be standing outside. Annie’s lips started moving again. “…to come back for their performance. They’ve got a touch of that YouTube indie, but the lead singer is cute and bi so…” Daniel, drunk girl, Jeremy, Annie. But Annie didn’t belong on the list. Annie wasn’t a potential girlfriend, or a sexual experiment. Annie was part of this trip, she was Amsterdam, she was her future self’s memory. Annie was the rebel who ditched her friends to hang out with a bumbling stranger. Annie was the revolutionary who didn’t believe in the cell service cartels and only used pre-paid phones. Annie was the kid who snuck the two of them into a movie and then went back to pay the ticket when she thought Hunter wouldn’t notice. She was the Royal Palace and the Van Gogh Museum and the Singel Canal. She was a total stranger, an experience, a whirlwind platonic romance, and Hunter may have loved her. Hunter shook her head violently. The night air bit at her nose. Fall was starting here. Not so much where she’d be this time tomorrow, back in the American South, where summer is eternal and nothing ever changed, not the leaves, not the people, not her life. Annie turned to her again; maybe she said something else that needed a response. “I hope he comes soon. I wouldn’t want you to miss your flight because I wanted ice cream.”
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“
Hunter embraced
her companion fiercely, platonically, felt hands around her back. And Annie started to pull away.
” “The Uber guy should be here in less than ten minutes.” Six months ago, Hunter would have had a panic attack at the possibility of being too late to board, but right now, she didn’t care. Maybe the Uber would never show up and she’d have to stay on this curb with Annie forever. Ten minutes left, and that hand was still there, still within grasp. She had to say something. Hunter’s need for closure welled up into a dangerous impulse egged on by the ticking clock of a ridesharing service. There was no point in admitting anything, of bringing up anything. She was leaving, Annie wasn’t. They’d never see each other again. They’d never talk again. They had less than ten minutes before the vacation was over. But she still had to tell her. Hunter’s throat started to close up. She didn’t want to just blurt it
out, to disrupt the ephemeralness of the night, to ruin Annie’s memories of her, but the clock was ticking. Push it down. Push it down. A bad reaction would spoil the entire trip, no reaction would be worse. But, if she couldn’t do this, if she couldn’t tell a cute girl she liked her at 28-years-old, how could she face her parents after running off to Europe with her divorce settlement? How could she face a potential employer, or haggle with clients? They chatted politely, said their “I’ll miss you”-s and their “keep in touch”-es and the car arrived. Hunter stood to leave, intentionally distancing herself from the hand still clutching concrete. Tell her. Hunter balled her fists and clenched her eyes. Deep breath in. Deep breath out. “Annie,” she said, maybe too loudly. She whipped around but the other girl had already manifested herself inches behind her, arms outstretched. “Goodbye hug?” Hunter embraced her companion fiercely, platonically, felt hands around her back. And Annie started to pull away. Hunter panicked, suddenly pressed her lips to Annie. She was soft, and warm, and damp and squishy. It was over before it even started, a peck on the cheek. Annie flushed at the unexpected contact. Hunter withdrew and entered the car. Her heart was beating too fast and her breath was coming out too short. If Annie responded she couldn’t have heard it.
I
have always hated haircuts. I can count the number of times I’ve actually liked a haircut on one hand. I have found that cutting my own hair, instead of going to a barber, lessens the impact. I cut only a little at a time, bargaining with myself to get it shorter. To appear more normal. I find myself lying in a plane outside normality. I accept myself. However, the world we live in is far
less kind and loving than we need it to be. My hands are not my own. Society cuts my hair and cuts away at my identity, hoping to force its ideals and standards on to everyone it can. This said, it is a necessary change for now. Until the grips on those standards change hands, we must work within the confines of a broken world. My hope is that some day is soon. By: Chris Conway
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C By: Mustafa Hammad
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C
Colonialism and white fragility *gets 0 notes on a selfie* Me: it’s minimalism. The only reason why? Opinions. My favorite electrolytes are white tears in a cocktail glass white-skin, fair-skin, cis-skin. Ideals? They’re all built on colonialism. Is thinking these thoughts bad for Your pores? i’m asking for a friend.
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Last Hope 20
By: Kelby Martin
B
y some twist of fate, Aera Espoir found herself drinking alone yet again. While never fond of the idea of these kinds of parties, anything beat imbibing in solitude at home, secluded from the outside world. She gazed through the penthouse’s glass walls at a sparkling backdrop of skyscrapers and neon lights. The moon loomed above, vast and mysterious. The grand city-states of Lumia and Umbrae, two massive factions at war for several decades, were at last coming together to sign for peace, holding a luxurious dinner party in the Lumia capitol building to celebrate the momentous occasion. And yet, here she was—sitting by herself, staring blankly outside, sipping her glass of pinot noir quietly and trying to avoid any kind of social interaction. She secluded herself on the side of the hexagonal deck aligned with dark marble dinner tables, regal lamps, and baroque-inspired ornaments. She’d never really been one for formal events, let alone lavish dinner parties. They served no real purpose other than to generate decent press and some peace of mind until the next war inevitably breaks out. Surely they’ll just forget about me and the night’ll be over before I know it, Aera thought. She prayed to whatever deity existing out there to please make the second hand on the clock move just a little bit faster. But no amount of praying would make any difference. Defeated, Aera let out an exasperated sigh. She hated being alone, yet also hated loud, bombastic gatherings. The boisterous chortling of wealthy, inebriated, men and pampered billionares filled her with disdain. To remedy her contempt, Aera took a sip of wine and gazed over to the other side of the room, cracking a contented smirk as she admired the circle of young, pretty girls who huddled by the bar, giggling and giggled at each other’s gossip. I’m a walking paradox, I swear… As she turned to face the party guests and dive into the sea of slurred voices and pompous attire, a slender figure blocked the entrance. “Hello?” A delicate voice called out from the body blocking the doorway. Aera’s head snapped around to face its source. “P-Princess Ementi—how fares you, Your Highness?” Aera stammered, caught off guard. “Pretty well, despite being asked to a dance by all seven of Umbrae’s princes,” Ementi sighed, rolling her eyes, “They try so hard to be charming, but they don’t seem to extend the same effort to proper hygiene.” Aera couldn’t even begin to imagine the cringeworthy pick-up lines the Princess must’ve braved throughout the entire night. “I’ve seen your face around here before. What’s your name?” The Princess asked. “I’m Aera Espoir. Lumia Civilian Corps, 2nd class.” Aera fought the urge to salute with all her might. “It’s an honor to meet you in person, Princess Ementi.” “Please, just call me Edea.” “Oh, um, right—Edea.” A carefree smirk fell upon Edea’s face. “So, Officer, what’re you doing all alone off to the side? Not much of a party person, huh?” She swept her hand through her golden bangs, their color pairing
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pleasingly with her white dress. Aera took another sip of wine. “Not really.” Her ashen eyes darted away from Edea’s calm yet piercing gaze. “This is actually the first party I’ve ever been to.” Edea’s jaw dropped. “You mean you’ve never been to a party, and your first one is a peace treaty signing?” Aera grimaced. “Well, uh, I mean if you count birthdays…” The princess shook her head. “Oh, no, this won’t do. You’re
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going to actually live a little tonight, even if it’s the last thing I do!” “You seem pretty sure of yourself, Princess.” “What did I just tell you, Officer?” Aera threw up her hands in defeat. “Fine, fine!” She chuckled. “So…where are you going to drag me to?” “There’s a ballad being played by a live quartet right outside.” “Are you-?” A playful smile emerged from Edea’s lips. As bourgeois as she could absolutely muster,
refined from years of exposure to royalty, she held out her hand and proclaimed, gesticulating: “O’ milady, mayest Thou grace me with a waltz?” Aera cringed as her face flushed a bright red, her hands raised to conceal her embarrassment. “Uh, well, to be quite honest— “I don’t care if you have two left feet. Up and at ‘em!” “Okay, okay, fine…!” Aera huffed. Despite her protest however, a voice inside her quietly whispered, This is the most fun I’ve had in ages. continued at spillartsmag.com
By: Gabi Bautista
Falling for Angels is Sin
I heard an angel sing in the shower stall beside me. She expressed a language I desire to know wholly. But in the same way angels are heard and not seen, her appearance and touch exist only in dreams.
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F
The Queer Dress Code with Joséphine Donald
Fashion
Throughout history, fashion has operated more than just a sartorial medium for the LGBTQ+ community. This implemented form of communication and coding has muscled a sense of connection in the midst of ongoing societal oppression. It has been a safe space--a conduit to performing the queer linings of our identities through avant garde style. Recent fashion weeks have chronicled a blur to the binaries, permeating trends that seem to overthrow gender politics. It is reasonable for LGBTQ+ folk to ostensibly trust the fashion world as a stripe to inclusivity despite the industry’s clear act of appropriating queer aesthetics in order sell to a heterosexist commercial culture. For Joséphine Donald, the fashion world is their marker of transgression. Identifying as a queer plus size model, they are using their unconventional features, such as their dark bushy brows and large nose, as a rejection of the standards held in the industry. Balancing agency calls and college courses does not seem to phase their ardency. However, dealing with the facets of queerness and being plus size,
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does present a challenge in their navigation of the fashion world. “It’s been an ongoing struggle for me, because I face the intersection of plus size and being queer. I feel there is a certain standard of femininity I am suppose to perform on. There is definitely a standard held against queer women, especially those who identify more on the fem side. In a way, we are expected to be more hyper-feminine,” they began. “Being bigger, I can’t roll out of bed and put on some large t-shirt with thigh-high boots like Gigi Hadid. I have to constantly dress fancy to even be considered fashionable.” While these do persist as challenges for Joséphine, they certainly aren’t backing down. Their invigorated queer
femme style underlines the reclamation of their femininity while challenging unremitting misogyny. Joséphine started off their career as a fashion blog on Instagram--documenting outfitsof-the-day coupled with their signature pout made a quick impression, including those involved within the industry. Though, Joséphine isn’t set on pursuing model stardom just yet. They want to focus on their endeavors in college before jetting out to NYC and getting their feet deep into their career. “I’m always developing and learning more about myself. I am set on finishing college, but I am putting most of my energy into modeling and hopefully getting cast somewhere.” They hope to take the anatomies of queer fashion to a
By: Theresa Chapman
higher level. “Queer fashion is a culture. Fashion to the LGBTQ+ community is so central to identity. It can lead to a big identity marker and it’s quite obvious how important it is to self expression.” While digesting on career plans, Joséphine makes note of the critical age of nepotism models in the industry. Names like Kendall Jenner and the Hadids who got much of their recognition because of the accessory of their last name, has perpetuated this cycle of thin, white, able bodied women. There is little leeway for what casting directors denote as the “outliers.” Fashion catering to one central audience makes it quite arduous for others to find themselves in such a small lense. “There are so many flaws within the industry. Quite obvious is the appropriation of queer designs, specifically within the queer people of color community. The Marc Jacobs show had me appalled, because I was a big fan of him. It truly disgusted me to see models I admire walk down the runway in technicolor dreads--but yeah, the hierarchy, classism, and racism in fashion is super gross to me.” A bulk of the industry has prospered on the backs of LGBTQ+ folks because we are more than just designers-we are the trendsetters. From sequins to black fitted leather, our contributions have been manipulated and diluted to please the growing faction of a heteronormative mass consumerism. Much of
the coding is still present, even structures embedded within the within collections of Gucci industry to which marginalizes us and V-Files. It is important to and uses our existence as muses. address the subliminal hegemonic
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VIBES
BY CHRISTINA CLAES
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Leah Brand Wet
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By: Rebecca Martin
No Holy Skeleton i am having trouble again. i can’t stop staring at the stars or at pretty girls and i don’t want to. for two years, i have been dismantling. everything becoming electric under my fingers, everything losing its edge without warning. childhood guilt replaced by theory, by an insistence on framework and distance. i keep thinking i’ll unlock the science behind time travel if only to send compassion to myself five years ago. i keep thinking i am now the kind of person who would use time travel for kindness to the self. i am tempted by selfprofit: i know there are pieces of my body that scream for an auctioneer. this is an act of invitation, of letting the pain gasp its way out instead of demanding its absence, this is what i have told myself in the dark. nothing diminishes the way out and i cannot chain my body to an exit strategy. no matter how much it resembles that desirable hollow-boned monument. i am tempted by the image of the meat cleaver, not because i like the sight of blood or limbs but rather a misplaced admiration of physical bones. a repetitive note to self: there is no holy skeleton.
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By: Gabrielle Newman
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By: Rachel Pimienta
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Not Under My Roof There’s a leak in my roof. It’s been there all my life. I covered it for their peace of mind. Day and night, it kept me confined. Day and night, it kept our heads inside. Day and night, it changes. There’s a leak in my roof. It’s a reminder of what I lack. But I covered it; in fact it’s beginning to crack. Day and night, water seeps in the back. It changes, day and night. There’s a leak in my roof. It’s become too big to fight. But I covered it; in spite of rejection, there’s incoming light. Day and night, it changes. There’s a flood in my house. And I let it spill. I discovered I was living in a landfill. A surface is more than its mold. Under my roof the truth will be told. There was a leak in my roof. It was there all my life. I covered it for their peace of mind. But not anymore.
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