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  • 1 week ago
Drag is more than perfect eye makeup and a fabulous gown; it's art. Follow Untitled Queen as she takes the drag world by storm — with an artist’s touch.

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Transcript
00:00This next performer is not just a drag queen, honey, she is my sister.
00:04I can't even explain how fabulous she is.
00:06Give it up for Untitled Queen, honey.
00:09When I was in my teen years, and I was already out,
00:14and I'd help my sister shop, I was always kind of looking for things like,
00:18oh my gosh, if I was going to wear something, I'd be wearing this.
00:21And that is the kind of thing I buy now.
00:25That's the kind of look often.
00:27It's these kind of fantasies of things that I always thought about at that time.
00:33I used to say that about certain drag queens.
00:35I think of the generation or my generation.
00:37It's like they're often their teen dream of things that they couldn't do
00:43or kind of wanted to do, and then now just unleashed.
00:47So it's often, I feel like you see these versions of 16-year-old goth girls,
00:52or in my case, some sort of Harajuku, messed up girl walking around all the time.
00:59I think that's often the source of it.
01:08What was really interesting, when I first started doing drag,
01:12I was very, I don't know, for some reason really adamant being like,
01:16this is different than my artwork.
01:18Like, they don't go together, they don't know the same things.
01:22It wasn't considered.
01:24I kind of really kept them apart.
01:26And then when I thought about it, drag is so much,
01:29it's exactly the way that I make art.
01:34It's a prop, meaning a sculpture, and a soft sculpture,
01:39and a costume, and a performance.
01:42And the way that I think and process doing drag is the same way that I make art.
01:47It's all these sort of interdisciplinary bits and pieces that come together to make a whole experience.
01:53It's interesting looking back on some of the drawings and things that I've done before,
01:58and in many ways it's always just kind of ideas that I've been thinking about forever and ever,
02:05and it's like, finally drag was a way to make them realized in real life.
02:11I was like, I can do this tonight, I can make this huge wig,
02:14or I can make this, like, marching band hat, or whatever I wanted.
02:19So the drawings became almost like blueprints for, or tests for how looks could be, and vice versa.
02:26Then I became, like, inspired by looking at some of the outfits I made
02:29and wanting to make them into drawings.
02:31So they're pretty cyclical, the way that it comes about.
02:38My eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord.
02:46He is trampling not the vintage where the grapes of wrath are stored.
02:54He has loosed the fateful lightning of his terrible swift sword.
03:03His truth is marching on.
03:13I think what took me apart as a drag queen is sort of the way I tell,
03:21use drag as a way to tell stories, and no matter what it is.
03:28And I think through a sort of artistic thing and sort of a construction,
03:33I feel like each song is almost like a little play.
03:37And, like, taking it that way with, like, a costume, an actor, a script, a story,
03:43and I think that's how I approach each one.
03:46I used to always ask people, oh, when, maybe I'll do a slow song for this.
03:50I used to ask advice about some people, like, oh, no, don't ever, don't do that.
03:53No one wants to do that.
03:54No one wants to hear a slow song right now.
03:56It's like such a downer.
03:58And I was like, no, but this will be good.
03:59And then when I finally stopped listening to all that noise,
04:01and I was like, no, I'm just going to do it because I think it's right for right now,
04:05and that's what I want to do, and that's what I serve.
04:09That's the kind of, I say, this sort of melancholy joy fantasy.
04:13That's the kind of thing I'm often interested in acting out and seeing done on that stage for myself.
04:25And since I follow that, I think that I've really set a precedent so that people know that they can,
04:33that there's room for that in drag, and that I'm one of the people that can do it.
04:39Christ was born across the sea with the glory in his bosom that transcends you and me as he died.
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