“Queer Icons” show LGBTQ people of color today in art by Gabriel Garcia Roman

“Julissa” from “Queer Icons” by Gabriel Garcia Roman

“Andrew” from “Queer Icons” by Gabriel Garcia Roman

“Queer Icons” by Mexican American queer artist Gabriel García Román reveal the holiness of LGBTQ people of color in much the same way that traditional icons open a window to heaven.

“I’d like to think of them as a hybrid between saints and warriors," Roman said in a recent interview with Mic.com. "Saints are usually depicted as martyrs, noble and selfless individuals working for the betterment of the world, but also I wanted to portray them as fearless warriors. They are looking right at you and challenging you."

His subjects are activists and artists who help the community -- presented with haloes, gold accents and vibrant colors and patterns. The queer icons give power to the disempowered, visibility to the invisible. Like traditional icons, they gaze directly into the eyes of viewers, daring them to see what is sacred.

“Jahmal” from “Queer Icons” by Gabriel Garcia Roman

But these are also living, breathing icons who populate contemporary America in its diversity. All are queer people of color, including Latina/o, black, Asian and mixed heritage. Some are immigrants -- naturalized, documented or undocumented. They come from many different places on the gender spectrum.

Traditional Catholic icons were Roman’s first introduction to art when he was growing up. He was especially fascinated by the haloes on the saints who graced the walls of his neighborhood church. Born in Zacatecas, Mexico, Roman was raised Catholic in Chicago and currently lives in New York City.

The Mic.com interview was part of an explosion of Internet attention sparked by his participation in “Manifest Justice,” a major group exhibit in Los Angeles in May. Roman’s images displayed there included “Mitchyll,” whose hooded sweatshirt echoes the hoods of medieval monks -- and the famous hoodie worn by Trayvon Martin, the unarmed African American teen whose 2012 murder led to massive national protests against racism.

“Mitchyll” from “Queer Icons” by Gabriel Garcia Roman

Roman begins the process of creating a Queer Icon by photographing the person. He uses a chine-collé method of silkscreen printing to put layers of colors, patterns and text over each portrait.

In some cases, especially if his subject is a poet, he collaborates with the “icon” by inviting them to background text in their own handwriting on the icon. He describes this as a way to amplify their voices and “give them a canvas to speak about their identity.”

For example, poet Julissa Rodriguez begins, “She used to believe in miracles.” Rodriguez lives in the Bronx, NY, and her family is from the Dominican Republic.

“I have no map or stars to guide me through the night,” writes Emanuel Xavier, a poet and LGBT activist whose background is Ecuadorian and Puerto Rican. The Jesus in Love Blog covered his work in the 2010 article Poet imagines “if Jesus were gay.”

“Emanuel” from “Queer Icons” by Gabriel Garcia Roman

“Today you were reminded that you are not ‘queer’ enough, not ‘artistic’ enough, not ‘migrant’ enough,” writes Sonia Guiñansaca, a poet and community organizer who was born in Ecuador, raised in Harlem, NY.  She is open about her undocumented status.

“Sonia” from “Queer Icons” by Gabriel Garcia Roman

“I just mourned my former self. One thinks about how we are very, very lovely, lonely, grasping at parts of ourselves,” begins Bakar Wilson, a poet who teaches English at Borough of Manhattan Community College.

“Bakar” from “Queer Icons” by Gabriel Garcia Roman

Roman gives credit to a variety of artistic sources for inspiring his Queer Icons, including Renaissance, Flemish and Christian Orthodox portraiture traditions. More contemporary influences include portrait artists such as African American painter Kehinde Wiley, Armenian Canadian photographer Yousef Karsh, and South African photographers Zanele Muholi and Pieter Hugo.

Queer people of color are under-represented in art overall and religious art in particular. Roman’s “Queer Icons’ have similarities with other queer art projects, including the “Saints” series of Tony O’Connell, who captures holy moments in everyday life; the Queer Clergy Trading Cards of Chris Davies, who gives visibility to ordained queer ministers; and Ria Brodell’s “Butch Heroes” series, which puts historical queer women into the format of Catholic holy cards. But Roman may be the first to focus exclusively on queer people of color with Christian iconography.

Roman’s Queer Icons also stand in the tradition of Pop Art master Andy Warhol, another queer silkscreen artist whose portrait style was influenced by the Catholic icons that he saw while growing up in an immigrant family. (In Warhol’s case, it was Byzantine Catholic.) Warhol took the iconic style beyond the church to create colorful silkscreens of pop-culture icons such as Marilyn Monroe. Roman further democratizes the process by making icons out of people who rarely get any attention in either secular or sacred contexts.

A variety of galleries on both coasts have exhibited Roman’s art. He has completed more than 30 images in his ongoing “Queer Icons” series. They are posted on his website gabrielgarciaroman.com. A selection is posted here to inform readers and inspire those who wish to meditate on the unlikely people who embody embody God’s spirit today.

___
Credit: All images are from the series “Queer Icons” by Gabriel Garcia Roman, 2011-2015, Photogravure w/ Chine-Colle and silkscreen, 11x14, image size 8x10.

“Kathy” from “Queer Icons” by Gabriel Garcia Roman

“Abdool” from “Queer Icons” by Gabriel Garcia Roman

“Sidra” from “Queer Icons” by Gabriel Garcia Roman

“Hiroshi” from “Queer Icons” by Gabriel Garcia Roman

___
Related links:

Influenced by Catholic Upbringing, Artist’s “Queer Icons” Offer Windows to God (New Ways Ministry)

Not Your Mother's Catholic Frescoes: Radiant Portraits Of Queer People Of Color (npr.org)

10 Stunning Images That Shatter Stereotypes About LGBTQ People of Color (mic.com)

One Photographer Is Using Social Media To Celebrate 'Queer Icons' Of Color By Katherine Brooks (Huff Post)

Icons as Religious Art

___
Special thanks to the many people who sent me news tips urging me to write this article, including Terry Weldon of Queering the Church, Ann Fontaine of Episcopal Cafe, Chris Davies of Queer Clergy Trading Cards, Jane Redmont and Scott Sella.
___
This post is part of the Artists series by Kittredge Cherry at the Jesus in Love Blog. The series profiles artists who use lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender (LGBT) and queer spiritual and religious imagery. It also highlights great queer artists from history, with an emphasis on their spiritual lives.

Copyright © Kittredge Cherry. All rights reserved.
http://www.jesusinlove.blogspot.com/
Jesus in Love Blog on LGBT spirituality and the arts

Rosa Bonheur: Cross-dressing painter honored “androgyne Christ”

“Rosa Bonheur” by Ria Brodell

Rosa Bonheur, the most famous female painter of the 19th century, was a queer cross-dresser who honored what she called the “androgyne Christ.” She had two consecutive long-term relationships with women. She died on this date (May 25) in 1899.


For a new version of this article, click this link to Qspirit.net:
Rosa Bonheur: Cross-dressing painter honored “androgyne Christ”

Born in France in 1822, Bonheur received much acclaim in her lifetime for her paintings of animals. In recent decades she has been celebrated as a queer pioneer, feminist icon, and role model for the LGBT community. Her achievements grew out of an unusual religious upbringing in the proto-feminist Saint-Simonian sect, and the queer Christian ideals that she expressed in adulthood. Bonheur’s gender-bending lifestyle has been covered extensively by scholars, but her spirituality has received much less attention.

Her parents raised her in Saint-Simonianism, a French utopian Christian-socialist movement that advocated equality for women and prophesied the coming of a female messiah. Her father was an artist and an ardent apostle for the Saint-Simonian religion. Bonheur writes a whole chapter about growing up as a Saint-Simonian in the book “Rosa Bonheur: The Artist's (Auto)biography,” which she wrote with her companion Anna Klumpke.

The Saint-Simonian concept of gender equality paved the way for Bonheur’s father to train her as a painter -- and for her own defiance of gender norms. As she put it, “To his doctrines I owe my great and glorious ambition for the sex to which I proudly belong and whose independence I shall defend until my dying day.”

Rosa Bonheur's
Permission to cross-dress
(Wikimedia Commons)

Cross-dressing was illegal in France at that time, but she got permission from the police to wear men’s trousers so she could sketch at such male-dominated places as horse fairs and slaughterhouses. She broke rules of feminine behavior by smoking cigars and wearing her hair short. She was never arrested for wearing men’s clothes, but she was arrested once in female attire when a policeman thought she was a man pretending to be a woman!

Bonheur had two female companions in her lifetime. She spent 50 years living with her childhood sweetheart Nathalie Micas, who died in 1889. Bonheur grieved deeply and then shared the last years of her life with a new companion, American artist Anna Klumpke.

One of their joint projects was writing Bonheur’s autobiography. In it she discusses her religious beliefs, stating, “I get blamed for not going to church! I may have more religion than the folks who, instead of doing their best to lead a blameless life, go mutter prayers there every day in a language they don’t understand…. I’ve written my own versions of the most important Catholic prayers.”

Here are some excerpts from prayers written by Bonheur and published in her autobiography:

Bonheur’s version of the Hail Mary prayer:

Hail, O earth full of grace, the living God is with you. Blessed are you among all the planets, the fruit of your womb is our salvation. Holy earth, mother of love, pour out your grace on those who suffer, now and in our divine transformation.

From Bonheur’s Creed:

I believe in God the all-powerful, everlasting Father, creator of all things eternal. I believe in his beloved Son, the saving Two, androgyne Christ, the highest point of human transformation, the sublime manifestation of the living God who is in everything that is.

Bonheur died at age 77, and Klumpke went on to champion Bonheur’s work until she died in 1942. They are buried together in a grave in Paris. Bonheur’s most famous paintings are “The Horse Fair” and “Plowing in the Nivernais,” but she leaves a large legacy of art depicting horses, cattle, sheep, lions, dogs, and many other creatures. A selection of her work is posted below.

The portrait at the top of this post is part of the “Butch Heroes” series by Ria Brodell, a culturally Catholic gender-queer artist in the Boston area. For more about Brodell, see my previous post “Artist paints history’s butch heroes: Ria Brodell interview.”


"Royalty at Home" by Rosa Bonheur (Wikimedia Commons)


"The Horse Fair" by Rosa Bonheur (Wikimedia Commons)


"Relay Hunting" by Rosa Bonheur (Wikimedia Commons)


“Plowing in the Nivernais” by Rosa Bonheur (Wikimedia Commons)


"Sultan and Rosette" by Rosa Bonheur (Wikimedia Commons)
___
Related links:

Rosa Bonheur (Art History Archive)

____
This post is part of the Artists series by Kittredge Cherry at the Jesus in Love Blog. The series profiles artists who use lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender (LGBT) and queer spiritual and religious imagery. It also highlights great queer artists from history, with an emphasis on their spiritual lives.

Copyright © Kittredge Cherry. All rights reserved.
http://www.jesusinlove.blogspot.com/
Jesus in Love Blog on LGBT spirituality and the arts

New Queer Christ video created for ReLENT online series

A new video introduces the queer Christ in an accessible, inviting way with LGBT Christian art and short quotes from queer theologians, including Jesus in Love founder Kittredge Cherry.

The “Introduction to the Queer Christ” video was created by Sara Shisler Goff for the Slate Project, a an Baltimore-based online Christian community that she co-founded.

“In less than five minutes, the video sums up the queer Christ with great clarity and beauty,” said Cherry. “It presents my best ideas and many of the artists that I featured on the Jesus in Love Blog.”

The video was produced for the Slate Project's “ReLENT” series of Lenten reflections. They use the latest technology to explore ancient spiritual truths. Each week their videos, social media, Twitter chats, and in-the-flesh gatherings focus each week on a different side of Christ each week: Black Christ, the Poor Christ, the Queer Christ, the Feminist Christ, the Disabled Christ and the Nonviolent Christ.

The Queer Christ video highlights quotes from Cherry's book “Art That Dares: Gay Jesus, Woman Christ, and More” along with texts from gay theologian Patrick Cheng and transgender priest Shannon Kearns.

Their words appear with artwork by a variety of historical and contemporary artists, including Jesus in Love contributors Doug Blanchard, Becki Jayne Harrelson, Robert Lentz, Elisabeth Ohlson Wallin, Christine Bakke, Bill Burch, Carlos Latuff, and Dirk Vanden.

A slide from the Queer Christ video

The soundtrack sets a tone of sacred openness with the chant “Open My Heart” from the album “Inside Chants” by Harc (Ana Hernandez and Ruth Cunningham).

Shisler Goff is one of three co-pastors who founded the Slate Project in 2013. She also serves as assisting priest at Trinity Episcopal Church in Towson, MD.

“The Slate Project is a community, both online and in person, where we ask ourselves, ‘What if we had a blank slate for doing and being church?’ This lets us ask what it is in our Christian traditions that no longer serves us and needs to be ‘wiped away,’ and what is in the slate itself -- the very form and substance of what it means to be the church. Jesus is that substance,” she told the Jesus in Love Blog.

She joined forces with pastors from two other denominations -- Presbyterian Jenn DiFrancesco and Lutheran Jason Chesnut -- to build a post-denominational community whose playfully irreverent motto is “Christianity without the crap.” About 1,800 people have “liked” their Facebook page and they have more than 500 followers on Twitter.

“For me the queer Christ is about Jesus embodying God’s radically inclusive love for all people,” she explains in a separate video interview about the queer Christ produced for ReLENT.



The Twitter chat about the queer Christ opened with Shisler Goff tweeting the Rainbow Christ Prayer by Cherry and Cheng. A record of the whole chat is online at Storify.com. The following highlights include questions and some of the most “favorited” answers from an hour of tweets.

For you, how does the #QueerChrist set free and heal damage that has been done?

“As a member of the queer community, the #queerchrist welcomes and knows me, despite what the church has told me in the past. -- Christophe Schaefer


How does the #QueerChrist reclaim Christ from those who “use him as a weapon to dominate others?”

“If Christ is Queer, there’s no “other" to even use a weapon against, because there’s no norm.” -- Julie

“We see the #QueerChrist in people like Matthew Shepherd, beaten and left for dead on the outskirts. Not holding a weapon.” -- Jason Chesnut

“The #QueerChrist meets Westboro with a sign of Christ’s own - ‘I love you. Deal with it.’” -- Jason Chesnut


How do you experience the #QueerChrist—theologically, emotionally, spiritually, imaginatively?

“I encounter the #QueerChrist in members of the queer community who have also been martyred, and their legacies which live on.” -- Christopher Schaefer

“I experience the #QueerChrist bringing me from a homophobic guy raised in Texas to a straight ally in a challenging way”. -- Jason Chesnut


What do you think of the role of art as both an expression of faith and an agent of change?

“Trying to get away from "idols" has left us devoid of icons- windows to the divine.” -- Lauren Muratore

Cherry tweeted along too in her first-ever Twitter chat. “It was a thrill to use a new technology to meet new people who seek to know the queer Christ,” she said.

Shisler Goff, who led the discussion and made the video, explained why she has put so much effort into sharing the Queer Christ in a statement for the Jesus in Love Blog:

“It was important to me that we talk about the Queer Christ for several reasons. I think many people are still not that familiar with the Queer Christ. Scholarship on the Queer Christ is still relatively new. It was not until I began my doctoral studies at Episcopal Divinity School in the last two years that I seriously studied the Queer Christ. For me, Jesus is the embodiment of God's radically inclusive love. This is the language of many queer theologians. The Queer Christ helps us transform unhelpful and limiting binary thinking and opens up a freedom for all people, with many kinds of diversity, to be imaged in Christ. I like to think of the Queer Christ as transforming the boundaries that we like to put up; not destroying them but transforming them. This view of Christ subverts the most popular critiques of the church today- it is homophobic, hypocritical, and irrelevant. This Christ has something to say to the lived experience of LGBTQ people who have historically be oppressed, marginalized and even persecuted by the church. I think the Queer Christ can speak to all people, because to "queer" something is to interpret it in a new and normative, non-traditional way.

Everyone is welcome to join in ReLENT’s “digital discipline” by meditating on selected scriptures and readings and responding online through their Facebook and Twitter accounts. They host a Twitter chat of the week’s topic every Thursday at 9 p.m. Eastern, using the hashtag #SlateSpeak.

The ReLENT group has already discussed the theology of James Cone (Black Christ) and Gustavo Gutierrez (Poor Christ) as well as Cherry’s writing about the queer Christ. Upcoming weeks will focus on Dietrich Bonhoeffer (Nonviolent Christ), Nancy Eiesland (Disabled Christ) and various writers who discuss the Feminist Christ.

“The church is in the process of reimagining and re-creating itself for the twenty-first century,” Shisler Goff said. “I believe the Spirit is inviting us to join in the queering of the church.”

____
This post is part of the Queer Christ series by Kittredge Cherry at the Jesus in Love Blog. The series gathers together visions of the queer Christ as presented by artists, writers, theologians and others.

Copyright © Kittredge Cherry. All rights reserved.
http://www.jesusinlove.blogspot.com/
Jesus in Love Blog on LGBT spirituality and the arts

Queer Clergy Trading Cards feature Kittredge Cherry

Kittredge Cherry, founder of the Jesus in Love Blog, is featured on a new Queer Clergy Trading Card. It identifies her "super power" as "resurrectiong queer Christ."

The cards are a fun way to bring more visibility to LGBTQ ministers. Queer clergy look cool on these virtual “trading cards.”

Currently the Queer Clergy Trading Cards are shared on their Facebook, Instagram and Twitter accounts, but plans are underway to offer printed cards through the new website www.queerclergytradingcards.com.

Queer Clergy Trading Cards are created by Chris Davies, a United Church of Christ minister who studies queer theology at Andover Newton Theological School.

The process of becoming a Queer Clergy Trading Card includes answering a witty questionnaire from Davies. She described Cherry’s answers as “a thoughtful novel on the questions.” Highlights from their interview are posted here.

For more info on Queer Clergy Trading Cards, see the previous post “Queer Clergy Trading Cards bring visibility with humor.”


Queer Clergy Trading Cards: What are you so amazingly good at... that it might be your SUPER POWER!? Please give me a few different options, I'm going to pick one!

Kittredge Cherry: I am good at writing about LGBTQ spirituality and art. I have been called an “outsider god blogger” and a “living saint” for doing the Jesus in Love Blog  and Newsletter.

Before becoming a clergy in Metropolitan Community Churches, I was a newspaper reporter and author. My first book, “Womansword: What Japanese Language says about Women,” even got a good review in the New York Times! (They praised my “very graceful, erudite” style.) I bring a strong writing background into my queer ministry.

I am especially devoted to Jesus and I am known for promoting the idea of a queer Christ. Though my prayer life and study, I gained the insight that the historical Jesus may have been gay or queer… and that the living Christ is in everyone, including LGBTQI people. I often present this idea on my blog and in my books, and the response has been tremendous – both positive and negative. Hate groups keep warning me that hellfire awaits me! But many agree with me that the queer Christ is important now because conservatives are using Christianity to justify discrimination against LGBTQ people.

My “LGBT Saints” series is popular and well known. In fact, it led some people started calling me “Saint Kitt.” (Ha!) I started writing about queer saints because readers told me they were getting bored with my constant focus on Jesus. Now I have come to love doing historical search and writing about saints – broadly defined as anyone who creates more love in the world.

I love art -- looking at it, making it, and nurturing the rare artists who present the queer Christ and LGBTQ saints. My mother was an art teacher and I majored in art history (and journalism) at the University of Iowa.

I have a special gift for reaching queer people who are “unchurched” or “post-church” – those who never went to church or got fed up and left. The reason is because I myself grew up mostly unchurched and thinking that there was no God. I had a conversion experience in my mid-20s when I felt God reach out personally to me. Suddenly I knew there was a God, and that God loved me just as I am, even though I was a lesbian. I was baptized as an adult at an ecumenical church in Japan (where I was a graduate student at the time). I was living in the closet, afraid of social rejection. But knowing that God loved me gave me the strength to come out as a lesbian. When I took my clergy vows in MCC, I added outreach to the secular world in addition to the standard vows.

Another strength is my international, cross-cultural, interfaith and ecumenical background. I have lived abroad, traveled the world and worked as ecumenical officer at MCC international headquarters, advocating for LGBT rights at the World Council of Churches. At WCC conferences I used to wear a button that said, “Lesbian Christian.” Most people fled in terror, but I quickly identified a few supporters that way. One of my recent cross-cultural efforts is partnering with a queer theologian in Argentina to do Santos Queer, a Spanish-language version of my blog.

I have been called “a mystic on the Christ path” because I am devoted to Jesus and I lead a relatively simple, quiet life now. I feel strong love and connection to Jesus in particular, more than most Christians that I know. It feels like he is always with me, ready to help. I am officially “retired” now so I am a bit like a hermit or medieval monk, who preserves and illuminates the story of God while living apart from the world (and connecting over the Internet!) One of my friends marveled, “You could be happy just living in a cave!”


QCTC: What's your kryptonite?  People have taken this all sorts of different directions. Something you can't say "no" to... something that you have to work on, individually... or something that irks you about the church/system/world as a whole. You pick. and tell me which! And also, give me a few different options to pick from...

Kittredge Cherry: One of my “kryptonites” is – staircases! And any building without access ramps for the disabled! In recent years I have health problems that make it hard or impossible for me to go up and down steps, so they are real barriers for me. It’s especially sad when churches aren’t accessible, and even worse when they don’t care. Meanwhile I am working to build my health and muscle strength.

“Never lose your joy!” That’s what a stranger – a nun – said to me very early in my ministry after a worship service that I led. At the time, I thought, “I won’t lose my joy.” But over the decades I sometimes have lost my joy. When I’m feeling discouraged, I remember her words like a beacon.

In my preaching, I tend to stick to the message that God loves all people. For me, that idea is so powerful and transformative that it automatically leads to a solution for every dilemma. But I work to go beyond that basic messages because congregants have complained, “I already know God loves me, now what?!”


QCTC: What song would you walk out to preach to? Artist and song, please!
“Oh! You Pretty Things” by David Bowie. David Bowie’s music and androgynous style got me through junior high and high school in the 1970s.




Anything else that might help me in design elements? (all the goofy stuff all around the cards)
Do you love cats? Are you obsessed with Gothic Style? Do you have a secret desire to be a firefighter? What's your favorite color?

Andy Warhol is my favorite artist. I love his art, his ideas, and his androgynous, counter-cultural style. My favorite style of art is contemporary.

My second homeland is Japan, where I lived for three years as a young adult. I still love Japanese culture.

My favorite color is -- Rainbow!

Queer Clergy Trading Cards bring visibility with humor

Queer Clergy Trading Cards bring visibility to LGBTQ ministers with humor and witty style.

The fun new online visual arts project has celebrated 50 ordained Christian clergy since it was launched in November 2015.

Update in 2018: Packs of Queer Clergy Trading Cards are now available on Amazon.com.

Queer clergy look cool on these virtual “trading cards.” Like the more familiar baseball trading cards, each card combines a portrait photo with written info about the individual.

Queer Clergy Trading Cards list each person’s strength (“super-power”), weakness (“kryptonite”) and their “walk-out song” for making a grand entrance. Some clergy are also given clever job titles such as “butch pastor,” ”femminster,” “renegade priest,” “spiritual directrix” and “inclusivator.”

Flipping through the pack of cards gives a welcome overview of the diversity and carefree spirit among today’s queer clergy. The multiracial group includes people of many ages and denominations. The cards showcase a huge variety of identities, including old-school butch dykes and liturgy queens; bisexual, transgender and genderqueer identities; and people who identify on other spectrums of gender.

“A friend was having a rough day and I wanted to help make them feel like a super hero. So I made a card! And then thought it would be fun to just... keep going,” says Rev. Chris Davies, creator of Queer Clergy Trading Cards. “The cards make queer clergy feel affirmed, and special. And it's networking us in an incredible way!”

Davies is a United Church of Christ minister who is working on her Doctor in Ministry degree in queer theology at Andover Newton Theological School in Massachusetts. Her ministry spills out over the church and into coffee shops, Pride celebrations, bars, queer spaces and the Internet.

Creator Chris Davies made a Queer Clergy Trading Card for herself too.

Queer Clergy Trading Cards are shared on their Facebook, Instagram and Twitter accounts. “While not in print-- YET-- the possibility seems firmer that they will be with each passing day,” according to their Facebook page.

“I've heard people who are not religious say that this has opened their eyes up to ministry in totally different ways than they imagined ministry could be... from youth to adults inside queer spaces and out. And for that I'm so grateful,” Davies told the Jesus in Love Blog.

New cards will continue to come out sporadically, and the project may move to an interfaith expansion in the future.

Queer Clergy Trading Card’s Facebook page addresses one more burning question:

Oh you want to be a card?
1.) Be Queer
2.) Be Christian clergy-- licensed/ordained
3.) Message us!

Other recent projects have taken a serious look at queer clergy, such as “We Have Faith,” a museum-quality traveling exhibit with photos of well-known LGBT and allied clergy, and the 2014 book “Queer Clergy: A History of Gay and Lesbian Ministry in American Protestantism” by R.W. Holmen.

But nobody has ever made our lives look as fun as the Queer Clergy Trading Cards!

Take a moment to view the following examples and go to the Queer Clergy Trading Cards Facebook page to see them all.

___
Related links:
Queer Clergy Trading Cards Give LGBTQ Faith Leaders Superhero Status (Hartford Courant)

___
Special thanks for the news tip to Kyle Lovett, “chaplain to the rainbow people."

Copyright © Kittredge Cherry. All rights reserved.
http://www.jesusinlove.blogspot.com/
Jesus in Love Blog on LGBT spirituality and the arts
___
This post is part of the Artists series by Kittredge Cherry at the Jesus in Love Blog. The series profiles artists who use lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender (LGBT) and queer spiritual and religious imagery. It also highlights great queer artists from history, with an emphasis on their spiritual lives.

Codebreaker Alan Turing honored in queer pilgrimage by artist Tony O'Connell

"Seven Bowls of Water for the Saint" from “Pilgrimage to the Shrine of Alan Turing” by Tony O’Connell

Alan Turing is a gay icon, pioneering computer scientist and wartime British codebreaker who is honored as a saint in new artwork by queer artist Tony O’Connell.

The artist made a photographic record of his recent trip to the Alan Turing Memorial in Manchester, England -- an act that served simultaneously as pilgrimage, performance art and political statement.

Turing’s life story is also told in the new movie “The Imitation Game,” which opens in the US on Nov. 21. It stars Benedict Cumberbatch as the eccentric genius who broke many codes.

Democratizing the idea of sacredness and reclaiming the holiness in ordinary life, especially in LGBT experience, are major themes in O'Connell's work. Based in Liverpool, O’Connell was raised in the Roman Catholic church, but has been a practicing Buddhist since 1995.

“For me Alan Turing is so important because his work shortened World War II (some believe by between two and four years) and by doing so he caused millions of lives -- on both sides -- to be saved,” O’Connell told the Jesus in Love Blog. He added that Turing “laid the groundwork for the modern computer industry and even artificial intelligence.”

He decided to add Turing to ongoing series of LGBT pilgrimages. Previous pilgrimages took him to the Harvey Milk Metro station in San Francisco Metro and New York City's Stonewall Inn.

“For the LGBT community the nature of his death, that he was driven to suicide by the homophobic legislation of the period not only speaks of a profound lack of government gratitude for his work but also of an enshrined homophobia which perceives a personal consensual relationship as more important than the saving of so many thousands of lives and the advances thereof. It was for these reasons I felt this most recent pilgrimage had to be to the statue of him in Manchester to regard it as a holy place,” O’Connell said.

The Turing pilgrimage photos begin with the artist at a canal in Manchester. O'Connell removes his shoes to walk barefoot on the holy ground along the canal toward the Turing memorial.

"Walking on Holy Ground" by Tony O’Connell

The heart of the memorial is a life-sized sculpture of Turing. The bronze figure sits alone on a bench located between the local gay neighborhood and the University of Manchester, where he taught mathematics. It was sculpted by Glyn Hughes.

O’Connell puts his hands together in prayer as he greets the Turing statue. He communes with the saint in various ways, offering seven silver bowls of holy water at Turing’s feet. The artist cleanses the rainbow mosaic embedded in the pavement and bathes them with holy water. The ritual ends when O’Connell pours the water into the canal in the middle of the gay village. Photographer Damian Cruikshank recorded the whole journey.

"Prostrations to the Saint" by Tony O’Connell

"Offering the Water" by Tony O’Connell

"Bathing the Rainbow with Holy Water" by Tony O'Connell

"Daring to Sit Beside Him" by Tony O’Connell

"Adoring the Saint" by Tony O’Connell

“It has often been a theme in my work to reclaim religious imagery in a secular way to discuss LGBT issues, but this time it felt more spiritual than I would have expected,” O’Connell recalled.

After returning from the pilgrimage, he created an embossed foil icon titled “Saint Alan Turing Ora Pro Nobis.” The Latin phrase, which means “pray for us,” is repeated in the traditional Litany of the Saints.

“Saint Alan Turing Ora Pro Nobis” by Tony O’Connell

Plans are underway for an exhibition of the Turing image photos, but for now the images can be seen in an online photo album on O’Connell’s Facebook page:

O’Connell is also doing an ongoing series of photos of people with haloes formed by round objects from daily life, such as light fixtures, mirrors, windows, baskets, and the sun. “We do not need the permission of anyone else to see perfection in each other,” he explained.

Turing (June 23, 1912 - June 7, 1954) played a major role in winning World War II by breaking Germany’s complex Enigma code. He also broke the code against homosexuality. His wartime work was top secret, so nobody knew of his contributions when he was tried and convicted of homosexual acts in 1952. His security clearance was revoked and he was sentenced to “chemical castration” through hormone treatments.

Disgraced and forgotten, Turing committed suicide in 1954 at age 41. He has received a growing number of honors in the years since his death. The British government officially apologized in 2009 and the queen granted him as posthumous pardon in 2013.

The definitive biography of Turing is “Alan Turing: The Enigma” by Andrew Hodges. His life is also chronicled in the documentary file "Codebreaker." The first major motion picture to dramatize his story is "The Imitation Game," which is featured in the following video trailer.”



Turing is also depicted in the 1986 stage play "Breaking the Code" by Hugh Whitemore. Derek Jacobi as Turing took London and Broadway by storm, and later starred in the BBC / PBS television film version.

___
Related links:

“Station 6: Gay Scientist Alan Turing Driven to Suicide” from “LGBT Stations of the Cross” by Mary Button
___
For more art by Tony O’Connell on the Jesus in Love Blog, visit:

Tony O’Connell reclaims sainthood by finding holiness in LGBT people and places

Olympics: Spiritual art supports Russia’s LGBT rights struggle


___
This post is part of the Artists series by Kittredge Cherry at the Jesus in Love Blog. The series profiles artists who use lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender (LGBT) and queer spiritual and religious imagery. It also highlights great queer artists from history, with an emphasis on their spiritual lives.

Copyright © Kittredge Cherry. All rights reserved.
http://www.jesusinlove.blogspot.com/
Jesus in Love Blog on LGBT spirituality and the arts

Dance of the 41 Queers: Police raid on Mexican drag ball remembered

For a new version of this article, click this link to Qspirit.net:
Dance of the 41 Queers: Police raid on Mexican drag ball remembered

“Los 41 Maricones” (The 41 Queers) by Jose Guadalupe Posada, 1901 (Wikipedia)

One of the world’s most notorious police raids on a queer gathering occurred on this date (Nov. 17-18) in 1901, when police arrested 41 men at a drag ball in Mexico City.

The raid on the “Dance of the 41” caused a huge scandal with lasting repercussions against LGBT people. The incident was widely reported and was used thereafter to justify years of police harassment, including more raids, blackmail, beatings and imprisonment. The number 41 entered popular culture in Mexico and continues to be used as a negative way to refer to gay men, evoking shame.

About half of the men at the Dance of the 41 were dressed as women, with silk and satin dresses, elegant wigs, jewelry and make-up. Police raided the private house where the “transvestite ball” was underway. They never released the names of those arrested because they came from the upper class of Mexican society.

As punishment the 41 detainees were humiliated in jail and then forced into the army, where they dug ditches and cleaned latrines in the Yucatan. A lesbian gathering in Santa Maria was raided soon after on Dec. 4, 1901, but it received much less publicity.

The vivid reports of the Dance of the 41 included a famous series of caricatures by popular Mexican artist Jose Guadalupe Posada. These mocking images stand in contrast to the LGBT Stations of the Cross by Mary Button, whose paintings connect police raids of queer bars with the suffering of Jesus. The raid on the Dance of the 41 is an example of police harassment that happened in many countries and continues in some.

Today same-sex marriage is legal in Mexico City and the Dance of the 41 is being reclaimed and reinterpreted by LGBT activists and scholars. A non-profit organization called “Honor 41” honors and celebrates Latina/o LGBTQ individuals who are role models. Their English-language video on the Dance of the 41 gives an accessible overview of the history.

The event is known in Spanish as simply as “el baile de los cuarenta y uno” (the dance of the forty-one) or with an added anti-gay insult “el baile de los cuarenta y uno maricones” (the dance of the forty-one fags).

All the facts and the full context concerning the Dance of the 41 are examined in the scholarly book “The Famous 41: Sexuality and Social Control in Mexico” by Robert McKee Irwin, Edward J. McCaughan and Michelle Rocio Nasser.


___
Related links:

Dance of the 41 (Wikipedia English)

Baile de invertidos (Homosexual balls) (Wikipedia Spanish)

To read this post in Spanish / en español, go to Santos Queer:
El baile de los cuarenta y uno: Recordando el momento en que la policía allanó un baile queer en México

___
This post is part of the LGBTQ Calendar series by Kittredge Cherry. The series celebrates religious and spiritual holidays, events in LGBTQ history, holy days, feast days, festivals, anniversaries, liturgical seasons and other occasions of special interest to lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer people of faith and our allies.

Copyright © Kittredge Cherry. All rights reserved.
Qspirit.net presents the Jesus in Love Blog on LGBTQ spirituality.

Tyler Clementi: Gay teen driven to suicide by bullies

“Tyler Clementi, JUMP!” by Louisa Bertman

Tyler Clementi (1992-2010) brought international attention to bullying-related suicide of LGBT youth by jumping to his death on this date (Sept. 22) in 2010.

Clementi’s highly publicized tragedy made him into a gay martyr whose untimely death put a public face on the problems of LGBT teenagers. His story sparked efforts to support LGBT youth, raise awareness of the harassment they face, and prevent suicide among queer young people. Another result is new legislation stiffening penalties for cyber harassment.

His parents once considered suing Rutgers over their son's death, but in February 2013 they announced that they were working with the university to form the Tyler Clementi Center at Rutgers. It sponsors conferences and academic research to help students make the transition to college. They also established the Tyler Clementi Foundation to promote acceptance of LGBT youth and  more inclusive society.

Clementi was an 18-year-old freshman at Rutgers University in New Jersey when he was driven to suicide by his room mate's anti-gay cyber-bullying.

A talented violinist, Clementi came out to his parents as gay before leaving home for college. Three days before the suicide, Clementi’s room mate used a webcam to secretly record Clementi kissing another man in their dorm room and streamed the video live over the Internet. In messages posted online before he took his own life, Clementi told how he complained to authorities about the cyber-bullying and asked for a new room assignment. Then he jumped off the George Washington Bridge. It took a week to find his body.

The room mate, Dharum Ravi, also 18 at the time, was convicted on 15 counts, including invasion of privacy and bias intimidation, in connection with Clementi’s suicide. Ravi was sentenced to 30 days in jail; 3 years of probation; 300 hours of community service; fined $10,000; and ordered to undergo counseling on cyberbullying and alternate lifestyles. His accomplice, Molly Wei, avoided jail time by agreeing to testify against Ravi.

Anti-LGBT statements by public figures are also partly responsible for Clementi’s death. They created the hostile environment that drove Clementi to suicide. Artist Louisa Bertman emphasizes this point in her powerful ink illustration, “Tyler Clementi, JUMP!” She makes visible the hateful voices that may have been in Clementi’s mind. In her drawing, his head overflows with people urging him to jump. They are politicians as well as the actual students who bullied him. Their names are listed in a stark statement at the bottom of the drawing:

“Message brought to you by Sally Kern, Kim Meltzer, Nathan Deal, Carl Paladino, Newt Gingrich, Sarah Palin, Tom Emmer, Jeremy Walters, Rick Perry, Bob Vander Plaats, Dharun Ravi, and Molly Wei.”

Bertman, an artist based in Cambridge, Massachusetts, is known for her non-traditional portraits.

Clementi helped inspire the founding of the It Gets Better Project and Spirit Day. The It Get Better Project aims to stop suicide among LGBT teens with videos of adults assuring them that “it gets better.” Spirit Day, first observed on Oct. 20, 2010, is a day when people wear purple to show support for young LGBT victims of bullying.

Unfortunately Clementi’s experience is far from rare. Openly lesbian talk show host Ellen Degeneres spoke for many in a video message that put his suicide into context shortly after he died:

“I am devastated by the death of 18-year-old Tyler Clementi….Something must be done. This month alone, there has been a shocking number of news stories about teens who have been teased and bullied and then committed suicide; like 13-year-old Seth Walsh in Tehachapi, California, Asher Brown, 13, of Cypress, Texas and 15-year-old Billy Lucas in Greensberg, Indiana. This needs to be a wake-up call to everyone: teenage bullying and teasing is an epidemic in this country, and the death rate is climbing.”

Help is available right now from the Trevor Project, a 24-hour national help line for gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender and questioning teens. Contact them at 866 4U TREVOR or their website: thetrevorproject.org.

___
Related links:

Tyler Clementi Foundation

Tyler Clementi Center at Rutgers

Day of Silence Prayer: Stop bullying God’s LGBTQ youth

A Brother's Pledge: Standing Up For Love by James Clementi (Believe Out Loud)

“Crisis: 40 Stories Revealing the Personal, Social, and Religious Pain and Trauma of Growing Up Gay in America” by Mitchell Gold and Mindy Drucker

“Queer: The Ultimate LGBT Guide for Teens” by Kathy Belge and Marke Bieschke

It Gets Better Project video by Kittredge Cherry

Image credit: Tyler Clementi’s webcam photo of himself (Wikimedia Commons)
_________
This post is part of the GLBT Saints series by Kittredge Cherry at the Jesus in Love Blog. Saints, martyrs, mystics, heroes, holy people, deities and religious figures of special interest to lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) and queer people and our allies are covered on appropriate dates throughout the year.

Copyright © Kittredge Cherry. All rights reserved.
http://www.jesusinlove.blogspot.com/
Jesus in Love Blog on LGBT spirituality and the arts

Advocate.com features "Art That Dares: Gay Jesus, Woman Christ, and More"

Advocate.com posted a big article and slide show based on my book ‘Art That Dares’ today (July 25).

The article says:

“Kittredge Cherry's eye-opening book, ‘Art That Dares: Gay Jesus, Woman Christ, and More’ can be breathtaking, depending on how attached you are to your Christian orthodoxy. But an important function of art in society is to open our minds and help us see how rigid we can be in our perceptions.

‘Art That Dares’ was published in 2007, but the content still has the jolt of the revolutionary to it and bares reexamination. While respectful of the originals, the art by a diverse group of 11 contemporary artists recasts the stories of Christian teachings.”

I like the way that Advocate.com displays 16 images in a large-format slide show. It features art by Douglas Blanchard, Alex Donis, Becki Jayne Harrelson, William Hart McNichols, Janet McKenzie, Elisabeth Ohlson Wallin, Gary Speziale and Sandra Yagi.

Many of these images were censored or destroyed. I gathered them into a book to ensure that they would be available for people to see them.

Queer Christian images are needed now because conservatives are using religious rhetoric to justify discrimination against LGBT people. Jesus loved everyone, including sexual outcasts. The Jesus of scripture broke gender rules and gender roles, befriending prostitutes, lepers and other outsiders. In Christ, God became one with all humanity.

I worked hard behind the scenes this week getting permission from the artists. I’m grateful to Christopher Harrity of Advocate.com for writing the article and putting the slide show together -- and for giving me a reason to revisiting these powerful images.

See it at this link:
http://www.advocate.com/arts-entertainment/art/2014/07/25/art-gay-jesus-and-woman-christ

(Top image: “Jesus and Lord Rama” by Alex Donis from Advocate.com)


Copyright © Kittredge Cherry. All rights reserved.
http://www.jesusinlove.blogspot.com/
Jesus in Love Blog on LGBT spirituality and the arts