episode thirty-five | jessica marie mercy

Published 17 March 2020

Miranda Metcalf  Hello print friends, and welcome to the 35th episode of Pine Copper Lime (Hello, Print Friend), the internet's number one printmaking podcast. I'm your host, Miranda Metcalf. I release an episode every two weeks, and on the off weeks, I publish an article on the Pine Copper Lime website, which features images and maybe a bit more information about the artist I'm going to interview. Oh, boy, print friends. Do you even remember what the world was like last time we spoke? It was only two weeks ago, but it feels like a lifetime away for many of us, I think. You'll remember my wonderful chat with Joseph Velasquez, in which he mentioned all of his big plans for the upcoming SGCI conference in San Juan, Puerto Rico. This was before phrases like "social distancing" and "flatten the curve" were coming up every day, and before that conference was rescheduled. Rescheduled, mind you, not canceled, which means that all of the good things that were said in that episode, and all of the good things you're going to hear in this episode, still apply. We just don't know when it's gonna happen. But before I get you all jazzed about this week's chat, I need to give a quick shout out to our wonderful Patreon supporters. Supporters like Shannon Bourne. She became a supporter at the Pine Copper Lovefest level. Shannon is an educator, and she wrote a beautiful message about being able to share these episodes with her students. Thank you so much for your support and for your kind message. I've actually been getting a few messages here and there lately about people using PCL more and more with their students now that they're teaching online in our life in time of Corona. I'm just beginning a little self isolating myself, so I'm going to try and ramp up the output of Pine Copper Lime episodes to every week for the next little while to try and help those of you out who are using this podcast as an educational resource. Plus, I have so many amazing conversations already recorded in the pipeline, I just can't wait to share them. Printmaking forever, shun the non believers, reschedule that party. And speaking of amazing chats, my guest this week is Jessica Marie Mercy, a printmaker, visual artist, and self identified "femme, queer bitch" from Seattle, Washington. Her artistic practice revolves around preserving and celebrating queer spaces and queer community through documentation. She does so with beautifully rendered relief works and photo based screenprint, all produced in vibrant, unapologetic colors, which balance the rawness of a gig poster with the detailing of a reduction landscape. As I mentioned before, you'll be able to tell from this interview that we thought our printmaking conference was still moving forward at the time of recording. But I've left all that chat in, because I think it's important to hear the ways in which Jessica is killing it at community organizing. So sit back, relax, and prepare to really, really, really wish SGCI was happening this year with Jessica Marie Mercy. Hi, Jessica. How's it going?

Jessica Marie Mercy  Hi, Miranda. It's going really well.

Miranda Metcalf  Excellent.

Jessica Marie Mercy  I love it.

Miranda Metcalf  I'm so happy to finally have you on the podcast. We have been playing round robin with time and schedules and the absolute insanity that has been 2020 thus far, I feel like, for quite a few months, and I'm really really glad that we got to do it before SGCI 2020, because you've got some big plans for it that I'm really excited to share with people. But before we dive into all of that, would you just let our good listeners know who you are, where you are, and what you do?

Jessica Marie Mercy  Absolutely, Miranda, I am more than happy to let you know who I am. I am Jessica Marie Mercy. I'm a printmaker, and visual artist, and all around femme, queer bitch from Seattle, Washington. I do a lot of printmaking, and I organize a lot of queer space preservation via documentation. I love making art about queer community and all my fabulous people, I also do a lot of drag and performance, so I get to be in community a lot. But yeah, I love making art around queer people, I love making art around femmes. I love supporting and connecting community. And I love talking with people like you.

Miranda Metcalf  Beautiful. Yeah, I love that kind of holistic explanation of your art and the ways that you express yourself and how it is all kind of based around the idea of queer community and queer spaces, which are, in a way, two sides of the same coin, of course. And I'd love to dive into a bit about the actual work that you're doing around that, but before we kind of get into all those good juicy details, can you just tell us a little bit about where you grew up? And what role art, whether it was performance or visual art making, kind of played in that part of your life?

Jessica Marie Mercy  Yeah, I grew up in a little tiny, very conservative town in the middle of Washington state in the Pacific Northwest called Yakima, Washington. Wow, what a journey. I have a pretty religious conservative family across the board, so I spent most of that time just kind of sitting in my room and reading books and playing like Dungeons and Dragons, playing video games, and I just didn't really have any kind of sense of my queerness or anything like that. I did have like a - thank you Dad - I did have an unrated, like unlocked, Blockbuster card, so I did get to watch really hot gay movies. So like "But I'm A Cheerleader," and like "Girl Play," and "Better Than Chocolate." So I kind of think that was my first exposure to queer art in my tiny town, and then the internet happened. And then fast forward to, I decided to go back to college up here, and I had been performing a lot and working as a bartender and doing tons of drag and go go dancing in queer nightlife forever, but I knew I wanted to make art, but I didn't know what. And so I stumbled into North Seattle Community College here in Seattle. And I had the absolute pleasure of going into Amanda Knowles's drawing class, and I fucking hated drawing. I was no good at it. I had no patience for it. And I felt like it took me like 10 hours longer than anybody else, no joke, to do the same kind of thing. Like I just didn't see that way. And I would just complain to Amanda like, 'Wow, I thought I wanted to be a comic book artist, but this sucks.' And she told me this story about perspective that really got me into her way of teaching and kind of art in a new way. And she told me that she got this assignment to draw this staircase at her college, pencil draw the staircase, and she just sat in front of it crying all night, because she couldn't do it. And I was like, 'Okay, and you're teaching art, so maybe I, this crybaby femme queer cancer baby, maybe I can also make art.' And she was a printmaker. And I was like, 'Oh, this sounds cool.' So I tripped into my first printmaking class. And I had so much fun. And the first print I made actually was this huge close up monotype of my favorite drag queen's lips. And my favorite drag queen is an amazing babe here in Seattle named Cucci Binaca, who I just love, I love drag queens. It's my first and greatest love. Next to my dog Sugar, and my hot girlfriend Kim. And my daughter Mimi. Fuck, all of them. I love them all too.

Miranda Metcalf  You've got lots of love. Lots of love. Yeah.

Jessica Marie Mercy  So much! But yeah, so I got into this printmaking class, and I just kept making art around queer people and queer things, because they were the most beautiful thing to me, and femmes. And something happened, there was a Ghost Ship fire in San Francisco. And we lost a lot of really amazing community members and artists in this DIY space that was well attended, and there were a lot of events that happened there, and it was really tragic, and still is. And there are spaces like that up here in Seattle too. And everywhere. Queers tend to gather in a lot of DIY spaces, so we can have the freedom to create art or be around each other in safe and important ways. And I find some of the best parties and best gathering spots happened in those spaces. And so it was really like a wake up call to me that I was obsessed with seeing queer spaces, I guess, or being inside them. And like when the lights were on, when the party was over, just seeing how they were decorated, and all the history, and like the numbers written on the wall, and the art and just like... oh! It filled me with so many feelings, and so I decided to start preserving them. I decided that I would document bars here in Seattle. So I started with Pony, which is this amazing queer bar on Madison, that I believe you've been to, is that right?

Miranda Metcalf  Oh, yeah, I've been to the original Pony when it was on Pine. 

Jessica Marie Mercy  Oh, bless. 

Miranda Metcalf  And it had this incredible kind of end of the world feel to it, because that whole block that was being torn down in Seattle was full of queer history and queer spaces. And it was sort of the first major fall on Capitol Hill of that side and that history of that neighborhood disappearing. It felt like in Pony, it was this beginning of the end, the crumbling end of the world. And every night there felt like the last night on Earth.

Jessica Marie Mercy  Well, that is like, that's perfect.

Miranda Metcalf  And then it ended up being quite successful. And it moved to its current location, which I've also been to, a little bit up the way. I'd love to hear you talk about, physically, the space too, because it's very important, I think, so people can kind of picture an example of these queer spaces that you're documenting.

Jessica Marie Mercy  Yeah, and I think you kind of described it perfectly. Every night in Pony kind of feels like the last night on earth, and I feel like every night feels like that... Except for the karaoke nights. I feel like that always feels like it's just like the most perfect timeless night. I don't know why. I love hearing queer babies belt out Kate Bush songs. It's literally my - It's so good. There's something so pure about it. But yeah, I don't know, you walk into this bar, and for one, gays know how to make a space. Like, there are giant paper mache dicks just hanging from the ceiling that were part of its first art installation when it first opened. There's like this beautiful curving bar with these huge railings that you can just kind of like hang off of when you're just a little toasted in the line. It's like super dark, gays know how to make a dark bar, thank you, because we don't want to be seen. I don't want - I want to like be half-seen, I want my makeup to look like I spent time on it. And I just don't get that with like a Safeway lighting bar. No. Yeah, and you know, there's so much, like, one of my favorite things when I started doing these spaces is I started to be able to see pieces and parts of the space that no one really knew about. Or very few people, like people who worked there, knew about. Like, in Pony, underneath the shelf where all the bottles are lined up, there is just like this beautiful modge podged, collaged, and glued pieces of broken and cut up credit cards that have been left there over the years. And so it's like this rainbow, art deco, it's like a sensational feat for your hands to touch them, and there's just, there has to be 100 or more. It's such a huge shelf, and there are so many pieces of credit card. And it's just one of the most beautiful things I had ever seen. And I stared at it for so long, I have literally 50 pictures of it. And I just couldn't imagine ever not being able to know that this existed, and the thought that gentrification, or that the building could get sold for a high rise or some terrible Urban Outfitters, just made me want to die. And so I was like, 'Well, I have to document every single one of these spaces that I hold really dear, and make them into fine art, and then get into higher education and academia and these conferences and start talking about why queer spaces are so important and why we need to give queer makers money so that we can keep these spaces open, alive, and thriving.' But like, also, just look at them. They're gorgeous. I love looking at all of the graffiti in the bathrooms, documenting the glory holes, or especially in the behind of a drag bar where all the queens and all the femmes and everyone gets ready, like just the lipstick smudges that are on the wall. It's just beautiful. And I love every piece and part of it. And it's all just such a masterful collection of stories, and I just love imagining what the stories are and I love, when I make the art, getting the absolute pleasure of hearing some of those stories. Some people will be like, 'Oh, I remember when this got tagged here,' and they will tell me a story about it, and I get to hear this new piece of this puzzle, this little bit of gay history. And I just love it. It's my favorite thing.

Miranda Metcalf  Yeah, that's so beautiful. And I'm sure there's something to the fact that so much love and attention is paid to these spaces that speaks to the place emotionally they hold for queer people. And speaking to your own narrative a little bit, talking about in Yakima where the only queer space was like certain sections of the Blockbuster Video maybe, right?

Jessica Marie Mercy  Oh yeah, and if there were gays, I did not know they existed. If there was like some beautiful rancher dyke out there, I didn't know you were there, and I'm sorry.

Miranda Metcalf  Isn't that the dream? 

Jessica Marie Mercy  My god. Like ten goats, you know?

Miranda Metcalf  Yeah, yeah. Strong hands. Sorry. 

Jessica Marie Mercy  Fast car.

Miranda Metcalf  Yeah, yeah. And that idea, too, of the fact that you're taking places that, until very, very recently, and I think maybe you could even argue in maybe some contexts, still are, maybe sort of hidden places. Places that had to be sought out through word of mouth. And the fact that you are documenting them and moving them into art spaces, and it's funny, you were talking about like the light, right, like a dark bar, but your art, the images that you make in this documentation, they're being pulled out and into the bright lights of a gallery space, or of an academic setting. And I just kind of love that transition, which we use in so many ways, to make something that might be subversive, pull it out and frame it in a way that gives it a kind of preciousness that fine art can do, that art making can do.

Jessica Marie Mercy  Aw, thank you. I am so happy to find other people that feel the same way about these spaces. And it means so much to be interviewed by someone who has an intimate knowledge of what I'm talking about. I love talking to strangers about it, obviously, I love getting really passionate about it and showing them details and telling little stories like that to get them excited about just knowing these spaces exist, but I love talking about it with people who've been there and who know that feeling at 1:30 in the morning. You know that feeling.

Miranda Metcalf  When the world's ending, yeah. 

Jessica Marie Mercy  Yeah, you know.

Miranda Metcalf  Without getting too far away from your printmaking practice and all of that, I would love it, though, if you could speak just a little bit to drag culture and that side of your art practice, and I think that it's significant that that side of your self expression and your life is fueling you getting to see the queer spaces and just kind of how they relate and how you think about those two sides of of what you do.

Jessica Marie Mercy  I mean, even on my website, under my artist statement when I was thinking about photos that I should post, I was like, 'You know, I'm just gonna do the ones that I take out in drag.' Because you can see other, fancier pictures of me laying my beautiful print down on this beautiful press bed. Thank you, Jocelyn Stone, the best and hottest photographer of my life. I don't know, there's something like, if you don't know that most of my life is putting on a wig in my house and singing to a beautiful '90s house track, then you really don't know me. You're always gonna find me backstage and hanging out with my favorite queens. I love drag, I love performance, I love the performance of gender, of any gender, I think it's all a performance anyway. So I love being amongst all my drag sisters and my drag moms and my drag daughters, and making jokes and seeing their beautiful art and seeing the way they interpret a song or how they want to bring up an issue to us and do it in like comical, painful, beautiful, really life changing ways. I've had so many nights where I got to see drag and my opinions have been so affirmed, or I get to see a piece of a person that I would have never seen, I get to see a vulnerability of a person that is larger than life, especially in Seattle drag. It's just like, we have such a beautiful, enriching culture of drag up here, and it's the best, and I feel so privileged to be a part of it and be able to witness it. And I get to know the smartest, funniest, wildest, hottest people. It's the best. Everyone should come see drag in Seattle. It's all great. Come see it. Come support it. Yeah, RuPaul's Drag Race is... ugh. So just come see some real drag. So I was always there, and I performed it, and I lived it, I would get dressed up. And so it just became so natural to want to take pictures of my beautiful friends that I just spent hours painting my face with and just take a beautiful picture of them and then turn it into some soft elegant print. And I think it started with... I took a picture of my drag moms, Butylene O'Kipple and Harlotte O'Scara, I love you both. I took a picture of their makeup table. It was like kind of clean, but they had both just done a show, so there was some stuff around. I remember getting these close up, juicy, gritty pictures of like, eyelashes on a cup. You know, just all that stuff. Sponges of every color. And just loving it, I don't know, and so I feel like me documenting and being in queer spaces has just kind of always been a part of me, ever since I knew that I was gay, I was like, 'Oh, I love the spaces where I get to be gay.' Because for so long I couldn't do that. I just was not able to be around it. So once I found it, I was like, 'I'm never leaving!' So yeah, I think that's why I was so drawn to it. And the older I get, the easier it is to make art about other fun things, but my first love will always be taking these spaces that we spend so much time in, and we speak with so many friends, and we talk about so many heartbreaks, and we celebrate so many successes. I want people to remember them when they're gone. I want people to remember them while they're here and go to them and support them and critique them and make them better. And I want to have a living, thriving community center for all of us, you know, and bars are one space where that happens. And I think that also, you know, DIY spaces and house spaces. And now, even more frequently, there's all ages spaces. There's West End Girls that Cookie Couture, over at Skylark in West Seattle, where you can take any party of any age to see drag. And I think that's such a cool era we're living in right now where you can be a tiny queer person and go out and see adults that are queer, because I just never really had that until I was much older. And it's so different to be able to hear about experiences from somebody in community with you. It's life changing. Yeah, it was actually such a treat this year, I got the privilege to work with this queer elder printmaker - oh, she hates it when I say elder. I'm so sorry. - A wise queer peer printmaker named Kerstin Graudins. And she was just amazing to work with. And she works for Pratt and is this master screenprinter. She's so cool. I got to print my new - I printed, this year, a nine layer silk screen of this infinity mirror inside this bar called Kremwerk where a lot of my favorite drag happens, a lot of great drag, and it was a part of my residency for Pratt Fine Arts. I got this amazing year long residency where I got to make work there, here in Seattle, I got to work with this amazing babe Kerstin. She and I got to pull this huge print together and this nine layer print, and just making art with her was so fun, because she got it. She understood, we worked on the same level, listened to the same music, we knew the same people, she's worked at Re-bar for like, over 20 years, she just has been a part of the scene forever. So it was just like a whole 'nother world making art with somebody that was in my peer group that knew all about why this was important and knew the challenges of trying to get it out there. Yeah, it was kind of life changing, being able to work with queer people. And I really want to continue that and make art and print with queer people and just to be in the studio space of, there's something so magical about working with community.

Miranda Metcalf  I think it's hugely significant. And the importance of that community space for queer people to be connected, printmaking I think is so well-suited to this as well. Because printmaking is, of course, as we talk about quite often on the podcast, so community focused. And I think I'd just love to hear you talk about the ways in which, in the Venn diagram, printmaking and queerness are sort of sharing.

Jessica Marie Mercy  I find printmaking to be just the gayest art in general. No, I think that you've made a really important correlation. I think that why I took to printmaking so quickly is that aspect of community and helping each other and just making it no big deal to reach over and be like, 'Hey, what do you think about this line that I made? What do you see in these colors?' Or, 'What kind of technique are you using? I really want to learn.' And I feel like that's very similar to how I was in community with queers, especially backstage and with drag queens, it was like, 'Girl, can you help me get these nails on really quick? What do you think about this as a concept? I don't know, like, this dress? Am I saying the right thing? Will you check this and make sure?' And so I think that there's just something about that that I love, it makes art less scary when you can just be in open conversation with other artists that are in the same field and get inspired by them and have them witness you being like, 'Oh, I hate this piece! Throw it out!' And them being like, 'Actually, no, I really like it for these reasons.' You're like, 'I don't even know what you're talking about, Tony, but okay.' I don't know, there's something just really beautiful about that that I didn't find in my drawing classes or my painting classes. It was such a solitary moment for me in those spaces, but printmaking always felt like... it kind of felt like recess, honestly. Everyone was here to help, and if something went wrong, I wasn't the only person there. There were five other people that knew way better than I did. And then I got to be the person that knew better than everybody else at some point, which is also fun. And like everyone's little fires, I love fixing fires! I think it's great! And affirming! Your art's great! But yeah, I don't know. I think that they're so similar. I think that queer people do a decent job sometimes, when we can get it together, when we can wake up before 2pm, we can really rally and support each other and donate to each other and get each other to the doctor and help each other move out of a toxic relationship. Whatever you need, if you put it out there, queer community has a habit of showing up. And I think that that's something that printmaking does too sometimes, and where they're kind of connected. I think that there's something so cool about those two pieces of community and how they fit, and how they can be used to talk about the horrible stuff going on in the city and some of the beautiful things going on in the city. And you can just do it really quickly and really cheaply and pass it out and have fliers or print a message that you want to get across and have everyone bring their own t shirt or print bag to print this message and get it out. It's amazing. And I think that queers love that about printmaking. At least I do.

Miranda Metcalf  And I'm thinking about what you were saying, too, about that connection between drag and printmaking. It's so interesting, that idea that you're art making alongside other people, but also it's highly communicative as well, in the sense that printmaking tends to be more message driven and politically oriented than other forms of art making - (dog begins barking) Oh, Sugar!

Jessica Marie Mercy  Oh, my god, my dog. I'm so sorry, the mail just got here. Sugar Marie Jacobson! Sugar Marie Jacobson, today is not about you! Hang on. I'll be right back. Oh, my god. Embarrassing! Mortifying! Yeah, no. Okay. Sorry. We were talking about being politically organized. 

Miranda Metcalf  Yes, yes. Okay, let me think about - yeah, so I was talking about these crossovers that I had never thought of before. And that is so unexpected and delightful to think about it that way. Before we move on, what would you like people to know if all they know about drag is RuPaul's Drag Race? 

Jessica Marie Mercy  Oh, my god. 

Miranda Metcalf  What's your nugget of gold, or your 12 nuggets of gold, that you can - just because I don't want people to come away from the podcast, because we've obviously been talking about drag culture and queer spaces a lot, without hearing that there's so much more to it.

Jessica Marie Mercy  Yeah, I have been bored with RuPaul's Drag Race for so long. Like, I love the queens that go on there, some of them, like I love a talented queen. But I think the rubric of "women can't do drag" is fuckin' draconian. I think that anybody of any gender, any orientation, any gay, LGBTQIA+ person can perform drag and perform gender. I don't think that drag is just a one way, 'I am masculine. Therefore, I can only do feminine drag.' Like, I am not a drag king. There is nothing king nor butch about me. I am high femme, and I am a non binary femme, and I will perform femme drag. And you can fight me. It's just insane. I get to identify how I want. So I think it's really important to tell people about drag, like, it's so much more than what you see on television. That's such a washed down, highly curated, weird version of it. Go to your local drag bars and see what's happening. Because it's really, it's great. And you're gonna see some terrible drag, and that's actually part of the fun of it, honestly. Sometimes it's torture. Drag on TV is great. And there is something to be said for the visibility and the conversation starting that it does. And then I think that, like all television, you should really dig deeper into what you're looking at and then go and find the local things, support local and independent people that do it, and go out and look at it and see what it is. So just go find them. Go find the folks that won't get booked up on that kind of show because you'll see some of the best performance art you've ever seen in your life. And please tip them when you go. Don't just go to a drag bar to ogle at the talent. Bring one or two or three dollars and give it to the drag queens, because they work really hard for not a lot of money and they produce beautiful comical reliefs from your reality and they deserve to get paid, so please pay them.

Miranda Metcalf  Heck yes. So speaking again to queer spaces, to printmaking, to queer printmakers, I think when this comes out SGCI 2020 will be maybe two weeks away, maybe three, and so we're all meeting in San Juan, of course. And you're going to be hosting a special event, a special gathering, for queer printmakers. And I would love it if you could speak to what that is, what that's gonna look like, how people can find it.

Jessica Marie Mercy  Yeah, I've been preparing with this - I started this little event at SGCI Las Vegas, I did my first little Inkubator, and I called it "Queer Space," which is a lot of what I... that's what I call my own private practice, and I was just panicked, so I was like, 'This is what it's gonna be called!' And I just did this little get together of queer printmakers to get together and show them artists that I liked and why it was important to create spaces, because this conference historically has not had really any gay programming. I believe I'm one of the only ones, which is insane to me. Yeah, I wanted to get together, because I had been to the Georgia one, the Atlanta one, which I'd had a lot of fun at. But I was just like, 'Where are all the gay people? I know they're here.' And I maybe found like, two or three, and I was like, 'Well,' as a raging flaming queer, I was like, 'I need to find them.' So I just went out to the bars after hours, and I would find a couple people that I had seen, and I was like, 'Oh my gosh!' And we kind of connected, and I was like, 'You know what I should do, is I really should get together all the gays at this party! And I should do it so we can all talk to each other.' And I had this idea of, I really wanted to make a space where we could all connect and talk about gallery openings that we wanted other people to apply for, open calls, or grants, it was amazing to meet queer faculty. That was one of the coolest things. Getting people that - I had no idea there were queer printmaking teachers. I mean, of course, but also like, where? There's no directory! It's hard to find, it's hard to Google. So just finding these people that could have this beautiful conversation around what it's like to be an academic printmaker and a professional working printmaker in the world at these different levels of engagement with the medium, and just talk about it and get on an email list together and meet up and talk about art. I've been sent really awesome things of what people are doing in other countries, and I get to see queer art from all over the place. And it's really cool. And I love it. And I think that I want to turn that out so everyone can see it and access it. And so this year, I took a break from Texas, because I absolutely could not. But this year, I'm coming back to San Juan. And I've partnered with my amazing colleague [Opal] de Ruvo. And they are a non binary artist and printmaker, and they do a lot of work around intimacy and gender and transfiguring appearance of love, and all this really super gay stuff. And they're out of Connecticut, but I met them at Vegas, and they loved it. And they were like, 'If you need any help,' and I remember they were wearing this really, really strong red lipstick. And I was like, 'Yes. I will need your help.' And so they would just check in with me in this year where I didn't really do much because I was working on other performance stuff I was in. And so I would just get these little pings, like, 'Hey, do you want to go?' And I was like, 'I'll think about it, maybe.' And then it kind of got down to it, and I was like, 'You know what, yeah. Puerto Rico.' I not only want to go down there to create this queer space again, but I really wanted to go to San Juan, because I know that there's like a beautiful thriving queer community down there. And I wanted to not only go and see it and support it, but I wanted to gather the gay printmakers that are gonna be there. And decided to partner with [Opal], and this year, we are going to go down there and run it again. And this time we're calling it "Queer Space, Queer Conclave," and we're doing a little Inkubator at Southern Graphics Council International. What it is, an Inkubator, for people that don't know about this convention, is like a little free form discussion panel. It can really be anything, but it's meant to get people in a room for everyone to discuss whatever it is. And usually, it's like a technical thing, like how to clean a brayer or whatever cool thing it is. And it seems better than a panel, because I didn't want to get up and just talk at people, like I wanted to facilitate conversations. So the bones of what I want to do is this: I like to get up and talk about queer space and why it's important. And then I pass it off to other artists that want to participate. And we are still looking for other artists participate. So if you are queer and a printmaker, and you want to tell me what it's like to be a queer printmaker in a couple sentences and send me a picture, please do that. I will give Miranda all the lovely links that you need to get your art into my hot little hands, because I would love to share your art with the world. Please let me share your art with the world. But I like to get up and just show a couple minutes of different printmakers and their work and what it's like for them and how their queerness impacts their making. And if it does, if they make queer art, yay, or art about queer things, or art about horses, or whatever it is, I love to hear about it. 

Miranda Metcalf  That's [Opal], yes.  Art about queer horses.

Jessica Marie Mercy  Art about queer horses. This is the era for it. Then I like to break it off and then have everyone discuss with each other and get in small groups and just talk about what their experiences are like. And then they kind of each can share little bits and pieces of it. And just kind of get to know each other and know we exist and know that you can call upon us for projects and support and resources. And I think there's something really important about sharing, getting feedback and critical critiques about your queer art, and art that you're making, from another queer person. I think that there's something so vital, like, I remember being in class and even though I had amazing instructors who I loved very dearly, sometimes I felt like they just didn't get it. Maybe they tried to, but they just couldn't quite under understand what I was talking about, or what this other queer person was talking about. And we'd have this moment where we'd lock eyes, me and other queer students, A or B. And we just be like, 'No, I get it. Like, I know, I see what you're doing. So why don't you shift it this way, if you want this message,' and it was just so nice to be able to have another person that understood a similar experience to mine, or I understood a similar experience to theirs. And what they were - that emotion that they were trying to get across that wasn't quite reading for the general audience, or whatever it was. I think there was something just so beautiful, just like working with Kerstin this summer, it was so amazing to just get that feedback from people that know and that are aware of the importance of what you're trying to make and why it's so vital that you make this art about this specific thing and why it's important. So yeah, I want to make this little Inkubator this jumping off point. [Opal] and I have created a little Instagram, @queerconclave, for people to start kind of getting together online too, because my goal is to make an online website where we can share our art and share resources and do all that kind of stuff. And that's a little ways away, but I wanted to just start a little tiny space, a little baby space to start sharing each other's art and commenting on it and just being able to talk about it and see it and share it and get ideas and all of that fun stuff that I love. So that's what we're doing within the conference itself. So it's a second version of one that I've already done, and I am also hoping that I can find a bunch of amazing queer artists living in San Juan and Puerto Rican artists that are queer that want to come and share their art too. I've sent out a bunch of little emails and letters. So if you know anybody, if you are listening and you are in San Juan, or Puerto Rico, or Puerto Rican and living anywhere, and you want to share your art with us and just send me a picture or two of the art that you make, and about your queerness and your art, or just about your art, I would love to share it with people at this conference. I really want to center the Puerto Rican queer maker experience at this Inkubator, and I just want to hear all about your beautiful art and hear about all your beautiful spaces. So yeah, that's what that is. And so I'm wanting to raise awareness around it, because I want people to go to it. And I just want everyone to understand how important it is to have queer art and how important our gaze is and how important art is. 

Miranda Metcalf  And again, to bring it back to that community and those spaces, it's so significant what you were saying about being able to get feedback from people with your shared experience. You can't understate that, I think. And while not everyone is going to be living in a major city that has a thriving and safe queer community and access to print shops and all of that community as well, creating the digital spaces I think is really important too. And I love that's what you're doing. You've got an Instagram for the Queer Conclave now. And hopefully, the queer Inkubators can foster relationships that can continue. Like you were talking about, you met [Opal] in Las Vegas, and then you're able to stay in contact, and then all of a sudden you're building something together. And we're lucky enough to live in a time where that can happen. And so hopefully it's the kind of thing that will be a seed for something that can grow a lot bigger and create a community that can be supportive, even long distance.

Jessica Marie Mercy  It is my - every waking hour I'm just like, 'How do I make this thing happen? How do I get all these people together in a room and get us to not let go again, and for everyone to just kind of stay in contact?' Because I know how cool it would be to just have this thriving international queer printmaking community that can just be like, 'Here's a residency, here's this, come stay with me, I'm going to be in Wisconsin for the school and I don't know anybody gay!' And it's like, 'Well, there's three queer printmakers already here! We went to that school! Don't go to that teacher, or go talk to this one!' You know, just having that kind of resource where you can just find out tidbits and know things, especially with printmaking, because it is so communal, like it's so nice to just have that little extra layer of, and also gay! You know?

Miranda Metcalf  Beautiful.

Jessica Marie Mercy  Another thing that I'm really stoked about, too, is that - we are in talks right now, it's not finalized. Hopefully by the time this podcast comes out it will be and I can give you an official name - But [Opal] and I are also going to try to do a version of this queer Inkubator at a queer space in San Juan, for just the general queer public, so not just printmaking, but just all queer art, like what is it like to be a queer artist in San Juan? And we're going to be, this month, I'm going to be raising money and making prints and having this little, I think I might set up a GoFundMe or just send my Venmo out there, but I'm gonna raise a bunch of money just to give to queer spaces down there. And I'm in talks with one, so if I'm lucky enough to be able to be booked there, we'll do it there. And they'll promote it as well. So we'll have local artists come, and I really just want to donate a bunch of money to them so that they can keep doing all their good work and keep supporting their community. They've done a lot of earthquake relief support, and they are just a really strong pillar of the community. And so I just really want to make sure that they're there for a long time, and anything that I can do to help and that we can do to help as printmakers, I think is important. I'm also grabbing extra stuff to go down and donate to print shops down there. If you're all attending that conference, there's some really good links where you can buy supplies or bring down supplies that are needed for local printmaking shops. And I think that's always really important to think about, just because we should just help it out. It's hard to get some of that stuff. So  just bring it, bring it in your bag.

Miranda Metcalf  Yeah, absolutely. And the podcast that'll be released before this one is with Joseph Velasquez, who did the Let's Leave A Press, so we can double down on that, put that link in there as well. And so hopefully, we're gonna have two back to back episodes for this is how we can support printmaking in Puerto Rico. I think that might be all people can handle.

Jessica Marie Mercy  Oh, that's a lot. 

Miranda Metcalf  It's already a lot. I can put links in the show notes, and on the website, on the Instagram, to everything that's happening, all of those good things, all of that great queer community building and love that will be found in San Juan in just a month's time. We'll put all the links in there, and then, where can people find you though? If they want to know about Jessica personally, and your work and your art and your drag work and all of that?

Jessica Marie Mercy  Oh, wow. Well, I'm most active on my Instagram, @jesthedeluxe. Pretty sure I spelled that right? If not, you gotta cut it out. And then also my website I have, it's just jessicamariemercy.com. And there's my art there. I'm about to throw up a bunch of my new stuff that I made this year I'm really excited about. But you can see my older works from Pony and some of my other digital stuff, my ceramic stuff there, and see what I look like. But yeah, my Instagram is where I post a lot of stuff, but mostly drag and weird performance stuff. So it's safe for work, I guess? At your own risk, that's what I'll say. At your own risk. But yeah, you can see a lot of my performance stuff and what I do, a lot of my drag is on that. And then I have a little highlight to some of my art in there. 

Miranda Metcalf  And I think that it's all holistic, right? Like, it doesn't make sense for us to compartmentalize ourselves and say, 'This whole other side of my creative practice, you don't need to know about that. Like, you don't need to see my drag to see my printmaking.' Which of course is silly.

Jessica Marie Mercy  Yeah, no, I mean, you'll see it, whether you like it or not. I make art about myself too. So it's out there. And literally I have a whole set of pieces that are really fantastic about femme visibility where it's just I makeup wipe my face, like I do a beautiful press into this cotton, dampened cloth. And I release it and it's my makeup of the night. So like, I am fine with people knowing. Like, everyone's gonna know. They're all gonna know.

Miranda Metcalf  Yeah. It's so good.

Jessica Marie Mercy  It's super fun. Yeah, I think that my life and my art just are so grossly connected, like, I can't stop. Yeah, I'm happy to share it with everybody.

Miranda Metcalf  Beautiful. Well, thank you so much. I'm so glad we were finally able to do this. And thank you for all the work that you're doing and for putting in all this energy to build queer spaces and work on queer visibility. It is so important. And it's so beautiful, what you're doing, and I am just honored to know you. And I think it's so so good. And I'm really looking forward to sharing what you're doing with everyone. And I'll be in touch. You're amazing.

Jessica Marie Mercy  Thank you so much. Thank you so much for using your platform to uplift so many awesome artists and generally being rad and awesome and cool.

Miranda Metcalf  Likewise! Right back at ya for being rad and awesome and cool. We're gonna edit this so we don't sound like big nerds who have crushes on each other, I promise.

Jessica Marie Mercy  Let's never! No! Let's make it even longer! 

Miranda Metcalf  Well, that's our show for this week. Join me again in a week's time, if I can get it together, for my beautiful chat with Kill Joy, a printmaker and muralist whose practice is many, many things, but we talk in depth about the incredible human power of plants. I can't think of a better timing for this. This episode, like all episodes, was written and produced by me, Miranda Metcalf, with editing help from Timothy Pauszek and music by Joshua Webber. I'll see you in a week.