Lady Kitt

I'm a Disabled artist, researcher & drag king. I work on long term, collaborative projects driven by insatiable curiosity about how art can be useful.Projects are usually punctuated by the creation of large-scale,vibrant installations / sites for exchange made from recycled paper,reused plastics and raw clay, which I call shrines and house drag performances / rituals / workshops.

Q&A

Artist Statement

My work uses crafting, performance, and research to create installations and interactions, with the wild ambition of mischievously re-shaping spaces and systems I find discriminatory, climate disastrous, or just quite dull. Projects revolve around the co-creation of large-scale, vibrant installations / sets / shrines made from recycled paper, reused plastics and raw clay. These sites for exchange are then used for performances / workshops / rituals. The work is deeply influenced by performance of gender in English folk traditions and the Catholic shrines & folk performance I encountered as a child in Portugal.

The spaces I create frequently include an invitation to for visitors / passers by to add to, and nurture, a collective whole through gifts, prayers & votive offerings. These are not religious places, but I hope they can open / hold space for mystical, awe inspiring doings and beings. Some other stuff that has happened as part of my work is: Raw clay paddling pool dances (“Pleasure Imprints” 2023)· Policy changes (“enSHRINE Project” 2020-on ).

What craft do you work with?

Low carbon drag costume making, Giant paper sculpting, raw clay dancing, stone wrapping, and proggy matting.

I work with a “Make First” approach- engaging with materials as the initial element of exploring ideas, experiences, processes, relationships and aesthetics. This process embraces sensory joy in materiality, risk taking, reflective practices, collaborative decision making and play. My favourite techniques involve whole body manipulation of materials and improvised making solutions drawing on years of experience which combines instinctively playing with materials and learning very specific techniques from traditional craft practitioners.

What inspires you to work with this craft?

For me, drag is mischievous, capacious, boundary disturbing and exuberant. I consider it to be a form of folk art as it uses creative and social approaches to share, reflect and care for the cultural and emotional lives of the communities who make it. As well as loving the performative and spectacular visual elements of drag, I’m dead interested in the social aspects of drag crafts (costumes, props, sets, wigs and makeup). I’m
also concerned about many of the extremely planet un-friendly practices drag can include (for example gallons of glitter, and pressure to buy new outfits/wigs etc for every event/ performance).

Despite the recent wild popularity of Drag Race, the majority of live drag performance made in the UK is created by, and for, small, local, DIY groups of (predominantly) LGBTQIA+ people. As well as supporting one another’s art making, in my experience, these groups also provide vital emotional and practical support. It’s the strong interconnectedness of drag communities which inspires me to ask “what if we used our community-building skills and pre-existing queer mutual aid networks to explore and share low-carbon drag crafts?”

How do you start your creative process?

Playing with materials, chatting to people, sharing food, taking/gathering materials outdoors, research- reading, experiencing other people’s work, taking classes, going to drag nights.

How would you best describe your workspace and what tools could you not do without?

Inside studio with purpose built wooden structure for hanging installation experiments and series of tailors dummies for my drag costumes. Outside spaces, kindly lent by friends and local organisations tools I could not do without: my whole body (which I use to manipulate clay and huge sheets of paper when making installations), my bight pink crutch, a scalpel and a needle.

Are there new techniques you would like to try?

Basket making Merman tail making

What have you learnt or the best advice you have received that you would like to share with fellow crafters?

What have you learnt:Mess can be scary but is fun and nurturing. Making a mess together is the best way for me to get to know people
and develop creative intimacies within a group. What other types of craft do you dream of collaborating with?Merman/ mer boi / mermaid tail
makersWhat professional dream do you have?

Collaboratively creating a site specific, aquatic, promenade, drag opera with my drag house, DGA, and my siter, composer Bridie Jackson, set in Jupitar Artland, Scotland.