Lawnya Vawnya 12 Weird and Wired
Day 3: Friday, June 10, 2022
Aries
It’s go time!!! The opportunity to make a move is TODAY. Whatever it is, the wheels have already been turning. Don’t overthink it in the final hour. What are you waiting for? Get to the gig!!
Taurus
Someone is going to try and cramp your style today and there is simply too much at stake to let them get to you. Take time to reconnect with yourself by dropping into the screen-printing workshop. You are also going to receive some good news or insider intel today. Keep your ears out, it will come in the least likely place.
Gemini
Get up to Kenmount Road ASAP because somewhere in the Holy Trinity (PLCAT/Value Village/Salvation Army) is the perfect outfit for the closing party. This is not a drill. You’re going to look amazing tonight and both the home team and the visitors will be taking note.
Cancer
Ask and you shall receive today. Don’t be afraid to take a chance or to own your ideas. You’re on the cusp of levelling up, so do not take your eyes off the prize. A new and meaningful connection is waiting for you at the Rockhouse tonight… don’t walk. Run.
Leo
Creativity is strong for you this week following a period of carrying a heavy load. Congrats on making it through! You’re approaching a rare opportunity to start fresh and hope has never been more alive. Learn a new instrument or start a band! Not a boy band though. Please God not another boy band.
Virgo
You are going to seriously save the day with your resourcefulness today. Thank you. Following your heroism, karma will be on your side. Take advantage of the opportunity and go wild. Go down in Lawnya Vawnya history.
Libra
You may have had or will have a horrible miscommunication this week. Stay sharp, be direct and buy your tickets ahead of time. You might find yourself in George’s Pond before the week is through. Better iron your trunks just to be safe!
Scorpio
You’ve been starved for something to gossip about lately and today might be your lucky day… there’s something brewing. You’re going to have to do some fact-checking but you may just become privy to some bombshell information.
Sagittarius
You booked the festival off work months ago and are now putting your body and mind to the test. Lawnya Vawnya is your religion. You will experience a holy miracle at the Masonic Temple tonight. Prepare yourself.
Capricorn
You have been thinking a lot about your career lately. Maybe you’re feeling stuck or maybe inspired. Your pragmatism will serve you very well coming up as you make some major moves towards reaching your goals. Don’t be afraid of rejection or to put someone in their place who is standing in your way. Let’s make it happen people.
Aquarius
You’ve been going around the festival telling the visiting artists that you are the mayor of St. John’s and they believe you. It’s been taking everything you have to be on your best behaviour but you’re extremely committed to the bit.
Pisces
Resist the urge to stay home tonight!! You are destined to have a romantic moment with a love interest. Don’t let the flame die! Get to the closing party!
- Charlotte Genest
Downtown Music Crawl!
Today’s downtown crawl started off with a slight detour from the rain, opening us up in the Alt Hotel lobby with Lil Omar’s sibling dream team Oscar and Kira Tecu. Bringing lilting flute and soft Latin American rhythms, the Fredericton-based musicians played songs from Oscar’s album “Toddler Country,” as real life toddlers ran and played behind a glass wall behind them. The music is smart and sensitive, and for the second time this week Lil Omar brings a lil tear to my eye.
I blame it on the rain, and we move on to Fred’s Records where we meet Hamilton transplant John Moran, whose songs from his upcoming album bring simple affirmations to the rainy day: “nobody does it like my love,” “gonna make this a good one.” A buzzing solo electric set, friend of the fest Kelly McMichael affectionately suggests he turn down his mic to make it less “crunchy,” while the tinier music fans sitting next to her on the stairs sway along to the tunes. Live shows or raising kids, it takes a village.
When we arrive at Fred’s Sarah Harris jokes about the pace as stragglers start to make their way into the shop. “We joined confederation in 1949,” she says, and I think about how the seasons always feel weeks behind those in my home in Halifax. We’re all on Island time.
Tess Roby is up next, while her bandmates Nick Schofield and Yolande Laroche (who shone at last night’s Bannerman’s show with Riddle Fence) take the empty seats on the stairs as the smallest crawlers have started to explore the shop. “I love playing in record stores,” says Roby, as her haunting vocals, tinkling keys, and soft, poppy electronic backing fill the room. I’m imagining how it must sound with Nick and Yolande and the 5 synths Roby purports to have for that evening’s show at the Ship. I miss a few songs because one of the small crawlers has crawled up next to me and we scroll through cute cat pictures on my phone.
Next we rock on over to Tval for Fredericton's Motherhood. They are stacked in the bay windows of the store, the floral fragrances of the soap shop matching perfectly with the lupines on their new album cover, and a delicious contrast to the barn burner of a set they perform. “It’s too loud!!” a little person has found me again, covering her ears against the music. The band, with the word “Mums” blazoned across one piece of their equipment, sing “wah wah wahs” at one point, like babies themselves, and as I leave I see the kids crowded around the bassist Penelope Stevens to admire the musician’s sweet pink boots and I know all is forgiven.
Moving down graffiti alley and through the backdoor of Eastern Edge, we suddenly find ourselves in an incredibly dark room. The adults move tentatively as our eyes adjust to the purple-red glow of the stage light and, but, emboldened by the dark, the kids run and jump about. They soon settle onto the floor, with plastic cups of water and paper towel for spillage, as Kerub takes the stage. We are told by our fearless leader Sarah Harris that we are going to experience an experimental music project (which I’m pretty sure I heard two minutes prior when the kids called “ii-eee-ooo” into a nearby fan, just shortly after knocking it over, their voices vibrating with the movement of the fan’s blades). Kerub, dressed in a cowboy hat, evil eye necklace, rough-edge over-sized denim shirt, and knife earrings, begins with a kind of choral chant, like a monk, singing a cappella hymnal. The sound gets sampled and played back, and with each tap of a laptop key gets more and more distorted, multiplying, shattering, and expanding in one, long, musical music piece. The little ones dig it and start dancing to the glassy audio, I move an abandoned water cup left behind by the small crawlers, as we crawl our way back into the afternoon light.
- Mollie Cronin
Lido Pimienta, Pantayo, Kubasonics, with /garbagefile!
The two words that come to mind for tonight’s Rock House show are “stage presence”. With musical stylings from the Ukraine, the Philippines, and Colombia, tonight’s acts deliver skill and spectacle in this incredibly stacked set at the Rock House.
It starts with the evening's host /garbagefile (the “backslash” is not silent, nor is this stunning theatrical queen), St. John’s “premium alien drag clown,” wearing a sculptural ball gown and alien tentacle headpiece. They open the show with a lip sync number, abandoning the heavy shell of their skirt on stage for a more mobile bodysuit option. As they make their way into the crowd, a backbend sees their tentacles tickling the floor.
Next up are local Ukrainian speed folk heroes Kubasonics. This is not a night where anyone is outshone by anyone else, and the lead vocalist comes to the stage in a drag-worthy shag coat of extremely exaggerated size. It is soon dropped, again in favour of mobility, as these local legends show that they are also unafraid to make stages where they need them. At least two different members walk from the stage onto a nearby bartop, guitar or accordion in hand. The pace is a firestarter - whip fast, smoking bow across violin strings by Maria Cherwick, raging guitar, and spunky xylophone, the Kubasonics deliver a wacky, wild, and wonderful spectacle that gets the crowd dancing before the clock strikes 9.
Toronto band Pantayo has about the same number of musicians in their performance as the last but when the third act of tonight’s performance begins the stage feels significantly smaller. Much of the real estate is taken up by varying sizes, styles, and vintages of traditional gongs from the southern Philippines, and the stage is layed out with these sculptural brass and metal shapes, carefully displayed at the front of the stage. Some of the songs, instrumentals played on antique instruments, keep in the traditional, repetitive style that these gongs were designed to play, while others feature rich r&b vocals and hip hop rhythms in both tagalog and english for a totally cool, fresh and deeply rooted sound. Despite some feedback issues (that many instruments require even more mics on stage, which can be troublesome), the disruption is no match for the energy and eloquence of Pantayo. I quickly buy a record that I will have to protect with my life during my late-night walk home in the rain.
Lido Pimienta takes the stage in a patchwork, layered dress, her equipment and bandmate Brandon Valdivia’s drumkit draped in fake flowers. The feedback issue persists as /garbagefile introduces her, with an ear-covering unwavering drone before the ever present Sarah Harris works her magic. “I love that intro was so chaotic!!” says Pimienta as she makes her way on stage. “The Chaos, the confusion, I’m all about it.” The Colombian powerhouse knows how to use her time, regaling us with stories, rants, and jokes between songs, which she describes as “songs to heal, to love, to get angry.”
Her vocal range is astounding - at times cherubic, soft and warbling, and at others demonic, dragon-breathing into the mic. She is an immovable force, smiling sweetly and then turning to a grimace, we can love her but we can’t have her, she holds us in the palm of her hand.
She describes her ideas of rapture - sweet mango dripping down your chin, your chest. “What do you do when you run out of mango?” she asks the crowd, “you shake the tree,” she mimes the act, or perhaps it is another, more intimate movement (though perhaps they are one and the same). She speaks of hell: a van full of RHONY (Real Housewives of New York) trying to tempt her into performing at their party after her show in in New York (where she was the second woman ever to compose for the New York City Ballet), of ongoing colonial legacies. “Build your own country, make your own stamp, wave your own flag” she cries, every now and then switching from Spanish vocals to English to punctuate things with the mostly english speaking audience. Pimienta’s performance is all she asks her music to be: healing, loving, sexual, rage-filled, and gorgeous. The set is long, but not long enough for our insatiable appetites. She indulges us for one final song, coming back to the stage and calling for quiet (we oblige). “Love is a beautiful Mountain… You can climb the mountain… you can lick the mountain… you are the mountain.” We leave, satiated, into the downpour soaking the streets outside.
- Mollie Cronin
Heaven For Real, Tess Roby, and Weary!
Hello Lawnya Vawnya!! We’re looking at a high of 21 degrees and a mix of sun and cloud here today or in other words, a St. John’s miracle.
I took a break yesterday to mosey on into the Merch & Print Fair at Eastern Edge where I was thankful to switch off my brain and just gawk at some of the most epic merch and crafts I’ve ever seen. I Don’t Do Comics, a DIY comics collective and publication (@idontdocomics) was stationed in the gallery for a comics jam, hosted by LV’s Marketing Coordinator, Nora de Mariaffi. The jam was inspired by legendary cartoonist and educator Lynda Barry’s Making Comics and involved working collaboratively on multiple unique characters and story lines. I’ll be having my eye out for some of the finished products. Personal Submersible (Daniel Neill) provided some much-needed chill beats for the jam with his modular synthesiser.
Flash forward to 10pm. I’m soaking wet having run from The Rockhouse but Kate Lahey’s Weary (Holyrood, NL) is about to take the stage. Weary gave us a tantalising sneak peek at their new album, Hush, the release of which (August 12th) I have a countdown going for. Just like the vibrant quilt-like backdrop adorning The Ship stage, the Weary band is truly a patchwork of some of Newfoundland’s most esteemed musicians and it is always surreal to see them play live. I overheard some fellow audience members say the set was one of Weary’s best ever and I couldn’t agree more. Tess Roby (Montreal), was up next with her bandmates Yolande and Nick. I knew we were in for a treat the moment they packed four synths into the back of my car earlier in the day. Together with Tess and Yolande’s brilliant vocals they created breathtaking soundscapes. They played some tunes off of Tess’s album Ideas of Space which she released on her very own record label, SSURROUNDSS. When Lindsay started pushing back the tables and chairs after Tess finished it was clear we were about to dance. Twins Mark and J. Scott Grundy’s band Heaven for Real came to the Rock to rock and rock we did. The performance was high-energy with Laura Jeffery notably sending it on the drums. It served as the perfect warm-up to the DJ show at The S.P.A.C.E.
Catch you around!
- Charlotte Genest
BAMBII, Bangtek, Sauna, with Larinda Mood!
It’s day three of Lawnya Vawnya 12 and we are having a blast! Welcome back to the third installment of our lovely little newsletter with myself, Violet Drake, and my two creative comrades Charlotte Genest and Mollie Cronin. Not slowing down at all, LV12 has even more in store for day three beginning with the iconic Downtown Crawl! Despite the rainstorm that swept through the city, all went ahead including Lil Omar, John Moran, Tess Roby, Motherhood, and Kerub. Don't forget to check out Mollie's coverage of this legendary festival feat, as well as Charlotte's review of all the incredible art found at the Merch and Print Fair earlier in the day and the magnificent musicians at The Ship last night: Weary, Tess Roby, and Heaven for Real.
It was just my luck that I was designated press for the party that everyone was at last night: Bangtek, Sauna, and Bambii at the S.P.A.C.E. Hosted by the one and only, Larinda Mood! This lineup attracted so many different kinds of people, all gathered for a night of awesome drinks—provided by Lavi Seks on the Bar—great company, and even better music. The sickening start to the night is courtesy of the hostess with the mostest class, sass, and ass, Larinda Mood. As her set begins its all eyes on Larinda who is electric on stage from the jump. The confidence and swagger Miss Mood carries in her performance is never questioned, only appreciated. She winds and grinds across the crowd making sure she pays her favourite patrons special attention, which certainly puts many of us in the mood by the end of her entrance. Larinda is always a shining star and tonight is no exception. I am so glad LV invited St. John's' perfect drag hype-woman for tonight because between the bass bumping and booty shaking none of us could get enough of her before Sauna took the stage.
As the first music act of the night, Sauna lights up the night with sizzling disco and banging beats both backdropped against custom colourful videos throbbing along to their sounds. This is the first time the band has ever been to Newfoundland, and they are more than happy to be here. The crowd is as well, with many grooving along song after song in-between short stories shared by the lead singer. The night is still young, and there is no better way to begin the festivities of the night than energizing us with all the wild warped synths Sauna has to offer. It’s not long though before this rhythmic rock show is transformed into a complete raging rave as soon as Bangtek touches the turntables. Bringing banging break beats and enough EDM for you to feel well beyond your sternum right through into your entire spine, its no surprise why this party god has been in the Atlantic Canadian dance scene for over a decade. Partygoers flock to the speaker sets like moths to the industrial heat he brings track after track, while laser lights cut through the venue and refract off the major disco ball christening the front of the crowd.
By this time the crowd is larger than life and ready to dance the night away. So of course, the woman of the hour finally arrives to roars from the crowd as she seamlessly starts her set. Bambii has attracted an enormous amount of admirers here tonight at the S.P.A.C.E, with many of them gushing in between earlier guests and even in the bathroom lineup how she is the reason why they even came out tonight in the first place. I have never seen a show with more all-encompassing excitement than when she takes the stage. From the get go we are brought back to the 90s and early 2000s with the soundtrack of any millennial upbringing mixed to perfection. This immaculately curated Y2K ravelist consists of hitmakers from Missy Elliott to the legendary Miss Britney Spears with a whole new lease on life brought to us by beat queen Bambii. By the end of the night, everyone is living for this final set as the crowd sings along with every chorus, making this party truly one for the books.
- Violet Drake
Larinda Mood x Violet Drake
Violet: When I saw that you were a part of this year’s lineup I became so excited. It’s amazing to see your drag practice bloom from bar shows to arts festivals. How did you get involved with Lawnya Vawnya this year?
Larinda: I have been following Lawnya Vawnya since I moved here as their events are always great, but I never really thought I would become a part of the festival until they reached out to me this summer and it blew my mind! I am so grateful and excited for the opportunity honestly.
Violet: There aren’t many drag artists in our city that I have been lucky enough to watch grow from the very beginning of their careers, but you are one incredible exception. You have always been one of our brightest stars, and a complete pro since you first took Velvet's mainstage over a year ago. Please share with us what pulled you to drag in the first place?
Larinda: Moving here from Niagara Ontario and watching the drag community in St. John's grow and thrive during the troubled times of COVID really inspired me to begin my own journey in drag actually. I've always seen drag artists as an important part of our community, and when I first saw my drag mother Misty perform I was completely star struck. I begged her to become my drag mother and friend, and she kind of had no choice but to become both. Seeing how creative drag artists here are in sustaining and broadening their own careers really motivated me to start my own.
Violet: You are one of St. John’s few drag performers of color who are broadening the horizons of whose drag is celebrated here at the Atlantic edge. You ooze Black excellence and are a crucial voice in local community dialogues about race and representation in queer spaces. Following your historic Black History Month show back in February, it is clear that you are fierce advocate and leader for your communities. Can you tell us about what doing this type of work here has been like, and how drag and activism fit together in your practice?
Larinda: Drag and activism go hand in hand just from the core basics of drag history in our queer community. It was transgender women and drag queens who started a lot of queer uprising in North America and established much of queer culture today. I already knew walking into doing drag that I had to find something political that made sense to me and that I thought was relevant to me and my wider community. What else is there to do other than what I am always very vocal about which is race, since I grew up in a predominantly white community and I am clearly not white. So I had to struggle myself to find my own sense of belonging with my racial identity and sexuality, and drag seemed like the perfect amalgamation of it all that enabled me to speak my mind, share my truth, and get creative with how I approach activism. Drag lets me express my artistic side, as well as my political side where I get to affirm that racial justice is something that is important to everyone and not just BIPOC communities or queer communities seperately, it needs to be recognized within every community. So I wanted to make sure I was a part of that movement in drag being Black.
Violet: It is a well-known fact that you originally hail from the mainland, and that you moved here for love. Your adoring husband frequents many of your performances and supports your drag greatly. What has your journey from central Canada to the east coast been like? Has our cities charm reeled you in yet?
Larinda: I grew up in a small Ontarian town called St. Catherine's. When I met my husband David, 6 months into living together we decided that we wanted to try something new and see what Newfoundland and St. John's had to offer. So we came here because we wanted to explore a different part of Canada that we thought kind of flew under the radar as a destination to be at. As both of us have garnered success in this city, and learned more about its culture and people, its charm has definitely rubbed off on us and we have fallen in love with being here.
Violet: What do you think makes St. John’s drag so special?
Larinda: I think the most unique thing St. John's drag has to offer is a variety of different perspectives. What each performer has to offer here is a little something different from the next. Drag shows here are not boring at all, there is always an artistic inclination to what the artists are doing here. All local drag shows in this province are produced by the artists themselves, and the sheer artistry and work that goes into creating so many of the unique shows that happen here throughout the year is so remarkable. Our community is very self-motivated in that what you see is what you get, and what you get is always what the artists want to do themselves. Artists here are stuck on an island, and because of that it forces people to drive their motivations and inclinations to ways of living and being that is quite different than the mainland. I think there is more a relaxed culture in Newfoundland where people value art, culture, hobbies, and explore what it means to be human as opposed to only revolving around business ventures or work. You can definitely see this valuing in our drag community on and off the stage. The self determination of everyone here really lets people shine in their own special way that isn't the same in other cities.
Violet: Would you like to share with us what else you are up to besides Lawnya Vawnya? Anything we can look forward to, or that you are excited for in the future of your practice?
Larinda: I am definitely excited to see where my drag career is going to take me. I like to live and stay in the moment in drag since I have a corporate job in my day-to-day life. I am super excited for a few things I am planning and producing this summer including friends of mine, so keep an eye out for more Larinda Mood this summer! Especially August 5th at Velvet Club & Lounge where I will be hosting part 2 of my annual roast so you don't want to miss it! Aside from that there will also be a Pride Fashion Show at the Avalon Mall that I am involved in that will be announced sometime soon.
Violet: Please share with us some parting words or musings.
Larinda: I want to express my gratitude to you and Lawnya Vawnya for these wonderful opportunities. Thank you to all my fans and followers, and stay in the mood for Larinda Mood everybody!
- Violet Drake
Ritual Frames x Violet Drake
Violet: The word powerhouse does not scratch the surface of describing the magnitude of your trailblazing academic and artistic practice. Please tell us how the worlds of academia, art, and archives collide within your ever-growing practice?
RF: I work at the intersections and margins of these fields to address and grapple with cultural, historical, and political complexities that structure the lives of trans women (and) sex workers. It’s research-creation, and in many ways, survival work. Using creative practice to think beyond the historical record, imagining what might have been and is yet-to-come for these communities, I draw critical and emotional attention to power, privilege, and possibility. I have been held by queer, trans, and feminist communities in Newfoundland and Labrador, and these relationships have shaped my approach to research, writing, teaching, and art-making. I am grateful to be in conversation and collaboration with artists, educators, and organizers including Jude Benoit, Violet Drake, Kai Bryan, Kate Lahey, Joanna Barker, Sonja Boon, Cory Thorne, and Colleen Quigley, among many others.
Violet: It has been quite some time since you have taken the stage with music. What made you decide to light the candle once more?
RF: Feels like a lifetime. I stepped away from music and sound for a few years, in the aftermath of grief, and in search of new beginnings. I birthed RITUAL FRAMES in 2014 when I needed comfort as a bay girl navigating change in St. John’s. The songs are narratives of my early twenties as a young trans woman sex worker. They are haunting, sexual, unsettled. I was hopeful and hurting. I still am. When LV reached out to see if I was interested in performing at this year’s festival, I felt ready to share again. I’m really excited to offer an experimental set alongside Markus Floats and Jing Xia. And I’m eager to see what the future holds for RITUAL FRAMES.
Violet: Being a classically trained musician with years of training beginning in childhood, how does this inform your contemporary experimental electronic practice?
RF: I have been uncontainable in my creative practice. Music acts as a joy bringer and an evocative method of communication. I like experimentation, risks, distortions. I’m most comfortable developing my own methods. Formal training offered me a handful of skills that helped me develop a particular approach to performance and composition. I bring that knowledge with me as I try to work through its limitations. My voice is an unruly one. Always.
Violet: Who or what inspires your music currently
RF: Artists like GUSSYEE, Kìzis, Beverly Glenn-Copeland, Zsela, ANOHNI. My recent sound art is taking form in conversation with trans and sex worker voices from my archival research, Yuvi’s ghost, past lives, delusions, absences, and excess.
Violet: In a post-PC music world, with hyperpop’s imminent mainstream success emerging, where do you find yourself today as a trans woman in electronic music compared to your beginnings prior to these musical and cultural developments?
RF: For me, the layers and possibilities of electronic music represent potentiality. I started producing electronic music when I was 13, and as I reflect on the history of my practice, I realize that playing with and deconstructing my vocals has been a form of gender self-determination. Sessi Kuwabara Blanchard wrote a really great piece about this for Pitchfork a few years ago. The presence of trans women in electronic music has a long history, of course. Perhaps it has been most meaningful as a way to imagine different futures through sound. I listen to SOPHIE demos and her “HEAV3N SUSPENDED” set all the time. OOEPUI helped me work through my voice dysphoria. Feeling her impact and legacy always.
Violet: You are one of few artists in this place who are public about their sex work and how it is inextricably intertwined within the core of your entire practice. What does sex work mean to and do for you and your art?
RF: Sex work has saved my life over and over as a young trans woman, while also entangling me within a net of social and sexual precarity. Sex work has held me up and together. Sex work has forced me to see hidden truths. It has helped me form a loving community. It has allowed me to take care of myself and others. It has also shown me more than I can ever say. My educational, community, activist, and artistic labours have been possible because of the temporality of my sex work. It is a transitory economy that comes through for me in all ways because I have learned to survive its tough demands. It is performance. It is fierce. My practice tries to articulate the intimate relationship between desirability and disposability in the everyday lives of trans women (and) sex workers. Calling attention to intimacies of sexual labour, challenging social and institutional injustice, and fighting for decriminalization, are responsibilities that I carry. I love and respect my sex-working kin deeply. I will forever dream toward a world of sex worker liberation and justice.
Violet: Why is it crucial for us to respond to and celebrate sex worker histories and artists?
RF: Sex workers in Newfoundland and Labrador have so much to teach us all about survival and resistance through economic and political collapse. Recent literary publications in Newfoundland and Labrador, together with exhibitions organized by the Safe Harbour Outreach Project, have offered space for sex workers to speak out on and in our own terms and languages. We make historical and cultural changes as we continue to call for the decriminalization of sexual labour. I’m excited for the future of sex worker advocacy in this province.
Violet: Would you like to share with us what else you are up to besides Lawnya Vawnya? Anything we can look forward to, or that you are excited for in the future of your practice?
RF: I’m currently working on some community-based history and educational projects, and I’m doing course development in the Department of Gender Studies at Memorial. I’m planning and organizing with Girls Rock NL and the Safe Harbour Outreach Project. I’m making a slew of illustrations and a series of fabric sculptures for upcoming exhibitions, along with composing new sound art, both independently and with my partner B.G-Osborne. I’m preparing for an artist residency at Struts Gallery in August, where I’ll be using sound and poetry to play with waves of trans history in Atlantic Canada. I’m writing a lot, and I have new creative and academic publications on the horizon. I just received an ArtsNL grant to begin writing poetry and short fiction that explore sex worker histories in Newfoundland and Labrador. I’m looking forward to thinking with a counter-archival imagination, in ways that dream beyond the limits of silence and violence within the colonial historical record to enact a future more accountable to sex workers. I feel very grateful that my practice continues to be supported, and that my work resonates within community. I hope to do right by those who hold me up.
- Violet Drake