In Drawing Tending Tying: An Art and Rope Experiment, all are welcome to witness as two queer lovers come together to experiment where art meets kink. Watch Shel create a set of gesture study life drawings of their partner Sharon while she uses rope to self-tie. This performance was performed live on March 19, 2022 at the Leather Archives & Museum and streamed on Zoom.
Shel Stefan (they) is an Associate Professor of Visual Arts in the School of Creative Arts at the University of the Fraser Valley (UFV). Shel is a Chicago-born, nonbinary, queer artist who teaches all levels of university painting, drawing, and figure studies. Shel has exhibited their queer-themed artwork in Italy, China, Canada, and the US and now resides, paints, and draws on Stó:lō territory in rural BC, Canada.
Sharon Pink (she) is a LeatherFemme witch who loves rope, ritual, poetry and magic. She is a Portuguese / Polish settler living on Musqueam, Squamish & Tsleil-Waututh territory (aka Vancouver Canada). Sharon is passionate about learning in community, which often shows up as her organizing, facilitating and priestessing workshops, classes and rituals.
www.sharonishere.com
Special thanks to the volunteers who helped make this production possible.
Shel Stefan: Welcome to the Leather Archives & Museum. It’s truly an honor and privilege to be here with my partner Sharon Pink and to record our art performance here. I’d like to first start with saying just a few brief words and then we’ll begin the art performance. I want to acknowledge the traditional territories and lands that we are privileged to be in today here at the Leather Archives & Museum: the original, traditional territory of the Bodéwadmik, Ho-Chunk, Otoe, Missouria, Iowas, Menominee, Meskwaki, Sauk, Miami, Wea, Piankashaw, Kickapoo, Illini, Ojibwe, Odawa, and Potawatomi peoples. And we are here in gratitude to be in this big city that once looked very, very different. [To Sharon] A few words?
Sharon Pink: I can’t actually see with this light on me. I know there’s people there – which is kind of a relief actually. So my name is Sharon. I live in Vancouver, Canada which is Musqueam, Squamish, Tsleil- Waututh territory. I’m just really grateful to be here. I’m not a person who’s used to being on a stage so this is a new experience, so I feel very humbled by it and just really grateful to be here doing this experiment with Shel. We hope that this is interesting and offers you something right now. I think that the world is and has been a very hard place, and I think that this is for Shel their life-long practice of drawing and art and doing this very important practice of rope, and it feels really special to be able to share it. [To Sharon] This is also [unknown] by Chicagoans important to you… ?
Shel Stefan: Well I was born outside of the city and so it’s like so special to come back in this capacity and, you know, to be at the Leather Archives & Museum feels like a coming home for me and I’m so grateful to be here. What will happen over the next, I guess, hour or two is music and drawing. I won’t be talking, we’ll just be here in practice and please make yourselves comfortable to come and go wherever you are in the world or here in the space in Chicago. It’s an experiment and we’ll see what happens and I hope that you enjoy the time. My name is Shel Stefan and it’s a pleasure to meet you and see you all. So, I think we’re going to begin?
Sharon: Yeah.
Shel: Okay, let’s do this.