Queers in Carhartts is an art exhibition, film
screening, and research launch, documenting the unique
challenges and practices of resilience by queer and
trans people working in skilled trades labour. QiC is a
hybrid of qualitative research investigating the lived
experiences of 2SLGBTQ+ people in skilled trades in
Nova Scotia, and a collaborative, community-building,
creative documentation of the first-person authority of
some of those experiences and survival strategies.
All photographs provided by Stoo Metz.
Loren Lee Baldwin (carpenter)
Behind the Curtain: Projections of Self
Materials: Projections of videos, one filmed and edited
by the artist, the other a video of a live performance
by the artist. Projections onto sheer and drop cloth
curtains sewn by the artist. Plywood table and
headphone stands made by the artist. The artist’s
personal ladder as a projector stand. The set as it was
for the original boylesque performance designed by the
artist. Testosterone vial and injection materials.
Music from the performance Erase Me by Quinn
Christopherson. Two sets of hearing protection
bluetooth headphones for you to listen through.
This piece highlights the intersections of my identity
and the strong juxtaposition between them. Projected
onto a sheer thin veil is my work self; as a carpenter
I keep my head down, hat on, hood up, a safety blanket
appearance and demeanour that means I mostly get
referred to as a man (this was true even before
transitioning). Behind the first screen, is a
projection of one of my most vulnerable boylesque
routines that I did as Logan Wolfe (he/they), which is
my very public persona as an outspoken and visible
local trans performer. My everyday self falls somewhere
in between these two projections.
Since coming out as trans, my experience in the trades
has been better in a lot of ways than it was when I was
identifying as a woman. I have been a carpenter since
2014, and started my transition in 2020, so I have
spent equal parts of my career before and after
transitioning. As a female carpenter I had to fight
tooth and nail for the basic respect that is handed to
me now. There is a frustration for all of the years I
spent fighting, and also a guilt for choosing to take
the easy (masculine presenting/passing) road now.
When creating the performance piece, it was for an
Atlantic Boylesque show called Love Sucks, and my
number was about self love, but I found I had a much
harder time with it than I expected. Personally I
struggle with femininity — with allowing it to be
present in me, and accepting it, and loving it instead
of wanting to erase every shred of it. And I struggle
with masculinity — not looking masculine enough, being
ashamed of wanting to be masculine, trying to
delicately navigate the privileges that I lived so long
without. So the song Erase Me by Quinn Christopherson
(a trans musician from Alaska), seemed fitting for both
my internal experiences as a trans person, and my
personal experience as a trans person in the trades.
Please enjoy walking through my world. To my trans
siblings, you inspire me, it is an honour to have the
privilege to try to do the same for you. I hope whoever
you are, that you can take away something positive from
this display of intense vulnerability.
Loren Lee Baldwin (they/them) is a carpenter who has
recently started referring to themselves as an artist.
Primarily a storyteller, boylesque performer, gogo
dancer, and videographer, they also like to sew, sing,
and do random creative ventures with family and
friends.
Amrit Gupta (high-rise window cleaning)
Amrit Gupta is an artist and high-rise window cleaner
in Halifax, Nova Scotia. Throughout his life he has had
many careers, from orchestral musician to caregiver to
presently working as a high rise technician. The
consistent artistic threads in his life have been
writing and photography.
Amrit’s primary means of artistic expression are
observing, describing, and writing in response to the
natural world. This project is comprised of a series of
photographs from job sites along with a five-part poem.
Kassidy Johnson (carpenter)
home
Materials: Gouache on paper.
Poplar and pine trim.
Meaning: Working in the trades can be a very isolating
experience, but also very rewarding. Even on the lonely
and cold days you get to see the labour of your love.
Artist: Kassidy Johnson, 25, Carpenter and painter.
Ocean Pearl (painter)
A Tale of Two Seeds
and the Current Between
This piece is constructed of all used repurposed
materials.
A quart each of black and white acrylic paint. Old
paint brushes trimmed to size. Cotton canvas floor
coverings, old work pants, worn in work shirts for the
15 base fabric squares. Woven together with fishing
line for the quilted appearance. The base fabric is
fastened with 2½” galvanized nails to a 2”x4” spruce
frame and base. Stationed atop two Home Depot buckets,
one under each frame base.
The heavy black and white checkered contrast brings
attention to the symbols’ quality and essence.
When interpreting this piece you may imagine the bottom
left and right corner squares as planted seeds for the
tree growth through the middle row. The middle column
could be thought of as a steady current of values.
I know deeply that our reality is largely shaped by our
daily rituals and choices. As non-binary, trans, queer
people, we’re taught that we’re wrong, our existence is
incorrect, shameful and even seen as dangerous and
hated. It feels violent and dangerous to those who feel
comfortable in their designated box. It’s incredibly
easy to develop feelings of self-hate and shame as a
response to being treated differently than others and
experiencing yourself differently than others. Staying
present is challenging. It takes me longer to process
things. Looking through symbols allows me to connect to
the feeling and association. Every day we have a choice
to choose how we show up in this world, to lead with
love or fear in any interaction with ourselves or
others. I hope this inspires you to lead with love, to
take care of yourself today or someone else in a small
or big way. We are all worthy of goodness and love.
Feed love to yourself and others, and you will feel
love through that practice.
This process started through visual intuitions when in
nature, my mind flashes a scene or a symbol to
recreate.
Nature is a major inspiration for me, all the art I
create and the energy in my lifeforce. I am connected
with the earth, an earthling. And everything on earth
is always changing, transitioning, flowing – with the
seasons, with the land; with our daily and overarching
endeavours. Nothing here that lives is stagnant. This
earth shows me how the healthiest processes actually
flow authentically, with resistance merely as buffer or
redirection.
The first symbol I saw of this set was in the night
sky. Thick clouds sparsely flowed slowly through the
sky, illuminated by the bright crescent moon. After
some time, a cloud in the shape of an open palm,
relative in size to that of the moon, floats closely
behind the bright moon as if to be holding the moon in
the open palm as if to be an offering.
Another symbol I needed to feature is the upside down
triangle. Used notably in nazi-germany to tag people
for segregation, oppression and annihilation with any
presumption of homosexuality. Reclaimed with an upright
triangle during the 1980s AIDs health crisis as a
symbol to campaign awareness of the oppressions and
harm queer people experience. Worn more recently as a
symbol of pride.
I must note how important it is that we honour the
earth for its resources, not for what can be provided,
but for that its existence is beautiful and meaningful.
As beings of the earth we must honour ourselves for our
resource of abundance and power, us also with beauty
and meaning.
Art is the creation, being an artist is the practice of
creation.
Being a tradesperson is a practice of specialized
physical and mental attunement in any particular craft.
The key word here is ‘practice’. All you have to do is
practice. It can be so easy to count yourself out
before you’ve even started. Claim the name now, live up
to it through practice. Keep trying and learning even
when you mess up because the wins will feel so friggin
satisfying when it works just right.
Ocean Pearl. Multi-media creative.
queer – nonbinary- water being – woodland fairy –
forest critter
@oceanspaintingco
Penelope/Charlotte Somerton (welder)
Wretch
Wretch is a personal piece created based on my
struggles with finding employment in the construction
industry post-transition. The sculpture depicts a
slouching, dejected work animal, crushed by the weight
of the pack he has been made to carry. Though his work
has stalled, the scars his body wears remain. He stands
on hobbled legs, forever staring downward, displaying a
listless apathy towards the lifetime of fatigue he has
been forced to endure.
As I began my work on Wretch, I was actively seeking
work placement as a visibly transfem trades school
student. The sculpture was born from what felt like ten
or twenty, or perhaps a thousand, incidents of dismay
and disapproval from shop foremen upon seeing the
female name on my resume. The visibly soured
expressions after realizing I was not another clueless
male student coming to throw himself on their sword-
instead, a proud and steadfast transsexual seeking to
violate and infiltrate the sanctity of a conservative
male-dominated welding shop. The industry that once
exploited my naivety and low self-esteem with grueling
labour and unsafe working conditions, was now kicking
me off its pant leg for no longer playing along. This
condition is visualized in Wretch, likening my
experiences to that of a sickly mule who has outgrown
his usefulness, left out in the cold for the sin of
being too weak to pull the plow.
In order to emphasize the theme of abandonment, Wretch
was created entirely with discarded materials recycled
from a trades school scrap bin. The formwork was
created with copper-coated steel MIG welding wire,
which had been “bird-nested” and was no longer usable.
Bent or broken TIG filler rods were cut and tied in to
bulk up the underbelly of the animal. Copper pipes
leftover from renovations were cut and bent to shape
for additional filler. Finally, copper wire stripped
from a broken angle grinder cord was wrapped to form
the outermost layer of the sculpture.
Queers In Carhartts 