Where and when were you born?

I was born right outside of Chicago in Waukegan in 1958, but grew up near the downtown Houston area. Inside the [Interstate 610] loop, so I was always walking distance from downtown. The Southern Pacific Railroad train tracks ran right through the center of our East End Houston neighborhood which was predominantly Hispanic.

We moved there in 1963 when I was five years old. I remember because it was the same year JFK got shot. My dad was having an affair and when my mom found out that year she took my two brothers and me and we left on a train to Houston. Some years later they reconciled and my dad joined us in Texas. 

Can you tell me more about your family and ancestry?

My dad’s side of the family were all from up north, from Illinois. My mother's side of the family, they were all from the Houston area. My great grandparents were born in Mexico, but as the generations passed on down there wasn’t really a lot of Mexican culture in the family. My mom made some Mexican food like tamales during the holidays but we were pretty Americanized early on. 

What was it like coming of age in the 60s/70s? 

What I really remember the most in the 60s was how there was a lot of segregation. You’d still see signs up that said for whites only or blacks only. The city was pretty segregated between all the races. 

And in the 60s, I was already running around on the street. I was only 10 years old and would sneak out of the house while my mom and dad would be asleep. My friends would come tapping at the window about 1:00 AM or something like that. I would sneak out to the back door and we’d run around on the streets until about 4:00 AM. I would come creeping in, get back in bed and act like I had been in bed all night. I was a bad kid. 

When I was 13, in the early 70s, I would get up around 3 a.m. and walk downtown to the Mission. It was like a church, where they gave away free coffee and donuts to the winos, what we called homeless people back then. (There were a bunch of winos in that area of downtown, and they would be lying against the building all drunk and passed out. We’d go through their pockets, we were pretty horrible. Yeah, it’s pretty wild to me when I think about it now. But I did a lot of stuff like that.)

So me and a bunch of winos and other kids would run over to this truck that was always there looking for people to do jobs. They would only pick up like about four or five people and take us to a neighborhood. They’d give us this mailbag with stacks of circulars and we’d go door to door putting them on the doors. We’d start about six in the morning and we’d be done about one in the afternoon. 

One day there was this hippie on the other side of the street from me delivering circulars too. He was a tall blond headed guy, probably in his twenties, and he’s doing his side of the street and I’m going on my side of the street and we get to the end and we start talking. His name was Jason. Anyway, we’re talking and getting to know each other. He invited me to his apartment. So I went and he introduced me to a bunch of other hippies that all lived in these apartments close to Hermann Park by the medical center and the zoo. 

These guys were all college students just doing side work. They wore long hair and liked to smoke pot and trip on acid. I started hanging around with them and staying with Jason at the apartment. But that's when I really started getting into books and reading and stuff. It was Jason that really got me into it because they were always reading in the house, psychology books and stuff like that. I never forgot them. All those people left an impression on me. They were all cool. I learned a lot of stuff just being around them.

Do you have memories of questioning your gender and sexuality as a child?

One warm sunny afternoon when I was ten years old, a few of my friends were throwing a football, just running around and carrying on the way kids do, while I stood by watching. We often played on a grassy area near the train tracks.

My father, who had come to see what us kids were up to, was standing a few feet behind me watching my friends play as well. There were also a few other people from the neighborhood. As I stood watching my friends I thought that people were watching me too. I don’t know what came over me or why, but I suddenly became self-conscious of my butt and had a strange embarrassed feeling that people were looking at it.

I don’t know why the thought that people were looking at my ten-year-old butt made me feel so uncomfortable but it did. So with those thoughts and feelings going through me, I grabbed the bottom of my t-shirt and started pulling it downward to stretch it over my butt to cover it. As I pulled on the t-shirt this way and that way I heard my father ask in a stern voice, “What are you doing?” I knew he was talking to me so I turned around to look up at him. He was studying me intently as he said, “Why are you trying to cover your butt?. You’re not a girl, stop doing that.”

My father had seen me and knew exactly what I had been trying to do as I pulled on my t-shirt. I did not say a single word as we stared at each other for an awkward moment, then letting go of my t-shirt I turned around to run and join my friends. 

For the rest of his life my father never said another word about my behavior and never mentioned the incident with the t-shirt, but I knew then that I could never be my true self in his presence.

I was the first born and he would rather see me in a grave than raise a sissy. I was his pride and joy, his Number One, he used to call me, and he didn’t call me that because I was his first born, he called me that because I was his favorite. And it wasn’t that he had a particular problem or hatred of queer people, my father was intelligent and fairly open minded, but he would have a problem with it if it was his son, me, being his Number One. 

My father was born in 1937, so he was Old School for real and he wanted to raise his sons to be what he thought were real men. He wanted his sons to be tough and manly and not take any shit from anyone. And from a young age he would lecture me and give me examples of what it was to be a real man, like fighting and being tough. But no matter how hard he pushed it just wasn’t in me and I never liked it when he’d come at me with his lessons, usually when he’d been drinking. 

From a young age, I started putting on my mother’s clothes and using her makeup in secret when I knew I would have the house to myself for a few hours. I did not know anything about being trans at the time. I just knew that I was queer and that I had a very feminine nature and longed to be a girl. My heart screamed with joy whenever I was able to dress up and express my true self. Oh, I would dance and prance and be so happy in my own little feminine world and dream about boys being attracted to me. 

My father never knew what I was really about or who I truly was. But one day when I was 15 my mother approached me and holding a hand out to me with a limp wrist asked me if I was, “like that,” to imply a homosexual. I was frightened by her question and did not know what to say and hesitated to answer. Before I could respond my mother smiled at me and touched my face lovingly with the same hand that had just shown me a limp wrist, said, “It’s alright, but you better not let your father find out.”

My mother knew what I was about and she accepted it. From then on we weren’t just family, we were also friends. I always had queer relationships. When I started bringing gay and lesbian friends over to the house my mother was very welcoming to them and my friends loved her.She was real cool and it was just normal. She never questioned me or them. If they came by and I wasn’t there they would sit around and talk with my mom and she would entertain them.

Eventually my father did find out that I was queer, but he never said a single word about it to me and we never talked about it, nor did I ever reveal my true self in his presence. Of course, I was an adult by the time he found out and no longer living at home. And I am sure that he had no idea to what extent my queerness ran or that I would one day transition and become the trans woman I am today. But til the last day of his life regardless of what he heard or what he thought of it, that his son was queer, he never stopped loving me or calling me his Number One. 

I loved my father very much and I know and understand what it meant to him to have sons that would carry on the torch of manhood in his honor, but it was never in my nature to be a man of any kind. From my earliest childhood memory, I always wanted to be a girl. Though it would take many years before I would finally transition and make my dream come true, I am home at last. Being trans and living my life openly as a trans woman is the most liberating and wonderful joy I have ever known and I love it.

I have some of the most wonderful queer and trans people in my life, and together we share a home of love and understanding in our hearts. We are family. And regardless of where I am I am happy and proud to be queer and trans and wouldn’t change it for the world.

When did you first start creating art?

My first exposure to art as a young person was through my mom, who used to make these mixtures out of glass or beads or some kind of colored rocks. She would use them to create pictures of bullfighters and roosters and stuff like that on large pieces of velvet material. 

My mama was real proud of my work. She loved my artwork. She would show it to her friends. She even took some and showed it to her doctor and he said, “He’s another Picasso!” That made her real happy. 

I started drawing when I was about 13 years old then a couple years later I took an art class in the 9th grade. That was a great experience and that’s when I really became interested in art and just kept trying to learn. In class we were mostly doing still-lifes, but even back then I was trying to create things from my imagination like faces and human figures and bodies and things like that. 

I’d have some friends over and we’d lay out large pieces of paper on the floor and we’d all get on the floor and try to outdo each other by doing something creative to see who could really do something different. We’d spend a lot of time doing that. We’d just sit around and draw stuff trying to outdo each other by making something look good. That was a lot of fun. We were likely also tripping on acid. That’s how it was back then in the 70s. 

What was your artistic practice like when you were a young adult?

I started getting real serious about my art probably at 18 or 19 years old. I was just trying to learn as much as I could. I really cranked it up. And I started reading books and trying to learn more. It took a lot of years. 

I always did comics, I just wasn't very good at it at first. I would look at these underground comics in the early 70s and then I would try to copy the style. I did weird designs and shapes and little cartoon characters and maybe some snakes to enhance it. 

I took two or three more art classes. And also read stacks and stacks of art books. Technical books, art history, about different styles of art, all types of art books. I just taught myself. You can learn a lot from the books, and then actually experimenting and trying your hand. You can read all you want but then you actually have to do it. 

At that time I was mostly trying to learn traditional subject matter like landscapes and portraits and that sort of thing. It wasn’t until my early 30s when I started trying to work from my imagination in earnest and developing my own style. 

You are also a musician. When did you start playing guitar?

I started playing guitar around 1968. I was about 10 years old when I started learning, and by the time I was 15, I was already doing pretty good. When I started playing guitar I was trying to learn blues, rock and roll, jazz and that kind of stuff. I’ve experimented with classical guitar as well. I used to play for hours, I’m talking like 10, 12 hours a day, seven days a week. I go to sleep with the guitar and wake up with it. I'm probably gonna keep doing it as soon as I can get my hands on another guitar. I learned so much just playing. Each time I picked up a guitar I could do something I’ve never done before. 

I feel the same way with my art. I just keep learning. There’s always something to do. You can just keep going, experimenting and creating different things. 

Tell me about your experience as a tattoo artist.

I used to work in the Montrose area of Houston on Westheimer working at the Black Dragon Tattoo Parlor. I started when I was 18. I used to dream of being a famous tattoo artist. Ed Hardy and Cliff Raven were my heroes. I had strived to do work like those guys. I was into it for many years. 

But I lost interest in tattooing and just wanted to concentrate on my painting. I wasn't into some of the people and I didn't feel like tattooing on them just for the money. You have to deal with all these different people.  With painting I can be alone and just concentrate on my own artwork. So that made me switch from tattooing to just painting, concentrating on my art.

Who else inspired you as an artist?

My first heroes in the art world were the old Dutch masters—Vermeer, Rembrandt, Van Gogh. A lot of them used those dark earth tones and real powerful light. I love all that stuff. That was my first influence. Also Hans Belmer, his stuff is weird. And one of my favorites is queer writer, William Burroughs. I also admire the work of Robert Mapplethorpe. I like him because he really went against the grain.  

What inspires your current work? 

I believe it’s my love for art. And my queerness and transness makes me want to share what I’m feeling. Most of it’s queer related because it’s such a part of my life, who I am. 

It’s a way to share what I'm feeling. It's really important for me to share with the world the beauty that we queer people have. It really motivates and inspires me a lot. 

In my art where you see a dove with a rainbow arc, that represents the queer spirit. Just the dove alone is a representation of hope and the human spirit. When I put a rainbow behind it, I’m specifically making it a queer spirit. Queer spirit means love, beauty, and joy, to be proud and happy that we're queer people. It's like a symbol of happiness and acceptance. I'm trying to make a powerful statement that the queer spirit has just as much recognition or honor as the human spirit. 

I like to do happy art even though a lot of it is painful because it’s about the human condition. Life is brutal. It's rough. I put those claws on a lot of my work. The claws represent “the beast”…the representation of pain and human suffering. So a lot of times in my art you’ll see claws either gripping the figure directly or surrounding it. For the same reason I use imagery of blood like in the “Even Flowers Bleed” series because bleeding is a representation of pain or some kind of open wound. 

Because everything bleeds, I feel that everything feels pain and that’s why I came up with the idea of you know, flowers bleeding. We’re not the only ones, that even flowers can hurt. That’s just part of nature.

But I think we do our best to try to create beautiful things. That’s why I try to try to create something that really looks nice, but I don’t just want it to look good, I also want it to have some significance that people can relate to which is why most of my art are representations of the human spirit and the queer and trans experience.

What do you want people to feel when they see your work?

I want them to feel good about it. Just to understand things. To feel love and understanding, just to feel some peace… I don't know why I get choked up like this talking about it. You know what I want people to feel? I want them to know that we’re good people. Being queer. I’ve had such a hard time with it from other people, because I know how they feel about us. Not everybody, but there’s still a lot of people that hate us. I just want people to feel good, feel some happiness when they see my work. Some beauty in it. 

Tell me about nudity in your work?

I do it on purpose, to try to make them real nasty. Like I’ll draw these guys with these really huge erections, because I wanna make it funny and nasty at the same time. A lot of times, it’s impossible for a body to have an organ like that… I exaggerate like that to give it the impact of what I’m trying to do with it—to make something that’s funny and nasty. When I show it to other people they just bust out laughing. I don’t think that’s gonna change. I’m gonna be a dirty old queen until I’m in the grave. Until my last days.

If I try to mail some of that stuff they'll just confiscate it. They’ve taken art boards from me because of the nudity. They just say it’s contraband and take it. So sometimes I’m hesitant to put that stuff in the mail. The bans change from time to time. Some years ago you could do hardcore nudity, now you can’t even draw some thongs. I like doing a lot of nudity in my work because I like just stripping away and showing the human body in its true nature. 

What is your artistic practice like?

Well, I usually start off with a cup of coffee because I get up and start very early. I start with the idea, thinking about what I’m gonna do whether I have a work in progress or creating something new. I’ll just put a basic outline, draw something up and then I start getting ideas just by moving along. That’s when I start deciding what colors to go with. I don’t know in advance. I may have an idea, but I don’t really know what I’m doing until I do it. I have visions of things going on and I just follow what I mentally visualize.

I work real fast. Once I start laying paint down, I mix colors real fast. Sometimes I mix three or four colors on the board at the same time while I’m working. I usually mix colors directly on the board, blending it right there on the board. I get paint all over my left hand, on the top and all over my knuckles and between my forefinger and thumb because I get in a hurry and instead of using a piece of paper for excess paint I just rub the brush across the top of my left hand. At some point I just started to paint using my hand as a palette. 

Are you ever in the middle of a painting and you have to leave your cell?

That happens all the time. I'm working on something, getting really into a little detail, something that really needs my attention. Something so detailed that just a little slight move of the hand will mess it up. Then all of a sudden I have to stop and come out [of the cell]. 

What’s part of your practice that you focus on the most?

The most difficult thing for me to learn was the structure of light and creating my own light. If I’m working from photographs there’s no problem. The light is easy. But if I’m just doing it from imagination I have to correctly create my own light. And I can do it, but sometimes it's still a struggle. But I think it would help once I get out when I have the materials where I can set up my own lighting and everything. And when I can do still life from actual real objects. I’ll be able to see it. 

What is your preferred medium to work in? What materials do you currently use for your art? 

I prefer oils and canvas, but I’ll work with anything. For some time now my primary medium has been watercolors, so I’m using watercolor, illustration boards and heavy watercolor paper. I get my paints through the unit craft shop and the boards and paper from the unit commissary. I sometimes ask for a lock of someone’s hair (often from other trans girls on the unit) and use thread to make my own paintbrushes. 

When did you first experience incarceration and how long have you currently been incarcerated? 

My first experience with incarceration was in 1973, as a juvenile delinquent I was sent to a reform school for 6 months. Currently I have been incarcerated for 27 years and I think I deserved it as I was out there in the world doing bad things that I would never do again. 

Did you always do art while in prison? Is your work as an artist impacted by being incarcerated? 

I have always done art in prison. I’ve done art for most of my life. My work as an artist is impacted by being incarcerated due to censorship and limited access to materials such as oils. I would do more nudity in my work, just a little more explicit than what I’m doing now with my figure work but prison regulations won’t allow it. 

Do any of the subjects of your art work connect to your experience on the inside? 

I was doing comics before I connected with A.B.O. Comix, but they weren’t related to my prison experience. When Casper Cendre started A.B.O. Comix they made a specific request for comix related to our queer and trans prisoner experience, so it was the opportunity and platform that Casper gave us that inspired me to create stories/comics related to my prison experience, and they are all true stories.

Do you want your incarceration to be a part of the story people know about you as an artist?

Well, for a long time I never wanted it to be connected, but it doesn’t really matter. I think it does have an influence on my work. Not really the subject matter, but I guess a lot of the pain and suffering type stuff. I’ve been dealing with pain and suffering since I was a kid, all my life it has been really powerful in me, but being incarcerated just added to it. So I guess in a way there is a connection, but I don’t really feel that it’s a big influence in my work. I think just the way I was raised in my environment is what influenced me. The culture and the environment that I grew up in.

What do you love most about being an artist? 

Creating art is what I do, I’ve always done art and I always will as long as I am able. And I told you, Gabriel, that I was going to create one of the biggest queer art collections in the world for you and I am. That compels me the most. To do something good and to be good in all things. Your love and kindness made me this way. 

How do you see your work evolving?

I see it getting better and more powerful with a stronger connection between what I’m doing now and more futuristic motifs of my own design. And of course it will always be queer art.