ABOUT VIOLET DRAKE
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Violet Drake is a white settler disabled queer+trans writer, artist, actor, & activist born and raised in the coastal community of Lawn on the Burin Peninsula. Now based in St. John's, her multidisciplinary experimental practice has been self taught since youth, writing hybrid poetry and designing mixed media digital illustration since the age of 13. Blending life narrative, land-based photography, self portraiture, performance, and autoethnography, her work emerges from her conceptual framework of trans+corporeal cartographies and existential ecologies. Her work has been exhibited and performed at artist-run centres, galleries, stages, festivals, and classrooms throughout Ktaqmkuk (colonially Newfoundland) including Eastern Edge, St. Michael's Print Shop, Unscripted Twillingate, LSPU Hall, St. John's Arts and Culture Centre, and Memorial University.
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Co-author of transVersing, she has recent and forthcoming publications locally and nationally in Riddle Fence, Understorey, HELD, Verses, and Home Out of It.
To contact Violet, visit her Instagram at @imvioletdrake.
To contact Violet, visit her Instagram at @imvioletdrake.
IN CONVERSATION WITH VIOLET DRAKE
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Hello. What are your pronouns?
I answer to any said with respect. However, I prefer They/Them and She/Her interchangeably. How many hats do you wear? Too many to count. Currently I'd describe myself as a multidisciplinary artist, whose roots are in digital design, writing, and acting. I'm also a long-standing activist and advocate for many marginalized people here on the island, most notably 2SLGBTQIA+ folks and sex workers. I've been a student and scholar, public speaker and performer, daughter and mother. Moving forward in my practice, I'm excited to expand deeper into installation, curation, performance, stage, and dance. |
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What is your primary passion?
Expression and Connection. There isn't one particular artistic medium that is a primary passion of mine. Although there are some, I have more experience with than others. As I've matured I find vast beauty and potential in many different modes of creativity. I have a deep respect and love for just about all forms of art. Where do you live? As a Bay-girl I was born and raised in a tiny outport community on the south coast of the province called Lawn. I'm also a Townie, as I've been based in St. John's for nearly a decade now. I find home in the hybrid. Being from rural Newfoundland has been one of the most influential parts of my life, one I find great meaning and gratitude for as I've aged in the city where I truly found myself in. I need/want/wish for: A long life full of love, creativity, friendship, and connection with as many people who share my values and passions as possible. |
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I would love to meet:
My great grandmothers who both passed when I was very young. I am inspired by: A great mosaic of influences inform who I am as an artist. Some of them have been life-long inspirations for as long as I can remember, others are seedlings of the present. Strong, compassionate, and ambitious women—fictional or otherwise—are a bedrock of my creativity since my youth. This continues today, from pop stars to drag artists to actors on stage or screen. Meaning and lessons in the stories and aesthetics of many different video games, novels, or comic books I found home and hope in as a child have carried through into my adulthood. Presently, the interplay between this place's unique history, queerness, and environmental temporalities has become increasingly important to explore in my practice. It is crucial to me to continue interrogating shifting cultural and environmental geographies on our island, to further our understanding of the complex intimate relationships we each have to how we come to belong here. |
What is your impossible dream?
Depends on what planetary energy of mine you ask. My sun is in Scorpio, who wants to rule the world with a never ending well of raw ambition. That side of myself would say to become a world-famous performer with a lasting cultural impact. My moon is in Pisces, who through unyielding idealism finds empathy to be the greatest superpower. This side of myself would say to become a member of a creative family that has significant influence on future generations of queer creatives where mutual aid, kindness, collaboration, and encouragement are held as sacred to the creative process. What both of these voices have in common is to be a part something bigger than myself. Meaningful, inter-generational exchange of knowledge, ideas, expertise, skills, magic, power, and love is at the heart of my wildest dreams.
What does process mean to you?
It’s one of the most important parts to any artistic endeavor. The common hallmark adage is that process is everything; it’s the journey, not the destination. Of course, I find merit in that. Process is where we as artists have free reign to create in whatever ways suit us best. Its where we get to experiment, challenge our fears, hone our strengths, and even collaborate in new or exciting ways. Process is the part of creation that I think is the blood to the guts—impossible to separate and inextricably intertwined. With this being said, I think the act of showcasing a final product at the end of any process can teach us many valuable lessons as well.
What are connections and conversations you would like to see happen, and/or would like to have?
Conversations that I think are long overdue are about increasing accessibility in the arts in inclusive, tangible, and sustainable ways. Throughout artistic organizing here it is quite commonplace to encounter the mantra art = work to highlight the ways our labor as artists is often undervalued and our work/financial conditions are very difficult compared to workers in other industries. While this is true and important to recognize, I don't think there is enough awareness of nor action on the fact that some of us are not even given opportunity to work to begin with. Far too many qualified people, especially marginalized folks, are barred from opportunities due to barriers—such as race, class, and disability to name a few—so that their careers stall or never get off the ground. There are many incredible artists I know here in this place who continue to be overlooked because they are not given equal or fair opportunity to be welcomed into the wider professional landscape due to the way social, cultural, and financial systems here exclude diverse artists; especially BIPOC, migrant, poor, sex-working and disabled folks.
Is there anything else you would like to share, or would like to be asked?
Artists of any age who are just starting out in their practice or would like to begin a new practice, please do not be afraid to reach out to people in our local community to ask for help. It has only been through the grace, kindness, and compassion of my colleagues, mentors, and friends here who have given me their time and free labor have I learned what I have so far about artistic organizing in this place. There is no easy instruction manual of how to be an artist, or what artistic success looks like here. None of us raised on the island were taught this in grade school, and even those who are fortunate enough to attend art school on the west coast do not learn crucial communal knowledge required for a long-standing, sustainable career in the arts here. Stay confident, curious, and kind and you will be surprised at what is possible when working together with a network.
#trans #inclusion #visualart
Depends on what planetary energy of mine you ask. My sun is in Scorpio, who wants to rule the world with a never ending well of raw ambition. That side of myself would say to become a world-famous performer with a lasting cultural impact. My moon is in Pisces, who through unyielding idealism finds empathy to be the greatest superpower. This side of myself would say to become a member of a creative family that has significant influence on future generations of queer creatives where mutual aid, kindness, collaboration, and encouragement are held as sacred to the creative process. What both of these voices have in common is to be a part something bigger than myself. Meaningful, inter-generational exchange of knowledge, ideas, expertise, skills, magic, power, and love is at the heart of my wildest dreams.
What does process mean to you?
It’s one of the most important parts to any artistic endeavor. The common hallmark adage is that process is everything; it’s the journey, not the destination. Of course, I find merit in that. Process is where we as artists have free reign to create in whatever ways suit us best. Its where we get to experiment, challenge our fears, hone our strengths, and even collaborate in new or exciting ways. Process is the part of creation that I think is the blood to the guts—impossible to separate and inextricably intertwined. With this being said, I think the act of showcasing a final product at the end of any process can teach us many valuable lessons as well.
What are connections and conversations you would like to see happen, and/or would like to have?
Conversations that I think are long overdue are about increasing accessibility in the arts in inclusive, tangible, and sustainable ways. Throughout artistic organizing here it is quite commonplace to encounter the mantra art = work to highlight the ways our labor as artists is often undervalued and our work/financial conditions are very difficult compared to workers in other industries. While this is true and important to recognize, I don't think there is enough awareness of nor action on the fact that some of us are not even given opportunity to work to begin with. Far too many qualified people, especially marginalized folks, are barred from opportunities due to barriers—such as race, class, and disability to name a few—so that their careers stall or never get off the ground. There are many incredible artists I know here in this place who continue to be overlooked because they are not given equal or fair opportunity to be welcomed into the wider professional landscape due to the way social, cultural, and financial systems here exclude diverse artists; especially BIPOC, migrant, poor, sex-working and disabled folks.
Is there anything else you would like to share, or would like to be asked?
Artists of any age who are just starting out in their practice or would like to begin a new practice, please do not be afraid to reach out to people in our local community to ask for help. It has only been through the grace, kindness, and compassion of my colleagues, mentors, and friends here who have given me their time and free labor have I learned what I have so far about artistic organizing in this place. There is no easy instruction manual of how to be an artist, or what artistic success looks like here. None of us raised on the island were taught this in grade school, and even those who are fortunate enough to attend art school on the west coast do not learn crucial communal knowledge required for a long-standing, sustainable career in the arts here. Stay confident, curious, and kind and you will be surprised at what is possible when working together with a network.
#trans #inclusion #visualart
The Thriving Together initiative has been made possible through support from the Canada Council for the Arts.
