- Tap the sides or use your arrow keys to change photos - Hover over the square to change colors =Info= - Stormé DeLarverie, 1920-2014, was a Black American performer and activist whose run-in with police in the Stonewall Inn helped start the 1969 Stonewall riots. On stage, Stormé performed as a drag king; off stage, she helped protect and care for NYC's LGBTQ community. - Chavela Vargas, 1919-2012, was a Mexican musician famous for singing a style of song called rancheras. In the 1940s, she briefly dated artist Frida Kahlo. While she had some musical success as a young person, she gained international fame in her 70s and 80s, which is why I chose this more recent photo. - Claude Cahun, 1894-1954, was a French photographer especially known for self-portraits (like the one included here.) Claude identified as neither strictly feminine or masculine and adopted the gender-neutral name Claude as a young adult. They were Jewish and during WWII they risked their safety by using their art to organize against Nazism. =What is "butch"?= "Butch" is a term sometimes used in lesbian and queer communities to refer to women (and sometimes nonbinary people) who are more masculine. It's a complicated word that means different things to different people, but it seemed like the best word to capture what I was going for here. Not all of these three individuals necessarily self-identified as butch, or as lesbians, or as women, and it's hard to say for sure how they would identify if they were alive today. But we do know that all three broke conventions of femininity, presented masculinely, were queer, and had relationships with women.
I was inspired to make this by the Pop Art studio. I was thinking about how a lot of famous pop art pieces, such as Andy Warhol's work with Marilyn Monroe, feature very glamorous celebrities. And then I was thinking about some of my favorite butch icons from history, who were very glamorous, but perhaps not famous enough to end up in pop art... and this project was born. ==How I made this== First I found the photos online (credit below.) I then used Photoshop to convert black and white images to red and transparent. I brought them into Scratch and layered them with a red square and used the color effect to make different color combos. I used clones to make the grid. ==Credits== =Photos= Photo of Stormé DeLarverie by unknown photographer, retrieved on GQ Photo of Chavela Vargas by Maj Lindstrom, retrieved on NBC News Photo of Claude Cahun is a self-portrait by Claude Cahun =Music= "Rude Boy" by Podington Bear =Font= "Comic Book" by Pixel Sagas on dafont.com
