Noèl Puèllo

How are you feeling today? I know it’s been a long day.

Oh my god. I am feeling exhausted, but a good kind. So you know I’m in City Year which means I’m awake really early and constantly dealing with a line of shitty things. So I have one student who is like my little queer baby. He reminds me of me when I was in middle school. He is everything I wanted to be in middle school but couldn’t. He does this thing where he makes cards for me every morning to make sure I stay. I talked to him before and mentioned quitting. He said if I stayed, he would make a card every morning. So he makes drawings and watercolors on index cards with little life lessons on the back.

So like today was MOTIVATION. You always need to keep motivating because there’s always something ready for you.

You are changing lives. That was so beautifully gross.

I just wanna adopt him.

Take him to grad school!

He talks about it all the time.

“I’m going to visit you.”

Ummm...you’re still 14. I don’t know how your mother would feel about this. I’m totally gonna keep in contact and be there for him.

You can start the House of Noèl and be the mother. Vogue it out every night. You HAVE to come down. Have you been to Austin?

So my lifeline has been very secluded to little areas of New England. So I’ve been to RI, MA, NY, DC, but that’s it. I’ve never been anywhere else. I lied I've also did a trip all the way to LA so there are more places.

Totally come down to Tulsa and we can road trip to the White Sand Deserts, Marfa, and other havens. Have you heard of IDA?

Nooooo.

Emmy Bright, our amazing mother, told me about IDA. It’s basically a farm for queer and trans people in TN.

I think I have heard of this?

Me, you, and Emmy!

So I was just thoroughly stalking you through Instagram...

Don’t worry, I’ve stalked you too. Isn’t your partner far away?

Yeah, he is currently studying abroad in Denmark! I get to visit bae next month.

Yay!

I don’t even know where to start with questions. Your art? Everyone on your instagram exudes love and honesty.

That is what I strive for!

And your art too? Your usage of red is so powerful! Your photography is so intimate and should be featured on Vice. Then you have a series of weavings based on your friends? I felt the Emmy one!

OMG! I’m so happy.

I guess I’ll start off with the question I always go with. As QTPOC, we are constantly bombarded with labels and policed when it comes to our identity. I would like to give you this time to speak for yourself.

My name is Noèl Puèllo. American born, but my mother’s side is Dominican and my father’s side is Dominican and Ghanaian. So a lot of my understandings from the world comes from a really Afro Centric, Afro Latinx way of thinking.  Thinking of bodies and existing, and my own process throughout the world has been very straightforward( and all over the place) , or like growing up has been. Then finally identifying as queer and adding it to the bunch of identifiers sort of helps me navigate a really different world.

Then it also stirs the necessity of me being invested in queer POC/black  spaces. So I use she/her/hers but I totally identify with genderqueer and genderfluid. If it was up to me, I would be gender neutral, but because gender is still such a societal construct we play and exist in , I think the hardest part for me is….I’ve been in a variety of queer and non queer spaces and when I would identify as gender nonconformity and use they/them, it never stuck. Like or my own name would never stick.

Noèl is fine. You can use it. Even that was such a hard thing to grasp for others. It’s weird that queer spaces didn’t get it either. So I had to do some deep thinking and ask who I really wanted to identify with? Who am I? I continue to make me but shit, I’m my mom.

I’m her in so many ways. The way we feel love and the way we’ll make food and the way we respect ourselves. So many connections in that kind of feeling. I present myself very...I was born male and parts of me still keep up gender normative features. I have a beard and keep my hair short. Identifying with female pronouns and femininity felt so powerful to me. Like I exist. I wish there wasn’t such a divide between femininity and masculinity. They are social constructs that we feel pressured to abide by. Please call me woman. Please call me she. Please call me her.

I identify with educator. I identify with activists. I identify with artist. Low income. And all these other things that have shaped my way of being in this world.  1st generation.  Child of immigrant parents. Child of incarcerated parents. Child of father who just got deported. All of these things have really put together my identity.

Thank you so much for being so vulnerable and constantly evolving. I know I definitely struggle with that. When we wake up one day and feel like we know who we are, it’s pretty nice.

You mention that you really identify with your mother. What is the relationship with your mother when it comes to your queer identity? How are these conversations brought about?

So when I came out to my mother, I was thrown out of the house. For a day or two I was homeless. My mom didn’t understand. It doesn’t make sense to me. I moved in with my grandma for a little bit. When I came out to all of them, they said, as long as you are yourself still and we don’t have to see the visibility of overt queerness, that’s fine. As long as I wasn’t transitioning or presenting myself as female.

So after that, I told my father and he was super ok about it. He was firm about having unconditional love for me. My father was also incarcerated at the time. He went in when I was 1 so his perception of my existence has been through other people's lenses. The one hour we had together every week or every other week made him really cherish my existence. He knew he couldn’t fully participate in it. You develop whoever you are on your own. So he would send me queer magazine clippings, articles he thought were substantial. He was super supportive of the queer aspect. I haven’t really told him about the gender part because navigating that in Spanish is so complex. Cause gender is so embedded in the existence of Latix culture, and specifically Dominican culture a lot of the machicomism and the overt masculinity is something he’s always participated in.

But he definitely considers himself an educator and an artist and all these other labels. I could have a conversation with him, but I don’t know if he would understand it to the full capacity. That isn’t because I think he’s not intelligent, just transitioning is something he understands very black & white and he wouldn’t be able to disconnect me from  the traditional notions of transitioning. I don’t plan on transitioning in the traditional sense. Transition in other ways but I’m not going to physically alter my body. So that’s with my father.

Now with my mother, a lot of her navigation of the world was influenced by my stepfather growing up. She heavily participated in the gender norms of wife and husband. So whatever the husband said the wife was, she would navigate that too.

She had queer friends too. She is super pro it. She loves talking about sex and talking about sexuality in general. Her queer friends let her have that any way possible.

She was so for it and then I remember there was this moment in middle school where we had a concrete slab we would sit on all the time. She asked me if I was gay.

Ummm. I told her no. I’ll let you know if I am. I didn’t even know what the word was. Can you elaborate on what that means? She just left it there. A couple of years later...my mother also went through a really traumatic experience with my stepfather. Domestic violence. Abuse. Emotional. Spiritual. Economic.

So any other sort of pain she couldn't deal with during that time. Me coming out. It was a burden to her. It felt painful to her. And so when she left my stepfather, it was a whole 180. My mother dated a trans man. My sister also came out as queer. Umm and so my mother was super accepting and wanted to know more and have conversations.

My mom now talks about sucking dick. She’ll ask how many dicks I have sucked today. My mother is very...so the other day I felt a cyst near my butt that I needed to get drained. She told me that's what I get for taking so much dick. If I didn't take so much dick maybe you wouldn't get infections and stuff.

Mom this has nothing to do with taking dick.

My mom is just so pro sex. My sister and her partner will be at the table and she’ll be vocal about them having sex. I heard you guys fucking. I heard you're banging my daughter well.

She has no filter. She is very vocal. I had one friend in middle school who was a little bit quieter. Why the fuck are you so mousy? You are inside the house. I haven’t been rude. I haven’t done anything to you. She’s very blunt and forward and says what's on her mind. She does not know how to hold things in. I love that about her. I picked that up a lot too.

So the other day I got into a weird sex time..some weird shit I get myself into all the time. There was a threesome that happened and the next morning I called to have her pick me up.

Why am I picking you up?

Mom, I just made a mistake. Things didn't go the way I wanted it to. Can you please pick me up?

Can you just tell me what it was? Is it a sex thing?

Yes, I fucked up. it was a bad threesome.

So she came right away just to find out every single detail. In an instant.

She’s a majestic unicorn in so many ways. She is also that Fuck you bitch. Fuck ya fuck fuck fuck.

Cause she has no filter and because she believes she is 15, she is so about it. She doesn’t feel personally attacked  or offended.

The other day she was like, “Oh my god, you’re getting fat you fat bitch.”

She jokes around like this all the time. She knows she is also a plus size woman and thinks about it very positively. We are all plus size. So I turn around and call her a fat bitch too. Don’t call me a fat bitch you fat bitch. That was me telling my mother. She didn’t care. That’s the way our family jokes. We swear. No personal vendetta. It’s just the way we communicate with one another.

So when it comes to sexuality and stuff, she knows I use she/her/hers and I think she knows I feel so much more connected to femininity and stuff but she still calls me son and uses he. I think it is because she feels so connected to when I identify with another gender, again her understanding of gender changing all revolves around physical changes. She’s like, when you fully transition and no longer have a penis and have breasts, then I will call you she/her and proceed to call you my daughter. Queerness in general she is so adaptable and is an advocate. She’ll send me articles and for instance, if we’re in a store and she sees a rainbow, Noel, do you want me to get this for you?

No mommy. I hate rainbows.

Like please don't fall into capitalistic gay stuff. But she is very avid and vocal about me living my life and being happy.

They are a family of magical unicorns

Yes, that is the only way to describe it.

Does creativity and making run in the family? Everything you just told me gave me a lens to look at your work.

I would spend the weekdays with my mother and weekend with my grandmother. My parents were separated but they still wanted me half and half. So my father, growing up he would send me cards with illustrations, really detailed, that he made himself. Which was the very first physical ownership of art and the understanding of what an artist could make.

But the artworld I needed to be a part of was fashion. I thought I was going to be a fashion designer. See models and make shoes. My aunt was also an avid shoe buyer. Two, three, four closets of shoes. Her addiction. So she would dress up and ask about my opinion. Is this cute? Am I doing too much? Not enough? Have arguments about what's tacky. The beginning thoughts of art and creativity. When thinking about art my family really didn't believe that there was money in it. Especially not as a fashion designer.

Then what? I hated sports. Loved school but didn't want it to be a forever thing. So my grandma and mother were the main chefs. We didn’t buy fast food or eat out much. All legitimate Dominican, Puerto Rican, Ghanaian, Soul food. I remember there being a lot of “for the poor” dishes. Soup for the poor. Rice for the poor.

She grew up on the campos, the more rural areas. So understanding for that was meant for survival really meant alot to me.

Seeing my grandma make all these  beautiful fusion dishes, I thought I would do this for myself. It wasn't connected to queerness at the time for me either. I could make all these food but still feel masculine as a 13 year old. I went to tech school for high school where I concentrated on baking/pastry. I loved it. I was really connected to  decorating cakes and striving to be number 1. I would also push myself to say that I would do, I'll make as much as I can so you can see me shine.

When it came to the time of college, my parents thought I would go to culinary school. I applied to Johnson and Wales. I made a portfolio which all of my pastries and cakes. I went the full mile. I was in this program called college visions where they made me apply to all of these school. So Last minute I decided I would wanna go to art school. Mentors like Emmy, there's the place called New Urban Arts for teen and youth urban areas. There was a series of mentors who really helped me navigate my way of thinking. Emmy, Ian Cuzzzins, Julia Gultari, Zachary Clark, Anne Reinhardt, Jorge Vargas, Raul...They were basically a series of Emmys. A whole building of Emmys. All so special and unique in their own ways. Everyone is so open and accepting and great. And I felt so creative in these spaces. I applied to MassArt and got in!

But during the end of my time at New Urban Arts I found out so much more about systemic racism and racial identity. I honestly don't even remember how I go access to this information but I did. Woke baby.

So that moment I was diving into intersectionality and black feminism and noticing the world is fucked up in so many ways. When I went to college it was such a culture shock. Shit. I was not ready for this. I thought it would be 1,001 Emmys and they’re all gonna be super sweet. I'm gonna be best friends with everybody, because I’m great, they’re great, we’ll just be great together. It’s gonna be poppin’. I was also going to a public art school so an abundance of POCs, it’s more affordable. I got in with a good financial aid packet and I thought it would be super dope. I would find my shit there.

I hated fashion. I hated MassArt. I hated everything. So many things were brought to light. Realizing all of my mentors are white. I have so much love for My mentors but also thinking about these spaces. So heartwarming and genuine and thinking about how we navigate spaces, but none of them were black, brown, or POCs. The one or two who were there were super white washed. Shit. I have all these emotions and thoughts and existing in the world. And how I’m existing in the world. I go to Emmy and go WTF! All these things exist. I approach other mentors. A couple Jorge and Raul my college mentors.

Queer power couple that I felt so inspired by. This is what I wanna be. So I go to these people and ask what to do. They had no answers for me sometimes. You have to figure things out on your own. I took time to figure out what it means to be an Afro Latinx person in the world. And what it means to make work, the privilege of being an artist and existing in academia. I found myself resonating with fibers.

One professor during my sophomore year, after getting out of a Black Artist Union meeting. Her name was Judith Leeman came up and asked, “What happened?”

She saw on my face that I was unhappy and asked why I didn't go into fibers

I had just finished my first semester of fashion. Feeling super defeated because I wasn't good enough and I couldn't express my thoughts in clothing. I didn't really understand fibers. I just knew I was feeling really black. I’m feeling really poor. Uneducated. Latinx. I thought I was living a pretty good life but there were so many things I didn’t know. I have such a beautiful culture and the world doesn’t reflect that. Shit. How the fuck are you going to colonize everything and not have seasoning? How do you colonize all these black and brown spaces and not have any black and brown culture. Nonsensical appropriation.

After dumping all of my emotions on her and again just really feeling that I didn't belong. She suggested that I should switch into fibers. Letting me know that the department at a lot of growing to do but she gave me that I gonna be there to help and protect you look. She is an older white woman but a trustworthy queer white woman who offered allyship. A day later I told my advisor that I was leaving the department and switching into fibers.  

When I arrived I felt the same but more hopeful. I hated everyone's work and all of my department mates. But the relationship that I had with Judith made it worth it. She would help me find these amazing artist such as Kara walker, David Hammons, and El Anatsui. Just people that I could be. If I wanna be one of these individuals I could be. She would stretch herself to help more than anyone ever didn't in the fashion department.

So I move forward with the classes I have with an open heart. Even though I still really don't understand fibers. So I take Weaving 101 and Embroidery and Bookmaking and all these intro classes.

When I first started making, I thought of it in a fashion oriented way. I would make fabric then clothes. That was dead. Fucking hated it. The conversation I really wanted was my existence, the truth of Black/POC individual.. How do I navigate being an artist? Artist of Color? Queer artist. Without exploiting us as well. At first I thought I had to show Black pain like a Black baby crying and people would feel sad. No that’s been seen. Overdone. Constant.

So my first critique I presented all this work. The way MassArt works is there are 5 artist panelists, it’s 1.5 hrs and they ask questions, you ask, give feedback.

They were all about it. It’s all great.

What? Why do you think so highly of me? It’s shit. The worst thing I’ve ever made. Like yeah, I can totally see the queerness that comes through. How it connects to theatre.

Wow that was so far from what I wanted to represent. You obviously don't know what I need. So with that being said I really pushed Judith to let me decide who was on my panel and to bring more color. I need people of color on the panel. Even if it’s not the whole panel, at least one or two  who would solidify my experience but also push me in a way that would help me understand why I’m doing this. There was push back a first. I know I know. I'm really bossy and I want what I want. This was me channeling my mother. But as Judith is the person she is, it was all part of a bigger plan. She wanted to bring it to a department meeting a see what the other professors had to say. Are they going to be like no this is foolish or are they going to reflect on the lack of diversity and bring color in.

Of course she got them to reflect and next thing you know we had people like Tomashi Jackson and Kenneth Bailey come thru

I had one of them each semester critique my work and they gave me the same feedback that year. Your work is great. Beautiful. But you need to push further, the formalities are still rough around the edges. (I still don’t know what the fuck that means)

A big part of it was you keep trying to represent and beg for sympathy. You're trying to place the blame. You’re doing the opposite.

I was really trying to think about trans and the female bodies, and this fear of my family and other women being murdered.

Tomashi of course called out everything that needed to be fix, while saying a huge list of artist I should be looking at and educating me at the same time. She is such a force to be reckoned with… I little scary. But with so much love, so much care, and so much want for me to grow.

I had my artistic awakening after she tore me a new asshole. You really need to hone in. You need to understand what you’re talking about too.

Ok, how do I represent this without having a physical body or photography? Doing it as powerful as I can with fibers and fabric and materials I’m connected to. That started my artistic journey. The clock has a representation. The minute behind the clock has a representation. Maybe not everyone will get it, but you’re not trying to have everybody understand. You're trying to get people to feel things behind the work. That’s when I started to become the artist I am today.

Oh my goodness, thank you for opening up about the creative palace. Praise the panelists who tore up another asshole. I love the story about the white panelists.

I know that’s going to happen again in grad school.

What materials are you currently drawn to, and have you figured out the reasons why?

Right now I’m into used fabric. Used bedsheets have been really interesting for me. Second hand store, thrown away, miscellaneous objects. Dresses my sister used to wear. Things that have been lived in and have a story.

There is one project I did, the stereotypical someone broke up with me and I did a piece on it. It was my first queer love ya know, and I thought he was going to be THE one. Haha. I was really invested in this narrative I didn’t have access to. I wanted to cherish it. In my mind it was going perfectly but then he broke up with me.

It was the most tragic breakup. I was bawling and in tears, and then we have sex. And then we start dancing to a breakup playlist he made. Then he leaves and I call him everyday because I miss him. I attempt suicide and it was just a lot. Like a divorce with a husband. I was depressed for a good month and a half (after 2 years I family feel over him)

It was winter vacation so I had a month to just wallow. Lay in bed, pee, and drink juice, and go back to bed. I was so overtly heartbroken. He wasn’t even great. A dick person. But literally a pain I never felt. I’ve felt many pains before but yeah. I had the bedsheets and would smell him every time I went back to my room. A t-shirt that smelled like him. I needed so much affection. I was tired of loving myself, constantly picking myself up. I view myself as a caretaker in many ways. If a friend needs a shoulder, they can let all their sadness out on me. I’ll cook for you. I felt myself feeling drained. I was giving all this love and excessiveness and wasn’t getting this in return. A partner will give you all this love, be there for you, and analyze things with you. He wasn’t that. He didn’t do what a partner should do. Why am I wallowing over this? I felt so alone, I blame daddy issues.

I just gave him so much love. I started doing work with it. The bedsheets still had the cumstains and my disgusting body that didn’t shower for like a month. It just had all these stains and pains I connected with it. I’m gonna create a piece and finish it. Till I finally get over him, I’ll manipulate the fabric in many ways. In the span of a year to two years, I did 4 variations of it.

The first two were the beginning trials and existences of it. A very simple clothe itself on the bed. I’m really into stiffening fabric, letting it move on its own. Falling. Flowing from a window. The mark of the fabric. I did something really dramatic where I dipped the fabric in red dye and watched the dye slowly creep up, heightening all of the stains. I embroidered it too with my beautiful, gorgeous hair which I cut off. A little face embroidered into the bedsheets. Very simple variations.

The technique I currently feel attached to is weaving. It is my space. My baby. I’ve been doing a lot of tapestry weavings which allow me to manipulate fabric into fabric. Haha. So my last variation was the piece of the white one draping in the middle. The same bedsheets we had our last and all our moments in. I made a coupling, technically two weavings which are connected in the middle with sheets we never touched. I’m over it. The love I have for him isn’t there anymore. It still hurts, but it’ll never exist again. Maybe it will, who knows?

Yes we’re connected in this weird cycle but we’re moving on. We exist in the same space but no longer together. Or the red weavings you saw on my IG were dresses my sister wore. One of them has ribbons and hair extensions and the other one is just a dress. How old are these bitches?

One of them is 21 and the other one is 19? No 19 and 18. They’re both super physical representations of how all this cultural mixing has developed the identity of Dominican culture. I have one with extremely light skin..Dominicans have words for people depending on hair texture and skin color. If it’s a light skinned person with bad hair, certain term. Dark skinned person with good hair, this term. Etc. My light skin sister has “bad hair”. My dark skin sister has “good hair.” They’ve both navigated the world in such specific ways. My dark skinned sister has always been fetishized for luxurious hair and that made her beautiful enough to be perceived as light skin. So she can maneuver the world with that kind of privilege. My sister with light skin and kinkier hair has always been pressured to have relaxers and extensions so she can exist with the light skin privilege she was born with.

When we were younger, they would be perceived as twins and we’d buy matching outfits for them. So I basically cut up the dresses and made strips of fabrics. One with just the strips of fabric and the other one with ribbon, hair extensions, and the fabric. Both of them navigate the world in respect to their sisters. The one with good hair only had to dress herself and not worry about her hair. The light skinned hair always had a covering, she had to straighten and push forward. So in a lot of ways when they’re side by side, I call them hermana which means sisters in Spanish. Having the clothe stand instead of just the dresses highlights how they’ve maneuvered the world .

Wow. I need to see your art in person! And now I’m wondering, I’ve been asking myself this a lot but what is success for you as an artist? What do you hope to get from the Tyler School of Art?

That is so hard. I just wanna look pretty and make work.

Haha Amen!

Financial success has been something I’ve always stressed about and that my family's struggled with. We grew up really poor. My mother is an undocumented immigrant here in America and my father is incarcerated. We always knew how to get food on the table, but money was always scarce. I am the only one who has been able to go to college and going back for my MFA. There is this notion that because I am the oldest and have been allowed to pursue this education, I will provide one day for my family. So a big part of success for my family has to do with the money.

Can I sustain myself? Can I sustain a body of people? Can I sustain consistency? Having enough money for food, luxuries, and not worry about spending like $300 at the store. As for myself, I have been working a lot with teenagers, specifically HS students who are queer, or POC, or low income. Seeing them navigate the world. Success is also having the ability to give back, so I would like my work to be in beautiful spaces, accessible to large bodies of people, to be in really high end galleries and for people I grew up with and know to be able to see. I would love to have someone buy a piece for 10k but also 10-15$ so low income families can have my work too. I wanna make. They should have beautiful things.

Grad school would also allow me access to a whole new way of thinking and people who will mold me. I’ve had mentors, educators, who really invested time into my growth. My existence in the world. I have had teachers who stay after school with me so I can understand my problems. Resumes. Transcripts. AP Calculus. Spend time with me drawing. An abundance of people who saw something in me. If you are willing to put the time and energy into this, I am too.

Like Emmy, I met her in high school and we were just happy together. I didn’t know what going to college was. She helped me navigate this. There were so many people who were like YES, we shall continue helping you so you can help others as well. Going to grad school provides the gateway to being a professor. I wanna teach. I want conversations. Talk about art. Look at art. Navigate art. I wanna see people fuck up. Make mistakes. Grow. I’ve also had a lot of shitty art professors who let these privileged white students slide. Making bullshit work. I’m gonna call you out!

I was like no, this fucking work is shit. They were jerking off to you because they see some lame abstraction. I wanna be real as fuck. That professor who doesn’t let people slide. I want to be the teacher I was constantly looking for. Being an educator, financial stability, artwork being up and beautifying places, and a huge part of my success is, the reason I really resonate with her is a big part of her existence, is having people to love. If I don’t have people I care and love for, why am I doing this work? I have a community I care for now. I want them to grow. Access to other minds so we can grow together. I also want my own partner, to share that space with an individual. A lot of my success doesn’t mean anything unless I have someone to love.

But also, one superficial thing I wanna add is I wanna look good while doing all of this. I love fashion and will always love fashion.

Lemme tell you this, you are beautiful inside and out. The time that you’re making for me is teaching me a lot.

What is one question you wish people asked you more often?

I’m gonna give you two. I love, love questions like this. A really big thing for me is I’m projecting a certain thing to you. So if I’m giving you all this love and grace, I want that back too. I would like to feel great too. A big question, how are you? I wish people asked not like how’s work or your day.

Are you alive? Are you existing? How are you existing? Elaborate.

Do you need anything? I'm not afraid of asking for things. That is the beautiful thing about growing up in poverty and a big community, I got really accustomed to asking for things. At home I didn’t because of the age dynamics, but because we were put into a lot of collective spaces in the community, I always have to ask. I don’t mind because I know how to do it really well. It’s all about sanity. Check in on me. I feel like everyone, I’m an open book. I will let you know anything. I’m not scared. Ask me so I can tell you about this shit.

I love that. My mind also went back to the fact that your past lover made a breakup playlist?

I can’t even..it was Corinne Bailey Rae.

1st or 2nd album? Maybe a mix of both?

I love her, but now I can’t listen to her without going back to that time. 1, thank you for that playlist? And 2 you fucked up an artist for me. Shit you made it worse.

So I’m guessing you didn’t listen to her most recent album?

No, I did! Fucking phenomenal.

LOVE it. Just not her old stuff as often.

Do you have a favorite drag queen?

OMG I love it. Obviously Ru. Number one. There are so many drag queens who give me life. Top, top, top one...shit. Am I being real about this?

This is a discussion. I’m gonna go with Latrice Royale. She was everything I wanted. She was hood. Person of Color. Plus size. And fierce as fuck. She was essential, super Yes. This is my bitch.

Hmmm. Katya, Alaska, Brolaska. Fucking love Alaska. Fucking shit. Love them. Bob the Drag Queen is also AMAZING. All of these drag queens are so freaking cool. The one who has my heart right now is Valentina. I personally think she is a genius...people say she is ditzy which she kind of is, but her positive energy is magic.

And she has only been doing drag for ten months?

Yasss!! Fucking slay.

And Latinx queen!!!

Where have you been my whole life? I can talk to you for hours.

All your emojis you sent me were so great. I didn’t know how to reply. Do I use love emojis too? I don’t wanna look desperate, but I wanna be cool too.

I love you already and I have to come visit you.

It’s gonna be a thing.

I don’t wanna end, but I always close with the same question. What advice do you have for the younger QTPOC generation and younger self?

I have a couple of things. The big thing is, something that always bothered me about school, high academia, and proper super language, a big thing I always felt was there is a lot of fakeness. Just be real. Be super fierce. Be super confident. Fucking real. I can’t stand a fake bitch. If you’re gonna be fake, put it out there and claim it. Don’t be fake. Or fake and know it.

Allow yourself to have depression. Self doubt. Feel all of your emotions. Because I have such access to my femininity, I’ve had access to my emotions. I really know what I’m feeling in the moment and know how to navigate my emotional system. I know myself really well. Analyze who you are and how you're feeling about things. If your body is telling you you're off, you're off.

Don’t overanalyze either. Do everything and nothing at the same time. Give yourself space to do polar opposites, to find the middle ground. I hate when people say everything gets better. That's not the reality for everyone. Exist in your truth. Love that existence. If it doesn’t get better, you are the individual that will be there.

Preach! You need your own church!

Real ass bitch. Fake ass world. #HouseofKenzo

Yasssssss!!!!!