Tag Archives: queer berlin

Bug Stuff! And street art, and one of my very oldest mixed media pieces.

Beetle crown and Suzanne Forbes at Club Gretchen July 16 2022It’s been a while since there’s been any bug stuff!

I didn’t stop loving bugs, as you can see from these pictures!

Iridescent insect crown by Suzanne Forbes July 2022 detailI tried a new material for the first time on this metal crown: chrome/chameleon powder, like you see in fancy gel nail polish. I’ve been wanting to try it for ages, but I’m always skittish about new materials.

So I did a trial run on just a tiny part of the crown – the small brass bugs at the tips of each ray. I did my usual hot water and soap soak of the brass findings, then dried them in the sun and attached them to the metal filigree crown with uv resin.

Sprayed the whole thing black, then added AB Jet crystals, gradient pearls, and iridescent titanium finished cicadas.

Then I rubbed the green/purple chameleon powder on the black-painted brass bugs and varnished them with an acrylic varnish. The brushful of varnish picked up the powder easily, smearing it around, and the duochrome effect was limited. It was obvious that I really needed to use the recommended tacky UV resin base coat and UV resin top coat for the best effect.

So I did, in my next big project – The Purple Queer Wrath Tiger!

Suzanne Forbes photographed at Club Gretchen by fasermacka and gretl.wand July 16 2022I also had a wonderful Bug Art encounter at Club Gretchen, when I went to draw at the Queerberg Presents Festival.

When my taxi pulled up, I saw a crowd of femme and non-binary looking folks gathered around benches in front of the club. They were picnicking and working, with boxes of paste-up art. Some were my age, which I love to see! The group is a paste-up urban art crew* who renews the two large murals every two months. This month, insects were heavily featured! Imagine how happy they were when I walked up in my butterfly dress and scarf and beetle backpack!

@fasermacka and @gretl.wand took the pictures, and I gave them my card and they kindly sent copies soon after!

I also got to meet IRL the wonderful urban enhancer TextileStreetArt, who gave me a piece of tatting lace! How cool to meet this artist I’ve followed online for several years.

Tatting lace by Textile Street Art July 22 2022 with duochrome powderI took the tatting lace home and painted it with UV resin base, rubbed duochrome powder on it, and covered it with clear UV varnish.

It might seem rude to receive a gift of an exquisite handmade piece from someone and immediately transform it. But street art is a dialogue, an act of faith in leaving something to the elements and the street’s uses of things. It’s made to glitch/remix/collab.

Kaey with Tatting lace and paste up art by Textile Street Art at Queerberg Presents Whoriental Festival July 22 2022

Kaey with Tatting lace and paste up art by Textile Street Art at Queerberg Presents Whoriental Festival July 22 2022

I may wear this as a necklace or chest piece, as Kaey does above!

My relationship with lace and street art goes back to my own very beginnings as a graffiti artist.

I had lace doilies all over my West Village bedroom in 1981, and got interested in using them as stencils. Using spraypaint, the effect was remarkably like tie-dying, another thing we did a lot when I was a teenager.

Lace stencil tie dye dinosaur by Suzanne Forbes as Rachel Ketchum 1981The very oldest – I was 14!- of these projects survives, in our hallway in Berlin. I spraypainted the plastic T. Rex skeleton with Krylon Pastel Aqua, a color much loved by graffiti artists, then laid the lace over it and sprayed dark blue.

This was long before the days of plastic-friendly or acrylic spraypaints; it was in the days when I used solvent-based Krylon enamel exclusively of course (and you had to steal it, you couldn’t buy it.) Although I couldn’t afford to buy it now!

Krylon Pastel Aqua Spray PaintSo the unprimed dinosaur skeleton remained a little tacky for the first decade or two, until finally the paint and the plastic and the dust all kind of fused together.

I believe I tried the lace trick in the wild too, but of course there is no documentation. Still, the dino is here. Has always been in every place I’ve lived. I had a wonderful insight about my life today, one that speaks to why I am fairly at peace with a shortened lifespan and physical limits.

I thought, “I have been able to be exactly who I am my entire life, and that is a very rare privilege.”

*About the paste-up wall art at Club Gretchen:

On her post about the installation, Gretl Wand says,
“again 2 beautiful walls were created with a great crew thank you!”
otte von @omasgegenrechts.berlin
bassa
@_ola_art_official
@_ablin_
@iseefernsehturm
@doyouspeakmagick_official
@art.omato
@stickermaidberlin 💋
@textilestreetart
@marlix_art
and thanks for the support of
@tweet_streetart
@mutabel
@mini._mantis._art
@o0_markant_0o
@metraeda
@vividtrash
@rudelbildung
@___ghostcat____

Coming out for the first festival from Queerberg Presents!

Dina and Suryani at Whoriental Festival from Queerberg Presents by Suzanne Forbes July 17 2022I had to go to Queerberg Presents‘ first festival.

It was simply non-negotiable. I had promised Queerberg‘s sweetheart producer, dancer, teacher and performer Prens Emrah that I would make it to one of her outdoor events this year. And a cool snap in Germany while the rest of Europe burns meant an opportunity that might never come again.

Dina doing henna at Whoriental Festival July 16 2022 by Suzanne Forbes sm editedThis is Dina, who does henna art at most Queerberg Presents events.

Her work is exquisite. We had a really nice visit while I sat with her and drew. It’s very hard to get a good scan of these pastel drawings, so the header image shows the drawings as photographed, while this is a scan, above.

Suryani posing at Whoriental Festival July 16 2022 by Suzanne ForbesThis is Suryani, who was so gracious about sitting with me and posing.

She is a graceful dancer and terrific makeup artist. She posed very elegantly and looked marvelous. Swirly skirt!!

Emrah was bustling around as things got started (I arrived at the very beginning of the event), filming the scene and posting it (screenshots of me drawing Dina below!) One of the things I love about her is that he is a wonderful archivist, documenting all the events and sharing them.

After a Queerberg Presents event I always hit the instagram account’s Stories, so I can enjoy some of the action even though I mostly can’t be there.

Emrah always offers to have someone take care of me, he always sees me as both a person and a disabled person.

I knew I would feel safe at this event. I was cared for and seen. There was an awareness team, and whenever I asked someone for help they were there. A crew member walked me to the bathroom for the club’s backyard, but unfortunately it was at the top of three straight flights of stairs, and then apparently more stairs. Those stairs looked like Mount Everest to me.* “Can you keep it?” she asked. “Gonna try and keep it for a while”, I laughed.

KA and Keil Li Divõn at Whoriental Festival from Queerberg Presents by Suzanne Forbes Dec 13 2022I got to meet IRL Keil Li Divõn, who I know online and had drawn IRL at one of the last events I went to in 2020.

Such a treat to draw her again! She is on the right, KA is on left. I asked Keil Li to call me a taxi, as I still don’t own a phone. She called the cab, and then she walked me out to it, made sure I got in it. Listen to her sing here and check out her channel!

Whoriental Festival Dj Baran by Suzanne Forbes March 28 2023Here is the DJ booth with DJ Baran Kok!

You can find Baran here and here.

Here is a list of everything that was scheduled if you would like to be amazed at how much Queer Berlin talent could fit in one venue. Inside the venue, sworker-led panels, bellydance workshops, performances, live music, birthday cake for and stripperformance from beloved muse Chiqui Love, djs, fire-eating from Munetsi aka I-am-Showman, drag shows and more.

And in the sunny, shady backyard, a bazaar with food, music, shops, henna art, a toy raffle from Other Nature Berlin, and tables from beloved Berlin sworker orgs!

The orgs included The Black Sex Workers Collective (@thebswc, website here, twitter here) Trans*Sexworks (@transsexworks, website here, linktree here), Sx Worker Union (@sxworkerunionberlin) and one for org Trans Pride Berlin (@transprideberlin.)

A photo of a colorful collection of t-shirts, zines, stickers and posters from sex worker organizations, with mottos and titles like "trans rent boys", "no cops in our clubs" and "sex workers against fascism".
I got a marvelous haul of solidarity items!

Tabling at an event is exhausting, incredibly hard work. While I support these orgs online with redistribution and sharing, it was really great to actually meet folks doing the work and hand them cash for awesome stuff.

I live in Berlin. I’m well aware that this celebration of BIPOC queer, trans, refugee folx and the sex work many do is vulnerable. Every person I know at this event has suffered so much, and certainly everyone I don’t know too. Virtually no-one is secure in any sense.

I want a world where this event happens every summer, and I also know it’s possible it will never happen again.

So I am doing everything I can to celebrate it and honor the folks involved. I was only there for 2.5 hours, but it meant the world to me, and I’m so grateful to my Patrons, who made it possible.

My Patreon Patrons are the 70 or so folks whose monthly financial support makes it possible for me to continue documenting Berlin performers as a high-risk disabled person.

*I absolutely would have stayed longer if there had been an accessible place to pee. But Europe is not accessible. There is no ADA. (There is the EAA, and in Germany the BITV, but both are really focused on products and services like web access. Europe doesn’t even try with physical building accessibility.)