Suzanne Forbes Archives - Page 45 of 168

My pov at Kays birthday party Jan 9 2020 by Suzanne Forbes

My friend Sadie’s co-parent Kay invited me to his T-Birthday party.

It was my first time at a t-birthday! And I got to see someone get their first testosterone shot too, isn’t that cool? Lots of Berlin queer legends were in effect, that’s Laura Méritt of the PorYes Awards dancing above.

I asked the guy sitting next to me if he knew Kay and was there for the party. No, he said, he was here with his friend to talk to the club about hiring the space, and they decided to have a beer. “This is the third beer…” he said. Everyone in Berlin is wearing berets lately!

I was drawing loose and sketchy, because the light was mostly red light and fog machine.

And I was squished up with the beret guy and his friend on a squishy low couch. My pens kept falling between us and then I had to fish them out from under his butt.

The underground brick vault of a club, Maze, used to be BangBang, and before that it was legendary Queer Berlin homespace Schwuz. Schwuz is now a huge fancy place, but Kay and Sadie remember the basement days 🙂 and I was mistaken for Nina Hagen in the courtyard.*

I was always drawing pretty women, as a teen.

I was inspired by the great illustrators, like Alphonse Mucha and Maxfield Parrish, then by SF artists – by sixteen my bedroom was wallpapered with Boris Vallejo- and then by the comic artists who were known for their “Good Girl Art”, which does not mean art of good girls.

I believe the golfing flapper above dates from Spring 1983, when I had dropped out of Stuyvesant and was taking figure drawing classes at The Art Student’s League of New York, waiting to be old enough to matriculate at Parsons. Before I discovered comics in Fall 1984, I wanted to be a newspaper fashion illustrator, which was a total real job then!

This drawing of a futuristic sex worker, in an imagined 2001, is probably from late 1982 or early 1983.

I can date most of my old drawings pretty well by what I had learned of my craft at that point! This drawing shows the street-hustling sex worker (although I didn’t know that term then) checking in with her boss via a little Bluetooth type headset, and dosing herself with drugs via a push-button in her hand that goes to her arm. Not a judgment!

I was a drug user, and I knew a lot of sex workers who were junkies in my teens, and I thought it would be nice if it was convenient for them. It looks like I designed it to be safe, with a meter to prevent overdoses.

My love for corsets was great from childhood on!

I drew this kinky Hester Prynne from the Scarlet Letter in 1981 or 82, when I was fourteen or fifteen.

A girl in lingerie, probably 1982 or 1983.

I loved lingerie sooo much as a teen. Garters and stockings and merry widows!

This bondage girl is from later 1984.

I think it may have been one of the portfolio drawings I used to get into Parsons – you were supposed to do an illustration from a book and I did The Story of O. Yup, I got into Parsons School of Design with a GED and a bunch of smutty pinups.

This one, from 1986, was probably drawn as a present for my friend Chris Claremont.

Because it’s signed. I didn’t sign most work until the 90s, except when giving it as a gift. Why didn’t I sign my art? Because it wasn’t good enough to meet my own standards yet most of the time. It didn’t look like what I saw in my head yet.

And I was really IN the process of learning to get better, and really just working the process. Some days I still am!

Sexy Robot!

From Fall 1988.

Sexy girl with gun!

Also probably from 1988.

Sexy Space Girl!

Again I’m thinking 1988, based on the delicate Pentel rollerball inking.

I am incredibly grateful to my Patreon Patrons, whose monthly financial support makes it possible for me to take time to document my art archives.

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Suzanne Forbes, a New Yorker thriving in Berlin. Crowdfunded documentary art made possible by the generous support of her Patrons. https://www.patreon.com/SuzanneForbes.

Tag Archives: Suzanne Forbes

First event of 2020 – a private party at Maze for Kay’s T-Birthday!

My friend Sadie’s co-parent Kay invited me to his T-Birthday party.

Here is the birthday boy, in his first outfit!

The MC was lovely Kaey, in the most incredible Space Invaders graphic houndstooth dress.

I saw Ceven perform for the first time since he began his drag journey.

I was drawing loose and sketchy, because the light was mostly red light and fog machine.

This is performer Kay P. Rinha, shaking it tough!

You can join my Patreon Patrons, for as little as a dollar/euro a month, to keep me working and releasing my documentary art of Queer Berlin as Free Art.

For the archives: My teen queer gaze, as expressed in pinups and fetish art.