The Sharon Project (Gallery Only)

I’ve written a crafting journal on the making and purpose of this gift for Sharon Needles, but please feel free to peruse just images of the train case from brainstorming phase to finished product.

Brainstorming phase

The leather lid of the tray’s central compartment with lines cut from Peter Weiss’ Marat/Sade

Advanced brainstorming stage

The crafting table

One of the stranger days I’ve spent in my apartment, trying to find household objects that could mimic a beating heart to pump fake blood into a real transfusion needle. I did not succeed, since this is medical equipment designed to keep blood safe and unpolluted; it would not be fooled! So I just painted it red and was satisfied with with outcome.

Baking the labyrinth from Fimo

Creating an acrylic transfer of an antique astrolabe to gloss down onto a Fimo surface

Beginning to play with the interior lighting

The belly of the train case lined in velvet

I layered a short ‘storybook’ over the mirror describing a creation myth featuring Sharon Needles as D.H. Lawrence’s ‘great queen’ exiled from the masculine, monotheistic religions of the desert.

Pages of the storybook section were made with images from astronomy books, acrylic gloss, and tissue paper

Using calligraphy ink and my own experience with the Transit of Venus, I penned a creation myth about how Sharon winning Drag Race synced up with a rare celestial event in 2012 (within 3 weeks of each other)

To be clear, I don’t literally believe in this creation myth! But I felt so enthralled by the synchronicity of the stars with our stars.

Feeling that Sharon had carried forward some of David Bowie’s legacy, I likened her to a ‘creature fair’. I couldn’t bear to glue anything down to the mirror, so I left a translucent blue overlay to represent the mythic way I say her that could be lifted away from her actual identity reflected in the mirror.

I lined the mirror in lights reminiscent of dressing rooms, with a removable astrolabe hung on hooks that could be taken off. The astrolabe was meant to represent how Sharon had helped me navigate through my own traumas and troubles.

In a cameo on Season 8, Sharon said the line “Not really a god, but close enough”, which I thought perfectly described how her career had worked spiritual wonders for me divine or not.

Image taken from Diane Schoemperlen’s “Forms of Devotion”

The first and most troubling box to make, representing how Sharon endured a backlash designed to make her confess to sins she hadn’t committed. I was very inspired by how she agreed to keep learning compassionate sensitivity while remaining true to her subversive satirical art form.

The box commemorating the man who creates the goddess

The box commemorating the goddess created by the artist