#dustyrebel

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Out In The Streets: Dusty Rebel’s Mural To Celebrate Pride During The COVID-19 Pandemic

Process shots of me working on my Pride mural on 2nd Avenue. It’s not an easy time to make art in public, but it was so nice to have so many East Villagers come by and tell me how happy they were to see this go up. Many of the photos featured were taken in the neighborhood.

A few months ago, I was again offered the 2nd Avenue wall for Pride. Like last year, I wanted to bring in a queer artist, but then we got hit with this horrible pandemic, and all our plans fell through. As the weeks went by, the death toll rose, and most Pride events were cancelled, I knew I wanted to celebrate the queer community and our long history of using the street for performance and protest.

Talking with my friend Katherine ‘Luna Park’ Lorimer about what I should do, she suggested I fill the space with my photos. It never occurred to me—I've documented more murals then I can remember, but never done one myself. And with social distancing, I'd have to do it without help from any of the many mural experts I know.

As went through my archive, I got excited to create something that celebrates historic moments I felt honored to capture: NYC Drag March, kiss-ins, Gays Against Guns, Queer Liberation March, The Dyke March. As I pasted these photos of queer icons, mentors, activists, and friends, I felt you all with me out in the streets.

Thank you Steve Stoppert for the wall and all your support, and to City Kitty for sponsoring, my husband Jason for being my amazing assistant!

More photos: Dusty Rebel, Queer Street Art

[thedustyrebel]

Out In The Streets: Dusty Rebel’s Mural To Celebrate Pride During The COVID-19 Pandemic

A few months ago, I was again offered the 2nd Avenue wall for Pride. Like last year, I wanted to bring in a queer artist, but then we got hit with this horrible pandemic, and all our plans fell through. As the weeks went by, the death toll rose, and most Pride events were cancelled, I knew I wanted to celebrate the queer community and our long history of using the street for performance and protest.

Talking with my friend Katherine ‘Luna Park’ Lorimer about what I should do, she suggested I fill the space with my photos. It never occurred to me—I've documented more murals then I can remember, but never done one myself. And with social distancing, I'd have to do it without help from any of the many mural experts I know.

As went through my archive, I got excited to create something that celebrates historic moments I felt honored to capture: NYC Drag March, kiss-ins, Gays Against Guns, Queer Liberation March, The Dyke March. As I pasted these photos of queer icons, mentors, activists, and friends, I felt you all with me out in the streets.

Thank you Steve Stoppert for the wall and all your support, and to City Kitty for sponsoring, my husband Jason for being my amazing assistant!

More photos: Dusty Rebel, Queer Street Art

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Resistance Is Queer x Keep Fighting

I just got back to New York, and I'm so happy to see my Resistance Is Queer  ad takeover featuring activist Sister Lotti Da is still going nearly two months later! This piece is in collaboration with Keep Fighting, and the photo was taken at the 2018 NYC Drag March.

More photos: Dusty Rebel, Queer Street Art, Keep Fighting

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Sip-In 52nd Year Celebration

For the 52nd anniversary of the historic Sip-In, NYC LGBT Historic Sites Project honors Dick Leitsch — one of the four homosexuals who went in search of a drink to challenge discrimination and changed history.

Here's what my pals at LGBT_History wrote about the Sip-In:

In 1960, David Carter explains, the NYPD “began a systematic campaign…to close all gay bars.” While no law specifically prohibited homosexuals from gathering or being served in bars, a post-Prohibition regulation prohibited bars from becoming “disorderly,” and that was interpreted as not allowing bars to serve homosexuals. In an effort to clarify the regulations—and to challenge the attack on queer spaces—members of Mattachine Society New York (MSNY) devised a plan that “revealed the extent to which they modeled their activism on the black civil rights movement…They determined that several members of the Society would enter a bar, announce themselves as homosexuals, and ask to be served. If they were refused service…, they would make a complaint against both the bar and the [state] for violating their constitutional rights to free assembly and equal accommodation.” On April 21, 1966, 52 years ago today, Dick Leitsch, John Timmins, Craig Rodwell, and Randy Wicker tried to put the plan in motion, though it proved difficult.

The targeted bar—which displayed a sign reading, “If You Are Gay, Please Go Away”—seemed an easy choice. Before they arrived, however, the manager learned of the plan and closed for the day. From there, the men went to two bars on 6th Avenue, both of which served them.

Finally, the group went to Julius’, a gay bar at West 10th Street & Waverly Place, where the bartender was willing to serve them until Leitsch convinced him to play along; refusing the group service, he announced, “I think it’s the law.”

The Sip-In, as The New York Times dubbed it, got a great deal of press relative to previous homophile efforts, and MSNY had the ammunition to challenge the unequal application of the “disorderly” regulation.

Julius, Bar, for its part, is still in business; a monthly Mattachine party marks the bar’s monumental role in queer history.

Partying like its 1966!

More photos: LGBT History, LGBT, Gay Rights

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Nobody Knows I’m A Lesbian

First in my series of ad takeovers for NYC Pride. This one features Edie Windsor leading last year's Dyke March. Windsor’s 2013 Supreme Court case struck down DOMA, helping to bring marriage equality to all 50 states (Greenwich Village, NYC)

More photos: Dusty Rebel, Queer Street Art, Street Art, Ad Takeover

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Resistance Is Queer

Part of my series of ad takeovers for NYC Pride, a spinoff from Resistance Is Female: a photo from the 2016 NYC Drag March. Tattooed on his back is a quote—“Hope Will Never Be Silent”—from Harvey Milk, the first openly gay person to be elected to public office in California. Milk was assassinated just under 11 months in office. (Greenwich Village, NYC)

More photos: Dusty Rebel, Queer Street Art, Street Art, Ad Takeover

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Resistance Is Female

My ad takeover for the Resistance Is Female project. East Village, NYC

More photos: Daniel Albanese, Resistance Art, Street Art, Ad Takeover

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Horror Plague

Brooklyn, NY More photos: Halloween