Episode 65 of Blessed Are the Binary Breakers is up! Listen wherever you get podcasts, or click here for places to listen + the episode transcript.
K Kriesel (they/them or she/her) is not afraid of "messy," with a spiritual life that blends Catholicism and Wicca, and holds space for time adrift.
K has broken away from a variety of groups that proved too limiting to uplift the most marginalized, including any feminism that prioritizes white, cis women. As they search for a spiritual community built with people like them in mind, K serves as a chaplain and creates the kind of queer Catholic art they want to see in the world. You can contact K and view their work at kkriesel.com or @kkrieselart on Instagram or Facebook.
ID is under the alt text, along with more episode quotes and more of K’s art!
[Image ID: all images are squares with a blue fabric background. The first includes a photo of a white person with glasses wearing a green fabric witch’s hat and red or burgundy robes. They hold a statue of a gold-robed Mary whose body turns into a serpent’s tail below the knees. Text reads, “Embracing ‘Messy’ with K Kriesel: Chaplain & Textile Artist. Listen on Blessed Are the Binary Breakers, a multifaith podcast of trans stories.” The next image features a quote from K reading, “I’ve created a lot of queer Catholic artwork because I want it to be in the world, and the best way to do that is just make it.” Photos show a statue of an armored angel with trans flag colored wings and two statues of Jesus with rainbow-colored and trans flagged colored butterfly wings. / end ID]
ID: Photo of a statue of “the Mother,” with coper face and extended hands outside of robes. A quote from K reads, "[In 2009,] I was taking a break from religion and spirituality altogether. I had really wanted my local Wiccan communities to be social justice minded, and they weren't. So I just took a break for a few years. And I was really questioning my gender and I was experimenting a lot, while I was thinking about returning to...spiritual spaces, spiritual study.And it was all messy. The gender was all messy, the spirituality was all messy — and I loved it." / end ID
ID: photo of textile art featuring two embroidered, long-haired figures wearing crowns and holding chalices while embracing one another and gazing fondly into each other’s eyes. A quote from K reads, “As soon as I stopped working for the Roman Catholic Church, I jumped out of the closet. ...And uh, that's actually caused me to break away from spiritual community altogether. Nobody's told me to leave; nobody's been rude — at least not intentionally. It's more...I don't want to diversify. I don't want to be the 'Ladies and gentlemen — and K.' I'm seeking a spiritual community that has been structurally non-gendered from the get-go. And I don't know if that exists." / end ID
ID: Ten statues of Mary draped in various fabric robes, with a quote from K reading, "Whenever I feel the need to have maternal love, I turn to Mother Mary, because she's provided it more than my human mother has. So Marian imagery is a major theme [in my art], because creating art...is a prayer technique for me." / end ID
