“Untitled” – Anonymous

Graphic by: Anonymous

 I am a queer artist who was born and raised in the Rio Grande Valley.

 Art has always been an incredibly important form of self-expression to me. From the edgy, warrior cat sketches of my childhood, to the mature, religious themes of my present, my art has been part of every phase that I have gone through. It is no surprise that when I started experimenting with my identity and realizing who I am, these bits of me found their way into my work.

  However, finding myself was not a linear process. All the labels I swapped through showed up in the versions of characters that I carried with me. My creations have always found a way to reflect who I am as a person and the struggles I have gone through, sometimes by accident. My queerness, for example, has become important to who I am and the values that I hold. It is a theme that shows up in many of my artworks. It is no secret that the Valley, and Texas in general, is a very religious area. A lot of my pieces about my identity tend to touch on the struggles of growing up queer in a very religious environment.

   Many people who grow up here are also not given a chance to discover their own faith. My parents are far from intolerant people, but their faith has always been something they expected me to follow. This made it quite difficult for me to dive into my identity, as I had gotten so used to following the path my parents set out for me. Accepting my queerness was confusing and terrifying, especially knowing that many others in this faith saw it as ‘unnatural’ or wrong. At 13, I realized that  I was actually one of the people I used to laugh at with strangers on the internet. This created a kind of isolation that is hard to put into words. My art also morphed to fit in the whirlwind of emotions I was experiencing. A tool that I used to bring cats and monsters to life became a powerful tool for showing my emotions. When I did not know how to put things into words, I found myself connecting with others like me through art.

   I was also extremely lucky with the people I had as friends. As I started exploring my identity, the people closest to me accepted me with open arms and even looked into their own identities. I did not feel so alone in my struggles or my identity. My art gave me a sense of community.

   Overall, I do not think I could have made it through my low points in life without art. Not only did it give me an outlet for things I could not say out loud, but I also found the most important people in my life through our shared interest in drawing. Without them, I probably would have buried the things I could not accept about myself. If there is anything I can accomplish by sharing my voice, I want it to be to show others like me that they are not alone. Though it may sometimes feel like the world is against people like us, there is a place for us. There is a community for us. We are not on our own.