♪♪♪ Sage Alucero Juarez: There's a lot working against the process of life right now, of honoring people who are just trying to live their lives well.

Arpita Panta: I really wanted to be able to do something greater with our art to make such a far reaching impact on these areas that are going through either war or just like natural disasters.

Savannah Burke: My art is my voice.

That's how I express my emotions and how I show others that it's okay to express those same emotions.

Grayson Johansen: And that reading poetry, and I'm always like, "Yes, you've finally broken the barrier of not speaking your truth and you're doing it."

speaker: The flow of our heart.

Olivia Gibson: Telling a story, an emotional problem that I have come across and how I try to overcome that using art.

♪♪♪ ♪♪♪ ♪♪♪ ♪♪♪ Sage: Early on my family supported my creative work.

I feel like they did notice that making things brought me joy and I would kind of be creative with what we had around the house like using scraps to build things.

And so, they always encouraged me to engage with my imagination, and I do believe that some of that childlike wonder that I cultivated back then still comes across in my work today.

My name is Sage Alucero Juarez and I grew up in Southern California and I'm now based in Humboldt County.

So, some of my inspiration definitely came from my family.

My dad works as a handyman and he was always like building and transforming things and working with tools that are--were just intriguing to me as a young person.

And along with that, my mom was always caring for her garden, growing her roses, and I think that really instilled in me an appreciation for building things and also being with beauty and being patient with beauty and taking in those quiet moments.

Even though I grew up somewhere with not a lot of nature at all, I had that small pocket of nature and closeness with my mom.

As far as techniques that I use in my art, I would say that drawing is always the basis of where I start from.

And then from there, the work kind of tells me like do I wanna be a painting?

Do I want to be a print?

I definitely work across media.

So, I do digital art, photography, poetry as well, and yeah.

I feel like similar to the way that I approach gender where there's not these static categories, I think within art too it can be fluid and that can be a really energizing process.

So, not feeling bound by any specific media but experimenting and actually it's something that I wanna do more of.

I think I can push it further.

I feel like I've been focusing on watercolor right now because it's very accessible to me.

I don't really have access to a studio space right now.

So, if I had a studio, I would definitely have like supplies everywhere and just kind of running back and forth between like I'm gonna use clay now and here's some fabric and maybe I can paint on it and, you know, what comes next.

So, yeah, I think it's in hopefully the near future that I can push things a little further and experiment more.

Some of the major themes in my work are, you know, advocating for queer lives and nature, but also connecting back to Mexico and my roots there.

My art is also crucial for my mental health.

Making sketches and writing poems helps me metabolize difficult emotions and feel relief through the process of creating something.

It helps me make sense of who I am in a context where I didn't have queer elders to turn to.

I focus on earth and nature within my work because it's sacred.

I feel like it fills me up, it fills up my cup with joy.

And at the same time, you know, we're seeing so much environmental destruction and prioritizing development and extraction rather than seeing that we are very blessed, especially in California, we have such a diversity of plants and trees and just biodiversity in general is something that we should protect.

So, in my work, I am hoping to instill appreciation for nature and to contribute to the environmental actions that need to take place.

So, you know, some people contribute with science or political advocacy, and I would say my artwork, you know, falls into political advocacy.

I think beauty, joy, and having that kind of spiritual connection with land is also a really important part of shifting the culture toward honoring life rather than just damaging it for profit.

It might not be clear from the visual sometimes that my work is coming from a queer place, but I do think that as a trans person, as a queer person, it's always within my work.

So, even if I'm making something about a tree, like, it's still--like I am trans and my identity has been politicized.

So, my experience is part of whatever painting that I'm making.

But within that also I am just hoping to advocate for queer lives.

We're definitely unjustly scrutinized for just following our hearts and being ourselves.

Sage: Yeah, this one is called "Earth Animated."

It was one of my first oil paintings back in 2019 and it was really fun to like work on such a large scale, and then we all got to present our work to the class, so that was very sweet.

Tonia Brito-Bersi: I see myself reflected in your art, and I think that's because you really speak to queer people.

I feel like I belong when I see your art, and it does make me hopeful.

It makes me feel like, you know, I don't have to feel shame about who I am.

I can just be myself.

Sage: Like, even though it's like a skeleton and oftentimes we think of like skeleton like death, meaning death, but this one is like this is a person who is like fully alive, you're just seeing through to them on like a skeletal level and then they're just like surrounded by their aura, and yeah.

Like being intertwined with the vines and having that like divine starlight, which is actually how I see it, is like the starlight is charging the aura or like, you know, spreading the light that way.

Sage: One of the things that I've noticed is that a lot of people that oppose our existence say that it is unnatural to be queer, and I really refute that.

I think it is the most natural thing to follow your heart and love who you love and do what you can to discover how you can feel best in your body.

My art and creating art has definitely been a vehicle for me to connect with my culture.

Both of my parents came to the US from Mexico and, unfortunately, I actually didn't grow up with a lot of the traditions of Mexican culture.

I feel like as I've gotten older I've wanted that more and more.

Looking back, I do see where I'm like, oh, you know, my mom has her remedios and my grandma, there's like certain things that still shine through even when, you know, you're living in a totally different context.

And there's such a rich history of Mesoamerican art and culture, and unfortunately a lot of it has been taken from us and was destroyed right away at the point of contact with the colonizers.

There are still things that we can learn about and people that we can learn directly from.

Things like reciprocity with the lands and acknowledging that we are not the only beings here, there's wildlife, there's more than human energies that exist that we need to honor because we have been harming them as well as we harm the environment.

It's been a process for me to learn more about my culture and to honor it through my art.

Sage: And then we have this book.

This was like a printmaking project.

All of them are from the laser printer and then they're each multi-layered with what's called a monoprint underneath.

And a monoprint, to make those I had like a plastic plate, and I basically like painted with the ink in the spots that I knew would show through once I printed on top with the actual block.

Tonia: Oh, so the--this area?

Sage: Yeah.

And this was also connected to the "I Am the Seed of Something Beautiful."

So, all of the poem that's in this and then the visual art that's in it, it all came from sketches that I made during those first three months of the pandemic back in 2020.

Sage: When I'm fully in the process of making a piece of art, I feel like I am processing emotions, like recent events or, you know, have I been feeling joyful, have I been feeling down.

So, regardless of the content of the piece, I feel like it is therapeutic, like it's very reflective.

I also am thinking a lot.

I can get like hyper focused on what's in front of me, and if I didn't have to be interrupted by daily life, like I could definitely just make art for like 24 hours continuously.

So, it's a very immersive process, and it's always an experiment of like how is this color gonna play with that color?

And either satisfaction comes when I see like, "Oh yeah, that works well together and that's how I want it to look," or I'm like, "Okay, that's troubling.

Like, that didn't turn out how I wanted it to."

And I feel like painting in particular is like just a problem solving process.

So, you do one thing and it works for this reason, but it also kind of raises another question of like what's gonna happen next.

So, you just have to continue problem solving through the process.

Sage: Doing that kind of work-- Sage: And there are definitely emotions that come after the creation process, and I think a lot of that actually comes from the reaction that I get to see from people when they see it.

Tonia: This one is one of my favorites.

I've seen it come alive.

Tonia: I love Sage's art.

I think that whenever we're together we get to be our full selves, and I love them.

Sage: When I was painting it, I had the perfect reference for the hand.

I just got to hold up my one hand, yeah, and then paint with the other one.

And the story of it is kind of about the healing that can come from being in a ritual with mushrooms and the way that you don't need to experience that all the time.

It's like once you experience it once it's--it changes you.

Like it is a part of you after that.

You can never unfeel that expansiveness.

It can, you know, hide away sometimes, but like you can intentionally go back to those moments and feel what it felt like to be so connected with the land.

And for me, it was so joyful.

It was--my first time it was the most joy I think I had ever felt as an adult and just really helped me tune in with like my inner child and playfulness and giving myself permission to be.

People have surprised me with pointing out things that I would never notice or I didn't interpret it that way originally, but yeah, that's part of the piece.

So, I think that's where it gets to kind of live on and take on different meanings and then it changes for me too.

Whatever idea I had at the beginning is now going, you know, an endless possibilities of what people experience it as.

And in the future, I would love to make my art more explicitly political.

I focus a lot on the beauty of things which, you know, everything is politicized.

So, beauty is politicized as well, but I definitely want to include more clear messages of what I believe in.

There's a lot working against, I would say like, the process of life right now, of honoring people who are just trying to live their lives well.

Arpita: Let me see, pull it a little bit like more like that, so it's not too loose.

Now to make a chain, you just keep repeating that same thing.

So, you yarn, you put the hook under the yarn and you yarn over and you pull.

Oh my God.

Arpita: I first got into crocheting in 10th grade, and it wasn't really something that I really saw around the school.

I wasn't really talented at other types of art.

I got into the fiber arts, and I was in Miss KG's art class when I met Julia, and from that I kind of taught her how to crochet and then I taught my other friends how to crochet and then we decided like let's start a club to be able to socialize and make like a greater impact through our crochet.

Arpita: Try to pull a little bit more up with your finger, make it a little bit more tight so you don't have too much space.

Oh yeah, you're like a natural.

Arpita: My name is Arpita Panta, and I am the president of the Fiber Arts Club and I'm a senior at Arcata High School.

Julia Oberlander: And I'm Julia Oberlander.

I'm the vice president of the Fiber Arts Club and I'm also a senior at Arcata High.

Arpita: So, for now, I'm just teaching him single and after the first round I'm gonna go into the other thing.

Kayla Gaskill: Wow, you really know yourself.

I am so glad that you're taking this opportunity.

Kayla: I feel really grateful to be working with these students.

I got to have Arpita and Julia in my Art 1 class, and they wanted to start up a couple clubs on campus so we worked together over the next year and a half to figure out the school politics in starting a club and what their mission was, to raise money for humanitarian purposes, but also to spread the good word of fiber fun and just provide more outlets for creativity in kind of a casual setting.

And there are so many creative students on this campus so it's really nice to nurture this like kind and easygoing space for students to explore their interests, build bonds, and work for a greater purpose.

Julia: When Arpita was doing it, I thought it was so cool, and she taught me, which was a lot of fun.

And it just felt like such a great idea to start this club in our school because there hadn't really been something like this.

Arpita: So there wasn't really a foundation that we could start on, but also not only did I want a space for like socializing, I really wanted to be able to do something greater with our art.

I'm from Nepal.

Like my parents are from Nepal, and they have a lot of earthquakes there and a lot of natural disasters.

And I remember in second grade there was like a really devastating earthquake in like 2015.

And from that I had made these little cardboard boxes and I had set them up around my elementary school and I recorded a little presentation to give to the school that they played on the school news.

And to do that, I like raised I think $1000 to send back home to like the organizations that do--like help with earthquake relief.

And from that--I think that gave me like personally the foundation to start doing that in my future.

So, when I found out about Doctors Without Borders and like what impactful like organization they are, I was like, "Yeah, that like really aligns with my beliefs," and it really--that's like one of the biggest inspirations behind this club.

And they give a lot of medical aid to areas in humanitarian crisis, and I thought that was really interesting and I thought that if we could get yarn for the club, that we as a group could create things to sell in order to support these people in different communities as well as our own.

Julia: For myself, learning about Doctors Without Borders has actually inspired me a lot.

I wanna go into engineering, so this opened my eyes to Engineering Without Borders.

So, I think it's been a great charity to choose and it's something that everyone really connects with.

Julia: If it's not fully in that like-- Julia: The school day is such like a hectic academic day, and it's been great to create a welcoming space where students can be creative and work with their hands and make friends during the school day.

So, I think that's a really good purpose of the club and why we started too.

Arpita: I originally thought of the idea like mid sophomore year, but it was kind of hard to get started since I needed to get enough people to actually be on board and for officers.

So, it took from the end of sophomore year to the beginning of junior year, and we had our first sale in December of 11th grade.

We need about I think $215 for first sale?

Julia: I think so, yeah.

Kayla: These students really know how to take initiative and they're independent in their tasks, and I am just here to support them as they are going on these endeavors and connecting with students.

So, I just provide some guidance and they're the ones that take the lead.

I feel very proud of their efforts and the difference that they're making for our local community, but also for communities beyond by engaging in civics.

Kayla: I feel like it's gonna turn into like a little lemon stuffed animal.

Arpita: Since we live in such a rural area, it's really hard to connect with bigger communities.

So, I really like the ability of being able to connect with such a global organization to make such a far reaching impact on these areas that are going through either war or just like natural disasters and things like that.

And, yeah, I think it's really great that we can all come together for such a common cause and work together to, you know, make a great impact on that.

We have a social media for our club, and although it's still a little small on the school level, we've made a few like advertisements right before our sales, and that's always gotten a lot of attention.

And we've had a few people who came to like our sales, like there was a school sanctioned one called the Artisan Fair and a lot of people come like and say, "I saw your video on your story.

That was really funny."

Like they always ended up like at least talking to us or maybe buying something.

And also when we do have sales at the Co-op, since that's such a like larger demographic of people and not just students, we get a lot of people saying like, "I'm really interested in what you guys are doing.

Like we also really love Doctors Without Borders."

So, it's a really great way to connect with people that you wouldn't otherwise connect with at school.

Yeah, I think it's really nice to make such a community even outside school time, yeah.

Julia: When we're in the community, we find that we connect with a lot of different people.

Arpita: Yeah, I agree, it's really empowering.

Like when we first started we were kind of discouraged because we had heard a lot about these sales and we didn't make as much as we hoped, but we've had about four sales so far and we've made around $800 if not more.

And we're really hoping to have at least one or two more like big sales by the end of the year and hopefully hit the $1000 mark, and all that would be going towards Doctors Without Borders.

Julia: We've gained a lot of skills from this, not just skills of knitting and crocheting, but of leadership and business and networking.

I think that's been really wonderful and I really hope that after we graduate, other students will continue this club because I think it's been a really great addition to the school and it'd be great to see it keep going.

Arpita: I know a few of our members we do have some underclassmen so hopefully we can pass the torch and it's--it'll be nice to see how, like from far, how it grows.

And if they need help like we can always be--keep in touch.

But also going--when we're in college, that I know there's a lot of colleges with Doctors Without Borders student chapters.

So, I've been really looking forward to getting into that when I'm at school and maybe recreating another version of Fiber Arts Club to continue this impact into like my older years.

Kayla: I'm going to miss these students when they graduate.

A good chunk of them are seniors, but--and I really hope that we're able to foster this group and keep continuing on this path for the next students that come in.

Kayla: I have tons of it though if you need.

Arpita: From the high school level being able to make such a big impact is not generally something you see a lot of the time, like it's kind of hard to start a club from nothing.

And I'm really happy that we were able to like get people that are so enthusiastic of--like all our members always help, come to our sales, they always contribute in some way.

So, I think it's really nice having such a community to work together.

Kelly Troyna: How she relates to the scream.

That one's a lot of people's favorite.

Savannah: I would describe my art as surrealism and very not realistic.

It's very cartoon style, it's dark.

I draw a lot of faces and emotions and I try to capture the emotions that I'm feeling at that time in my art and to invoke emotions in others and so they can see that.

Mostly anger, sadness, grief, pain, because they're the strongest emotions and they're easiest to capture in the artwork.

And honestly, they help my creativity honestly because a lot of the time when I do my artwork, I'm feeling those emotions.

Savannah: Hi, I'm Savannah Burke, and I'm a senior and I go to Sunset in Crescent City, California.

Kelly: I remember the first day that Savannah Burke walked through Sunset's doors.

And I think about who she is today, and the difference is that she is so much more comfortable with her amazing self.

Savannah: I've been doing the same style art for years.

I started doing art when I was like one actually, and art has always been in my life because of my parents both do art as well.

And my mom is a great art teacher.

My art has developed over time.

A lot of my drawings start with like an eye, and then they go from there.

And I never really know where they're going.

I currently am using a lot of acrylic and oil paint and I also use watercolor, colored pencils.

I like to use ballpoint pens and I also just like to sketch because it helps me get my ideas out.

I make jewelry.

I've been painting lamp shades.

I've done furniture.

I do canvas.

I definitely started with drawing on paper when I was little.

I have a drawing of mine from 2007, which is pretty cool.

Art has always been in my life.

It's actually one of my favorite pieces.

It's the only piece I keep up.

I ran out of black paint on the back.

Kelly: And it makes it so incredible because it's a heart and it's so real.

Savannah: I started with lamp shades and painting lampshades when I had a white lampshade from my garage with this big oil stain on it, and I decided to paint over it, and it became something new.

My inspirations when I was younger were always animals, and I love drawing animals because I have a large passion for animals, and I often was drawn to drawing their faces, and that led into drawing human faces, which are difficult, and I like to challenge myself.

My inspirations now are the things going on in my life like school and the emotions that we deal with as teenagers.

Kelly: She accepts herself and all of the amazing parts that contribute to her incredible self.

And when she does that and then expresses herself in her art, it's profound, and people notice, and they feel their feelings when they look at her art.

And in doing so, she allows them to accept themselves a little more.

Savannah: There's a lot of women in my art, which is a lot about like how women are viewed and the expectations.

I like to think about my art and helping others mentally because there's a lot of emotions that aren't seen.

And a lot of the time, bringing things to the surface and giving people a voice helps.

And my art is my voice.

That's how I express my emotions and how I help--like how I show others that it's okay to express those same emotions.

Some of my favorite pieces, they may not be my best pieces, but they were the ones that I poured the most emotions into and that I was just dealing with the most at the time.

Like when I first came to Sunset, I was really scared to get on the bus.

I drew this piece of all these monsters sitting on the bus with me.

But I know that's a feeling that other people felt the same way, and I think that that's really helpful for like everyone to see that it's not just them.

My art has helped me express a lot of emotions that I've needed to express over time, and some people have cried when they saw my art and they relate to my art, and that's the main goal is to have relatable art and art that can cause like an emotional expression or like cause emotion and really see how that affects people and understand that you're not the only one going through what you're going through right now.

If anything, I hope to inspire others and I hope to continue in my art.

Kelly: Be respectful of others's time.

These are our commitments to you.

Grayson: Inspired by the Sacramento Poetry Center.

Grayson: Actually Kelly was the one that told me--she conned me into doing poetry by forcing me--not really--into doing poetry out loud for Del Norte, and I did horribly, but that wasn't the point.

It was just really a stepping stone.

Kelly: I think the first time I mentioned poetry to Grayson, I might have gotten a real dramatic eye roll.

Grayson: Well, I've always been an artist, but I started doing poetry last year.

Grayson: It isn't my job to tell you what to do, but it is my right.

Kelly: Grayson has gone so far beyond what Grayson thought he might with poetry.

Grayson: Protecting the ones who can't defend theirs.

We need to speak.

Grayson: My name is Grayson Johansen.

I go to Sunset High School in Crescent City, California, and I'm currently in grade 12.

My writing style is definitely just like free verse.

Writing definitely did not come naturally for me.

I don't want anyone to think that like I just sat down one day and was like, "Oh wow, I'm a poet."

No, I sat down one day and tried to follow all the rules of poetry because like if you look at poetry, there are lots of rules, right?

Like when you imagine a poem, you imagine either like rhyming or like you have to have like a certain amount of words and certain amounts of syllables, like you look at that and you're like, "Wow, this is such a killjoy, like, I never wanna write again."

And then I found E.E.

Cummings and I was like, "Wait a second."

Like his writing style is literally just talking, but like he spaces his writing out so it sounds like a poem.

And I was like, "Yeah, wait, I can do that."

So, I sort of like taking what he was doing and like really spacing out the words.

Wait, I can just bend the rules.

I can bend the rules of poetry.

So, now if you like look at my poems, it's literally just a speech in a poetic tone.

Andru Defeye: I love when the homies are like, "Oh man, I'm stressing, I'm stressing."

Grayson: My inspirations then were definitely Andru Defeye.

Andru: My name is Andru Defeye.

I'm the Poet Laureate Emerita of Sacramento, the youngest Poet Laureate in Sacramento history.

Poet, artist, activist, community leader.

Grayson: Kelly told me about him.

She was like, "These are like--when you meet these people, you were going to know that these are your people."

I was like, "What do you mean?"

She was like, "You will see."

So, I was just like really getting myself prepared for like, "Okay, how are these people my people?

What is Kelly meaning?"

Because Kelly has like these weird ways of telling you things without telling you anything, and you really have to figure it out.

So then when I saw them, I was like, "Wow, these people are kind of cringe, not gonna lie.

Like I don't know what Kelly's talking about, these people being my people, these people definitely are not my people.

I want nothing to do with them."

But I listened to Kelly anyway and I came in, and I sat with them, and I was like, "Oh wait.

I guess these people are kind of my people.

I guess I'm also a little cringe."

I was like, "Okay, I see it.

I definitely see it."

And so then, he came back to my school like two days later and I said, "You and I need to collab on something because I can tell that we're like this, okay?

We're going to be doing the same things at some point.

I don't know when that point is, but I see it.

This will open you up to new opportunities that you didn't even know you had."

And he was like, "Okay, little kid.

Whatever."

And then I went to SAC.

We finally connected at lunch and I was like, "How can I do what you're doing?"

And he was like, "You're already doing what I'm doing.

What do you mean?"

I was like, "No.

How do I do what you are doing?"

And he was like, "Well, I don't really know how you can do what I'm doing, but I just talk to people.

I have meetings with people."

So, when I talked to Kelly and I did what I'm doing now, and like that was my inspiration then.

My inspiration now is still Kelly, definitely, and Tey-Met.

Tey-Met-Tret Hostler: You know when you're writing poetry, you're really just opening your whole self from like the depths of your soul, the surface, and just-- In order to write a good poem, you have to be fully comfortable.

Grayson: Tey-Met, she's just so like amazing in what she does.

She does a lot of like story writing poetry.

When she's reading poetry, you can like see it.

You see the poetry.

She's not talking about emotions, she's capturing the emotions, but she's not just like, "Oh when the wind was blowing, it was so cold and everything was so sad."

No, she's like, "My people, they're hurting," and I was like, "Yo, she's also my people."

So, she's definitely one of my biggest inspirations is Tey-Met.

Andru: I met Sunset High School when they came down to the Sacramento Poetry Center a few years ago, got to know some of the kids and build with them.

And then we were asked to come up here last year and got to spend the week in their first poetry week.

And so, you know, we got to have them come down again last year and then we're back up again.

So, we're back and forth with each other.

So, I love Sunset.

Tey-Met-Tret: Wow, this is such a great community we have.

Why can't we take that home and re-expand it back in the community, because it's something the community needs.

Grayson: Like it all started because of the drive home from Sacramento where Tey-Met, one of my best friends, and I were sitting in the backseat listening to Hamilton.

Tey-Met: And having that time beforehand of getting to get to know each other and being comfortable with each other and trusting one another, we're able to write really great poems, and then we got to read them out.

And getting to share that part definitely helped us bond a lot more so.

Grayson: And she was like, "You know, we could really like actually like turn this into something," and I was like, "I mean, we could if we wanted to."

So when I asked Kelly and Kelly never tells me no, so then she was like, "Of course we can start something.

What do you wanna start?"

I was like, "Well, when we went to see their like poetry club, can we do that?"

And Tey-Met was like, "Yeah, that would be great.

Let's just make a space and then see where it goes."

Grayson: Innovation and creativity are encouraged.

Everyone's art and culture is celebrated here.

Andru: So we came to Sunset last year.

Grayson was all in the mix of all of the poetry and just one of the biggest supporters of the poetry and of the poets, the cheering section for every poet, really understood what this poetry was about and the power of the poetry beyond recitation of someone else's words, but the empowerment and community building that the poetry provides.

So, you know that we were locked in immediately and, you know, we've been in touch ever since and continuing to build.

Grayson: So then Kelly helped us find a spot where we are forever now, and I always bring food, and we're constantly getting new people, whether they show up again or not, we always have at least like one or two new people.

And unfortunately it only happens once a month, but it's always a great time that once a month.

Grayson: These are our commitments to you.

Andru: Then I've gotten to watch from a distance as the open mic was built and all of these beautiful things that are going on in the community and just to be able to be their cheerleader from a distance is amazing.

Kelly: Grayson's open mic has been happening on the first Monday of every month since last spring, right when we got back from Sacramento, and has been a constant for many young people in our community.

Sometimes we have returning people, sometimes we have a whole room of new faces.

And the one thing that is very common among them is that they are choosing to come and listen or they are choosing to come and speak, and sometimes both.

And having Grayson empower our young people to find their voices and share them is an absolute joy.

Grayson: It's the Poetry Open Mic for Youth, but it's not just youth.

We just label it towards youth because then kids are more likely to come, but it's for all ages.

We've had people that are like 50 years old just come and listen to these kids just like really just rant in a, quote-unquote, "poetic way."

Sometimes it's like, "Wow, this is not a good poem, but I'm really feeling what this is saying right now, and I'm digging it."

So, it's just a space for youths to come and be like, "I am struggling and I want to see if other people are struggling too."

And usually by like the second or third time that they come, they start reading poetry, and it's just really beautiful thing to like see how these people can come in and they're like--they have their hood on and they don't even wanna like eat food.

They sit in the back and then the second time they like grab a small portion and they're like--they start to like open up.

They like actually talk to me for once, and I'm like, "You should totally read.

Like no.

Like I can hear it already, I can hear your poems.

Like you should just, even if you don't just write them down, like just stand up and talk."

And the next time they have their notes up and they're reading poetry.

Even if it's not their own, they're reading something and I'm always like, "Yes, you've done it.

You've finally broken the barrier of not speaking your truth and you're doing it."

Andru: Right, this is what we're talking about.

Andru: When I meet young people that think outside of the systems, especially outside of the systems that they're currently in, it's incredibly special and it can be really hard for those young people because they face so much resistance thinking outside of the box, right?

So, with Grayson it's absolutely been that experience of like you see how powerful and how big and how much impact they can have, and just here to try and support it, here to remind them how big they are, 10 feet tall at all times.

Grayson: I'm very White, but I use the fact that as a White person, I'm privileged and I can use my voice to help people that aren't privileged.

Grayson: "'La Migra.'

When you hear that, run."

I imagine moms telling their children as they go to school.

My Black, Mexican and Indigenous siblings are terrified because of what your president said.

Do you like living in power?

Do you like knowing families will be torn apart, babies will be thrown to the streets, yet I can't get an abortion?

Teens will die because they can't get the medical help they need.

It isn't my job to tell you what to do, but it is my right.

It is my right to defend my siblings.

It is my right to speak.

This isn't about us losing our rights, it's about protecting the ones who can't defend theirs.

We need to speak.

Grayson: So we talked about how we want to better the community.

Like we're just--we're set on making our community better for not just youth, but older people that are facing like problems.

Like the fact of most of our indigenous culture is not being like actually seen at all.

If you look around, do you like see any Native people like in like anything that these people are doing, like the big picture?

No.

All of the events are put by White men.

They're authorized by White men for White men, not for Native people.

Tey-Met: Especially living in such a intolerant community at times, it's really important to have different minorities or just different likeminded people and people who are accepting.

When you're a poet, you have to be open to new ideas and forming new connections.

That's what it means to be a poet.

So, we really had to--having that basis, connection, we're able to really grow from that and start to bring that ember from Sac back here to Del Norte and try to just really get that fire growing again.

Living in such a both literally and metaphorically cold place and able to bring that fire back into our community and have a safe space to be together.

Tey-Met: Blood, the flow of our heart.

Grayson: And that's really what I wanted to do with my club was be like, "Oh wait, these things are kind of a problem and need to be talked about."

So, my friend, Tey-Met, she's Indigenous, and we like talk about ways that we can help indigenous people be seen other than, you know, on the roadside selling their jewelry.

Andru: You have always been enough.

Andru: When I talked to Grayson about the open mic, we're talking about the joy that this open mic is built in and that that's something that they're trying to build community out of is a joy space.

So, I'm always on the joy hunt.

Grayson: It makes me feel good.

Like every time I do it, I feel like I've like accomplished something.

Even if like say the person reads something and they never shows up again, I'm like, "That person felt comfortable in the space that I have created for other people, not necessarily just myself but for everyone, and they've come into this space and they've felt welcome and like open up enough to be willing to share what they want, literally anything they want."

Like right now, it's just like so surreal to me.

I'm like, "Wait I'm like 17.

I'm like a baby doing these things."

It's awesome.

Claire Voyance: I try to push what people think of as drag because it's such a beautiful art form that people don't really understand.

A lot of my numbers are very demanding, and I have to get into this persona.

I have to become this person because I cannot force myself to do them otherwise.

They're terrifying, but I also try to push the audience and try and not only expand people's ideas of what can be drag, but what can drag give the audience?

An emotional experience.

All of my characters, all of my numbers have emotional stories about real things that happened to me under the guise of metaphor.

They're like poems.

I had to choose between being a woman or being Native, and I chose being a woman.

It's about me being trans and being cut off from my grandfather and my father's side of the family because of the choices that I made, the choices to be myself and to take care of myself.

And that taking care of myself can feel like self harm because people harm you because of it.

It's a really hard concept to explain to people, so I explained it through dance.

Olivia Gibson: I am 17 years old.

I'm a senior in Eureka High School.

I'm about to graduate.

I am an artist and a collector of rare and somewhat lost media.

I am a sculptor.

I work in odd mediums.

I like to upcycle.

I'm a local punk, and I'm also a musician and a drag queen.

♪ Burning building, not going home.

♪♪ Olivia: When I started getting serious was around 10 years old.

My mother started dating a world renowned slam poet, and I had a lot of feelings that I needed to process about being a child of divorce.

And I started writing poetry.

And with the help of that world renowned poet, I became I think a pretty good poet.

I'm now published and I have my mother's now husband, my dad to thank for that.

Susanna Gibson: Olivia is an incredible person to hang out with and be around.

I feel really privileged to be her parent.

Olivia Gibson: With my physical art, my mother taught me how to paint.

Olivia Gibson: I want everyone to give it up for Komboujia.

Olivia Gibson: My drag mom, Komboujia, who's still a local performer here, was massively, massively helpful in doing drag.

I would not have ever tried any art form not based solely on my voice if it had not been for Komboujia.

When I started getting into drag, I started looking at art as an opportunity to rebel and push against walls that I feel like had been put up in art forms.

There's certain ideas about what a poem should be and there's definitely certain ideas of what a drag number should be, so my influences started to become more about how to defy the people that I had followed for the first five or six years of my poetic and artistic life.

Susanna: That's one of what I call like the superpowers of having ADHD is that she actually is so good at so many things.

Olivia Gibson: When it comes to medium, I have no prejudice.

Mostly what I do is drag, poetry, and music.

But I also sew my own clothes, and those are pieces of art to me.

I create battle vests and talismans.

Those are pieces of art to me.

I'm a jeweler.

Those are pieces of art to me.

I create custom action figures by myself, paint them and kitbash them from other figures, and that is art to me.

These custom action figures have been really emotional for me to make.

Surprisingly so, I did not expect that when I started doing this, just saw it online and thought it would be fun.

I have realized that there was kind of a part of my, you know, inner child that needed healing, and painting them has been a very cathartic experience for me.

I always am looking for a new medium partially because my brain is a weird little toaster that runs on dopamine, and partially because I think that expanding my skill in different mediums is the best way to come back to my primary three with a new lens.

When I get writer's block with anything, with drag or music or poetry, I take a step back and I say, "All right, I won't write.

I'll do some other thing."

And when I come back, I've been able to give myself a break without giving up on creating.

The existing techniques that I use are mostly things that I've been taught by my predecessors, by my dad and my drag mom, Komboujia, which is just like the basics of the format, right?

I use the chords that I learned when I first started playing guitar.

I use the metaphor structure and rhythm and meter that I learned when I first started writing poetry, and I use the same--a lot of the same drag moves that I learned when I first started doing drag.

I use the same concepts and some of the same moves, but all of the filler, all of the pieces in between, all of the connecting tissue of those art forms, I have done my best to actively move in a direction that I think is underrepresented.

I think that in music, I see very little punk and alternative music that talks about the things that I want to talk about, which are the darkest and most dramatic parts of my life.

In poetry, a lot of times people are less casual than I would like to see.

So a lot of my vocabulary choices in poetry and my meter in poetry is more conversational that moves into like a more slam poetry, more typical slam poetry meter.

Olivia Gibson: My skeleton hands remained frenzied, the full moon pounding and pulsing and smoking.

She asks how I'm doing.

I say, "I'm all right."

I don't mention how I notice every cigarette paled with small fingers and nail polish.

I don't mention how long I waited for people I never invited, how much I hated talking, wanting to rip out my vocal cords and squeeze my body into the right shape, how I counted all those pin pricks and minutes.

Four, leather vests matches, black converse match.

Dead Kennedy's Pin match.

Beating heart, match.

Bleeding lungs, match.

Stick and catch on fire and scream like a woman on fire.

Five, I never see her again.

Six, I will never see you again.

Seven, every cigarette and nip of gin tastes like a dress I do not fit, a palette I do not match, a haircut, cut, cut it all off.

I am wicker and wicked limbs.

I am burning, and all they smell is liquor.

Olivia Gibson: And with drag especially I have tried to innovate as much as possible because when I first started doing drag, I had a very low opinion of my body.

I had just come out of the closet.

I literally started thinking about doing drag and taking steps to do drag like two weeks after I came out as a trans woman, which anybody who is trans knows that that first week that you come out is kind of the low point forever.

It's the moment where your opinion of yourself is so low that there is no other recourse but to come out.

There's nothing you can do.

All other options have been exhausted.

And a lot of what I was seeing in drag was, even in the all ages, part of it was about look at me, look at my body.

My body is great.

Look at my body.

And I couldn't stand the look of the mirror.

So, I had to move in a new direction and I started doing numbers that were much more focused on an emotional story.

I started writing like I was writing a poem.

Susanna: And Oli really feels like the performance is the art piece and will sacrifice the rules to make that art piece statement happen.

♪♪♪ ♪♪♪ Susanna: I mean, every time I watch her on stage, I get chills.

She picks the most amazing songs to do her numbers to, and everything is incredibly layered and well thought out.

♪♪♪ ♪♪♪ ♪♪♪ ♪♪♪ Olivia Gibson: All of my numbers are less about drag in the form of draglesque or trying to show off a look or trying to show off myself.

And it borders on more interpretive dance about telling a story about myself, an emotional problem that I have come across, and how I try to overcome that using art.

A lot of my drag numbers have that emotional aspect and then the other aspect of it is can I actually freak out the audience?

When I'm performing somewhere and somebody comes in off the street because they're looking for a show to go to tonight, I might be the first trans person they've ever seen in their life.

I might legitimately be the first gender nonconforming human being that they have ever seen in the real world.

Because we live in a rural part of the world.

Even if I'm not the first trans person they've seen, I may be the first one that they have a conversation with or that they can connect to.

My job, I think, as a performer and as a political activist, is to put myself forward and put myself out there and try to make connections with people who may believe some things because they've never been told otherwise, make connections with people who exist in a world where bigotry is the default.

And to try and just open their eyes to the idea that there are alternatives, to the idea that I am a person too, that I am a human being with my own internal world, with my own thoughts and feelings.

People don't realize that about trans people.

People don't realize that about queer people.

People barely realize that about their children.

The idea that every other person in the world other than you has an internal monologue, has an internal world, is something that just doesn't come across without having interpersonal relationships, without connecting to other people through conversing face to face, in the same room, at the same time.

And on top of that, I am willing to answer questions.

And I know for a fact that a lot of other trans people aren't 'cause they're tired, which that makes sense.

They have a right to be tired.

But I'm still young and I know a lot about myself.

And I can sit down with people who just don't know what is happening and have these conversations.

Art to me is a resource, an intellectual resource.

I'm trying to give it to people who do not have that resource otherwise.

♪♪♪ ♪♪♪ ♪♪♪