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okay we’re going to get started hello everyone and welcome to our program the art of drag with boa from canada’s drag race

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my name is michael magnuson i am the new public program and outreach coordinator at the art gallery of alberta

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to start this program i would like to do a land acknowledgement the art gallery of alberta is located in

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edmonton which is on 2d6 territory the traditional lands of diverse indigenous people including

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the cree blackfoot metis nakota su iroquois inuit and ojibwe salto anishinabe

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we acknowledge and extend gratitude to the many first nations and metis and inuit

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whose footsteps have marked these lands for generations and who continue to call this place home today

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this event is part of our public program in recognition of pride month our first program which was a panel

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discussion with three alberta-based artists nasra harley mormon and crt was hosted last thursday

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that video is now on our facebook page if you would like to see it today we are talking about and talking

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to the legendary queen boa from canada’s drag race uh we will discuss the creative side of

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drag and find out what inspires boa when putting a look together bull will also discuss some tips and

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tricks you can use when getting into drag and painting your face i will be monitoring the qna

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so if you have any questions please put them in the q a function and we will answer them at the end

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uh before we get started i want to thank our sponsors our public programs are made possible in

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part through support from the heart and soul fund by epcor and also big thank you to the

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canada council for the arts uh without further delay let’s bring to the stage

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boa hello how are you hi boa how are you doing

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i’m so glad i’m living i’m laughing i’m loving excited to be here okay perfect so

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for people that don’t know who you are can you introduce yourself a little bit

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my name is boa and if you have a television you may know who i am um i was on season one of canada’s drag

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race i came in seventh place and um yes i should have won but

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that is not the topic today [Laughter] yeah definitely you know you definitely

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should have won but you know the topic is a little bit about drag it’s a little about

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creativity and it’s talking about like you know your influences what makes you excited

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in terms of drag in terms of art and so i’m just going to dive right into the questions uh how this is going to

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start i have a couple questions and then we’re going to go through some of your looks and you’re going to be able to you don’t

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know what the pictures i’ve selected you’re going to be able to respond to them and tell me a little bit about these looks

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and then we’re gonna look at a video of you doing your makeup and uh ask you some makeup tips and then

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we’ll end off with some more q a so that’s the face program so i guess to get started uh

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what made you interested in drag in the first place oh god i um i used to go out

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um when i was a bit younger and i remember seeing drag queens at the club performing and i loved them i

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thought they were so amazing they were so fabulous the confidence they had they were just so sickening and i always wanted

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i wanted to do that i wanted to be one and i used to actually have dreams about it about me which now is a nightmare

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i used to have dreams about it and uh then i just decided one day like i wanted to start dabbling in it and then i decided

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to toronto and now we’re here okay cool so what was that uh what was the first time you did drag

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was that like a halloween like most people or you just put on some lip lip gloss one day

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yeah no i started uh playing around with makeup and then a makeup selfie challenge started popping

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up on facebook where men would put makeup on and take a selfie for prostate awareness and then somebody

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even somebody challenged me to do it and i was like well i’m gonna look pretty so i tried i actually felt i followed a

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tutorial from willa and i did it i was like wow i look pretty and

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i just started buying drag yeah yeah well william is very pretty so that’s probably a good

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tutorial to start with yeah yeah so quick question like what does drag mean to you

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like what’s your definition of drag or how does it how does it affect your life

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what does it mean i guess those are two questions sorry what drag means to me um god

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weird question how do i answer that uh like the definition of drag for me is like kind of any any uh

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exploration or expression of gender anything can really be dragged and uh it’s grown so much over the past

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years that it used to be just looked at as like a man dressed as a woman but now it’s like a full spectrum and

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it’s it there’s so there’s like a million types of dragon it’s just it’s growing and never

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evolving and it’s uh such a creative art form yeah definitely yeah i want to talk

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touch base on like the creativity with drake a little bit with you so it is a creative art form it’s like

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you know something that we’re seeing more and more looks that are just like outrageous they could almost be sculptures people are painting

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them their faces in such unique ways so how has your creative style and

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creativity evolved as you become more of an established queen so how have you kind of like took your

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creativity to the next level uh it’s it’s weird because i’m kind of

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considered alternative in my own sense um i do like to do campy or drag like when you like

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what you saw on the show i used to do a lot of really out-of-the-box looks and concepts

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uh i like doing comedy and i i find that now over the last over the last year i’ve i’ve tried to

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fit myself into a mold to be more um what’s the word to be

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more accessible to people okay so i’m not i’m not going too crazy over the box

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anymore um out of the box i mean um especially because it’s online drag and

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we can only do so much but that being said i still i still like to push myself i still like to uh

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um have nice makeup look beautiful and uh just be a funny old me yeah

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definitely okay so let’s uh helen if you can move back the slide to the one that we’re on so

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i’m gonna start this section and it’s gonna get you to talk a little bit about your looks

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and you know it’s kind of if you ever watch that youtube clip where it’s like vogue your life and looks so we have a

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huge range boa has not seen any of these images we’re just gonna get them to react and

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tell the story a little bit about this look so this first look is your promo from canada’s drag race

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and i remember when i saw this on my computer i screamed

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because it was so exciting that you were on and you know what was that moment for you how did you decide that this was

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going to be your promo look so basically the theme was queen of the north

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and they gave us a mood board and uh i wanted to do something different

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because i thought everyone was going to kind of be dressed as the white witch from narnia he read gowns and that’s not everything

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so i said you know what everyone knows canada for hockey why not try to do like a hockey green kind of thing

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and uh it’s funny because this look really there was a lot of obstacles

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with this look uh the person i had originally make it kind of went m.i.a on me a couple days before i left so we had to

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remake it reorder all the fabric and i had to actually sit in my hotel room while on dry grace finishing the outfit

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itself uh so that was really stressful um and that’s why uh there are some questionable

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components about it but i actually re i redid the outfit i upgraded it for the one year anniversary

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of canada’s drag race exactly how i wanted it to be and uh i stand by the look like it’s a great

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concept it’s fun it’s camp it’s me and uh it says my name on it so yeah i love it i thought it was so creative um

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to like use the hockey neck neck as a cape i thought that was just brilliant it’s such a clever

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uh concept and it makes a lot of sense and it really did introduce you to the world like you know as this like fierce

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queen but also like a little bit more of a queen with like some concepts behind her yeah so we’re gonna move on to the

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next look and this look uh was part of a challenge and so this

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is so iconic for me because here you are uh you get this green box

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and then you have to make uh a look very quickly can you explain the challenge and how what was

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your creative process with all this material trying to make this look so okay so i i brought patterns with me um

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i know what shapes look good on me and i brought patterns for a skirt uh in a panty that i would wear but i

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kept forgetting to mirror the fabric and i had a bunch of this green fabric so i kept trying to make the skirt and i

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used like five yards of this fabric like after making a skirt and it still wasn’t made and i finally had one more

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panel i said okay you just gotta do this right and i made the skirt i spent about four hours trying to make

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a wig out of yarn that you didn’t see and um

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i just remember at the end of day one i was like oh what am i gonna do so i i just uh got a corset spray painted it

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let it dry overnight and then when i got back the next day i started ripping things up adding things

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and i just thought to put the breastplate on why not

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just kind of all came together no it was great it was like and the

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judges loved it and i think like audience really loved it because it was so fun and campy and great and and so like

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i guess like just a little bit of info like how much time do you actually have like eight

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hours or is it shorter like it’s not much no okay yeah no it seems

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like all these looks they’re like wow like i couldn’t imagine having to make anything like in that short period

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of time so i always commend people when they can pull off such a such a fun look and this is amazing so

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uh can we look at the next look for boa this is another drag look so this is

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another one that you had to make and so can you explain like you get these materials or what happens with

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this challenge yeah so we got metal this challenge and uh we had to make a garment completely

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out of metal and i i knew the shape i wanted i knew it was something uh something fun and kind of different

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from what i normally do and uh yeah i

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i just started making this this panty and making this um making this the skirt

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and it was difficult because there was no stretch the panties so it kind of looked like a diaper

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okay and i had my bra and i was like we’re just gonna spray paint a bunch of stuff and add it all together and hope it

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looks good and i actually felt really beautiful that runway so yeah yeah it was really amazing how like you know the

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the fabric or the materials that you use really looked great on stage and i think that’s something that you can tell with you is like you’re aware

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of how you look on stage like you’re you’re making big shapes you’re making interesting looks based on

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like what the audience is going to see which i think is really nice you know you got to have a lot of sparkle and razzle dazzle i guess

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exactly yeah definitely uh let’s look at the next look

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okay so this is your entrance look um you know you’re going on and you

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decide you’re going to be a cow that is uh is being like taken by a ufo

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what is the thought process around this like you know that is definitely a look i’ve never seen before and it’s one that

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you’re known for why did you go this kind of like comedy route so originally this wasn’t supposed to be an

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entrance look this is just a look i had kind of conceptualized and it’s from

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two years ago missy elliott performed at the vmas and she did pass that dutch as part of one of her

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medleys that she did and uh on tv one of her dancers

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was sucked up by a ufo and i thought that was so cool because because the whole stage was was farm

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themed and she was a scarecrow and then there’s a ufo coming in i was like i love that that farm alien kind of correlation you

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see in pop culture a lot so me and me and a friend came up with this kind of

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concept of being the cow that’s being sucked up by the ufo and so finding the fabric there like at

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this this time there was no such thing as stretch cow print fabric i went

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everywhere i went i looked all over toronto i looked online i could not find it so i went to value village and i bought

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a cow costume and i had it turned into this outfit that’s amazing oh my gosh

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so you’re so that’s something another thing about you you’re very resourceful and you know it’s always really

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interesting looking through your looks like i did last night like the influence of pop culture you know

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the resourcefulness uh it really does show through i think we’re going to kind of switch gears a

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little bit we talk chat a little bit about canada’s drag race and now i kind of want to talk about pop

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culture because pop culture comes into your work a lot you know we see it here

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but uh if we look at the next slide i believe we have some more pop culture references so

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first off tell me about this look and then tell me about how pop culture kind of influences your

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overall aesthetic so i uh i’ve always loved camp i’ve always loved

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kind of 80s movie movies i love horror um and we were asked to do

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for this is for the tour the boss events tour that we did it was movie themed so we all had to open and have our own

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kind of movie and i picked back to the future because i really i wanted to do this kind of look

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for a long time and uh yeah i’m just glad it worked out and

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that’s literally all there is to it yeah just a simple kind of thing yeah definitely well it’s

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interesting like you know when you have like a character like this character from back to the future and how do you decide to drag

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it up like you know you can take it in so many different directions like how to make like um this like time

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traveler like draggy and you definitely do that just with like the color and the shape and you know which i find

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really interesting and then if we go to the next slide we have uh more of your pop culture love

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okay so tell me a little bit about this look this is actually a series that

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you made for halloween and i’m not sure some people tuning in might be a little bit younger so they

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might not know what the garbage pail kids are but so tell me about this

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this is a series that i’ve wanted to do for a few years and

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i just i figured this would be the perfect time because we were we weren’t working at the time and i had a lot of time to kind of

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be conceptual with with images and stuff and um i just yeah a garbage pail kids was

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around in the 90s i want to say or 80s and it was a ripoff of uh cabbage patch

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kids but they were made all gross so i thought it’d be such a fun little concept to do for halloween and i did

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about four different images and every one was was different and so this one was milton

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melanie and and uh i melted half my wig and i had a little eyeball hanging off my face

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yeah it was really cool it was fun yeah so tell me a little bit about like the pres prosthetics that you use like it seems

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like you love prosthetics you use them quite often do you how do you how do you go about

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making them or how do you go about getting them made or what’s the process there yeah so it honestly it

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depends what you want to do like i know there are there’s a company called uh wookie or witchy by cinema secrets and they

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do ready to go prosthetics this right here was um i just made this it was like it was like

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gelatin it was like gelatin mixed with uh some foundation and stuff heat it up and then i just dripped it all over my face

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and added different colors into it and the eyeball is from the dollar store i cut in half

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yeah that’s really awesome and it’s it’s like you know the resourcefulness the use of the dollarama materials like

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that’s what you got to do when you’re a drag queen artist in general is pulling in pulling in different materials

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and i think we have another photo coming up okay so we have this might be new for

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some people watching this but you have an obsession with the grinch can you talk to us a

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little bit about like why the grinch why that popcorn pop culture reference and then how

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did you go about dragifying the grinch and i think we have three photos to go through so i uh

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i’m not okay like i’ve always liked the grinch i don’t know it’s just like an iconic christmas character it’s always funny i’ve seen that a million times

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and uh the way the whole bridge thing started was i was doing a pageant i was prepping to do

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umento rico and a friend of mine her name is e6000 she uh she was like how funny would it

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be if like you did ask a wrench like that would be insane it’s march you’re at a latino bar

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so i was like i can’t do that she talked me to doing it and uh i did the entire package as the grinch

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knowing i wasn’t gonna win but everyone that night was talking about me and not the winner so i

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definitely made a statement i definitely i definitely made an impact yeah you definitely know how to pull

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focus and get attention which i think is really interesting and like you know like if we look at this like

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the construction of the hair the construction of the garment like your prosthetics like you are not playing around you are

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definitely serving a really cool look so that’s enough it was it was fun it was so stupid

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it was it was just ridiculous like we all walked out for the swimwear slash presentation

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and i was q9 like nine and uh all the beautiful girls walked out and then me as the grinch it was just so

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ridiculous yeah yeah it’s so cool yeah did you ever think about doing this look

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for drag race like did you bring it i wanted to but uh it’s such it’s such a notable

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character it’s not like you know what i mean it’s like there’s i think there’s legalities with

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yeah definitely okay it sounds good yeah it is interesting with drag race like or kenda’s drag race like

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it seems like such a whirlwind that you’re on and so fast-paced and you have to be so creative so often

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so yeah do you have anything else to say about your canada’s drag race journey i’m

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curious if you have any like tidbits because you’re shooting season two yet do you have any advice for queensland

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going to be on it shortly uh just be yourself honestly like be yourself and shoot your shot like

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like like shoot first and ask questions later because this is your time to shine and you literally only got one shot so take that

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shot okay very cool okay let’s see some more looks okay so this is you i believe this is

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after your journey on drag race correct yeah yeah and so let’s talk a

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little bit about this look and how you went about making it

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cause this is like i guess one of the reasons why i wanted to put this in is because like something that i’ve

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noticed is you kind of fluctuate towards glamour and then camp and this is like really high glamour for you or like high glass in general yeah i

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was just like i was gonna say it’s like more campy it’s okay i like contrasting colors a lot i really like purple and

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green um and i had these ostrich feathers and i knew i wanted to do something with them so i came up with this idea

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with leland one of my costume designers and we just had this fun asymmetrical

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kind of glamorous off to the races look yeah it’s really

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cute so i guess i want to go into that like the whole process of like how you come up with the look in

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general so like is the process like you start with a sketch or do you work with designers like

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how how do you kind of come up with uh with the actual final product like from from the start to the end

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yeah like i’ll work with designers and i also like if i see something i like online i’ll just buy it and i’ll figure out what to do with it

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um i’m not a very good uh sketcher so um i just kind of visualize it in my

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head and speak to the designers about what i want and then they come up with it they draw it out and they then they make

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it yeah it seems like such a collaborative process which is really nice like you know you have your person

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doing your hair you do your own hair and then you know you have your costume designer you pull influences from different people so

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that’s really that’s really you like not super unique to drag but that’s like it’s so nice that drag is such a

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collaborative thing because like it really is for the the queer and allied community so it’s

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nice such a collaborative process so let’s see what we have next

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what’s next okay so i had to pull this look because we are in alberta this is a little bit

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of a western theme what what made you gravitate towards this look

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so this was a little nas x’s uh grammy’s look it’s a versace

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cowboy outfit and i just loved it i just thought it was so campy and so fun and cow cowboy western style was like really in

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at the time and i knew i wanted to do it and uh yeah it was just so fun i’ve never seen

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anyone uh do many looks that were like male to female that makes sense like

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like you’ll see a million jlo recreations but very rarely do you see a drag queen wearing a little nosex

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recreation so i just loved it and i had nothing pink and i knew i wanted it and then i

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collaborated with leland again and we came up with this look and then i i shot it and uh yeah it’s one of my

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favorite looks no it looks spectacular and it is interesting that you say that i wouldn’t

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have noticed that it was a little not reference if you didn’t point that out to me but it it really

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looks beautiful and you know leland did an amazing job and also you know working with

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photographers it seems like something that you do often like how how well it’s a process

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there because you know the photographer’s working with you they have their own vision like is there a conversation before you

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shoot or i just yeah no i let them know what i’m gonna wear and what i’m thinking of and

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then we get in the studio we play around and we have fun and they tell me to do certain poses and then

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i do them and yeah it’s very uh like it’s both of us working together so yeah it’s like we both want a good

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product at the end so we do a lot of testing and we do yeah it’s uh there’s not a lot of

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thought into the actual photo shoots normally like some are like spontaneous

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yeah exactly and that’s when that’s when the magic really happens to be honest with you yeah definitely okay cool so let’s look

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at the next look okay so i pulled this from your facebook this is probably like the

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like the one that is like a little bit outside so this was obviously the performance

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and you’re getting painted we are an art gallery so i had to pull up the one where you’re getting painted

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so tell me a little bit about this this was from new year’s eve uh and i performed at pitbull

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and i just wanted to do a really cool visual fun kind of performance and i was really

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inspired by uh alexander mcqueen had this on a runway one time where he had a model being painted in a dress

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and i knew i wanted to be painted and i wanted to glow and look really cool so i came with like some toxic by

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britney spears okay and then i hired the dancers and we conceptualized it all together and uh it really glowed that night yeah

24:28

no it looks amazing and it’s so it’s so neat that you pulled like a alexander mcqueen reference because i

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think that was such an iconic performance and it’s it’s nice how like you know uh

24:39

you know fashion influences drag so much and drag influences fashion so much so it’s really cool to see that

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relationship um you know do you want to talk a little bit about like drag and fashion or how they kind

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of work alongside each other um well drag is like drag is very inspired

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by fashion for the for the most part like you really see a lot of fashion queens uh on drag race

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and on the internet um and and they’re actually starting to use drake means on runways and stuff and you

25:11

see yeah it’s like as drag is getting bigger you’re seeing it more and the two paths are crossing so much

25:17

yeah definitely yeah i i could see you on the runway for sure like that would be amazing yeah

25:24

definitely okay and uh i guess we’ll look at the next slide then

25:30

okay so i pulled this up just because i was so impressed with like the level of paint that you

25:37

have on and how beautiful it is and so like you know you’re painting yourself how do

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you come up with this idea to go such like a beautiful neon look but what is what’s the process

25:48

because this is something to me i’m just like wow like some painters can’t paint so good on a canvas and uh bo is doing

25:54

it on their face uh this is when this is in the winter and i was having a really hard time

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with covet and basically having um no i wasn’t getting anything from my

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career obviously because i’m wearing a lot of work basically and so i wasn’t in drag for

26:14

i wasn’t doing like once a month and i was like okay i have to start doing getting a drag more so i’m going to do it twice a week i’m going to paint and

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just try to be creative and so i sat down at like my table and i was like what do i want to do

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and i had this this blue makeup and i was like let’s just try something crazy today so i i just started painting myself blue

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and then adding different pops of color and then i grabbed my jacket out of the out of the the closet and i had this

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more chair and i was like i’m an alien now yeah that was a really cool look

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yeah it’s such a cool look and you touched on a little bit about the pandemic so can you talk a little bit about as a

26:50

creative how the pandemic affected you and maybe you know switched up your process a little bit or how i guess

26:56

like my main question is how did the pandemic affect you because you know drag race was airing and then it was pandemic and

27:04

normally everyone expects the queens to tour and do all this great stuff and there was none of that so i’m curious

27:09

yeah yeah i kind of ran my life [Laughter] it was uh definitely it was like the

27:14

worst thing that could happen did happen and i didn’t know how to deal with it and navigate through it it really really

27:21

challenged me uh in my mental health and yeah that’s something horrible

27:27

yeah i don’t know what else to say yeah no i like you know i think it’s so good that like you know you’re mentioning that

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because i think it challenged everyone’s mental health and mine too and it’s like it’s so nice that

27:38

we are coming out of it and now you’re going on tour you’re going on tour in europe right

27:43

yeah so that’s really exciting so yeah i guess like good things are happening it’s just like during the

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pandemic it it was a challenge on everyone so it’s great that you know throughout the

27:55

pandemic you know you made this wonderful look so you were able to get some good things out of it but

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definitely a huge challenge so let’s see what else we have here for your for your

28:07

looks okay so this i saw on facebook and it’s one of your first headshots

28:13

and so you’re it’s your first headshot and so tell me a little bit about being a new

28:19

queen on the scene and if you have any advice for queens that are just starting out or dabbling

28:24

in drag uh what what would what advice would you give to those queens

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or kings or performers in general just find out what kind of drag you you

28:36

want to do there’s no right or wrong with drag you could do whatever you want uh just honestly like do it well like i

28:44

don’t don’t have asset like put your heart soul into it it’s your art it’s your creation really

28:50

give it your all because it can be very it can be very rewarding mm-hmm

28:55

yeah definitely yeah and another thing i i noticed with your looks or maybe you can speak about this is like your earlier looks you were very

29:03

uh glamorous and fishy and you were like you know uh you always had like a beautiful

29:10

painted lip and beautiful looks and as you kind of progress you got more campy and more fun

29:15

so can you speak a little bit about that translate trends uh like that journey i guess or is that

29:21

something i’m just interpreting or is that true at first i took myself pretty seriously

29:27

and i didn’t have any hero myself and then probably about two years in i started loosening up and kind of felt

29:33

fun at myself and with that really helped me blow up and really explore different kind of

29:40

different kinds of drag that i wanted to do yeah that’s really cool yeah okay so i have

29:46

a couple more questions and then we’re gonna see a video of you do your makeup we’re gonna get some tips and tricks for makeup from

29:52

you but i guess um i wanna

29:58

hmm let’s look at my little page

30:04

you know what it’s interesting actually we were talking so free form i actually covered a lot of my questions

30:09

so maybe [Laughter] yeah so maybe we’ll just go pull up the

30:16

video so i want to show a quick uh quick clip of you doing your makeup and then i want

30:21

to kind of get you to break it down a little bit so if we can pull up this video so this

30:26

is a cosmo queen video you’re doing your makeup here and it’s a little bit super speed

30:34

so this is for my music video i conceptualized this look with my partner i wanted to do like a

30:40

cool uh a cool uh color blocked um

30:45

octopus look almost and so the makeup for it i literally just figured out the night before and uh this is actually kind of

30:52

messy this isn’t my best work but it looks okay i guess um i just knew that i wanted

30:59

i wanted big and i wanted brights and i wanted a lot of contrast and i think i did that yeah most

31:06

definitely

31:11

yeah it’s so interesting how you kind of like layer your colors it’s like you first you have a white base

31:17

and then you pop on the green why would you put the white face on first to make the color more bright um

31:24

something i started doing um was i wouldn’t set my uh under eye

31:29

highlight like i won’t set the the base i just go in with the shadows because it gives you a lot more payoff and it makes

31:35

that makes the shadow more pigmented and really a lot more vivid mm-hmm definitely

31:41

is there like what kind of makeup brands are you using are you using like mac or do you use a

31:48

lot of different stuff i use a lot of different stuff i use a cryoline for my for my base i just started using juvia’s

31:53

place for my contour i really like their contour and i’m probably gonna try to start using their bases it’s also really

31:59

affordable and i really like that um highlight is just a cream uh tv paint

32:04

stick from kryolan uh shadows are are kind of all over the place my pigments i used uh for that look was

32:11

from lit cosmetics they’re uh actually they’re in alberta and they’re a glitter company and they make really

32:16

awesome glitter shout out to alberta i like i like uh i

32:22

have a morphe contour that i use i really like that and uh then i just got a lot of filler

32:27

done in my face okay well that’s good yeah it seems like you’re using a mix of

32:34

like really like high products and then like more accessible products uh i’m curious about like

32:42

some products that are a little bit more accessible that you think like people should have or something like you know maybe a queen

32:48

just starting out or a performer just starting out like what are some good drugstore products or

32:54

products that you can buy that are not too expensive because we all know that drag is quite expensive yeah i mean like the thing is it’s like

33:01

blushes uh blushes are okay from the drugstore um what else i okay the my gel liner i use

33:10

in the video it’s from maybelline it’s a it’s just a maybelline gel liner it’s like 13 bucks

33:16

and it’s like so good like i love that you could also use like if you have a shimmer eyeshadow you could use that as

33:22

a highlight for your cheeks but with um i find lips like lip liners lipsticks

33:30

and uh eyeshadows you’re going to want to just find a good brand that is really pigmented

33:35

and then for your for your foundation highlight contour you also want to be full coverage full coverage so don’t

33:42

skip on those things but you can skip on the blush you know save your money on the blush

33:47

yeah that’s really interesting and it seems like you use a lot of glitter and a lot of fun it’s like

33:54

something that i’ve noticed is you know trixie mattel like uh when they were

34:00

viewing all the clips they shouted out your makeup like almost every time they really loved your makeup and it

34:06

you really are such a great makeup artist do you ever paint other people or how

34:11

did you get so good at makeup i honestly like i don’t consider myself

34:16

a makeup artist or makeup queen i just honestly just practice a lot i know my face i uh

34:22

my makeup isn’t even perfect as it is like uh i i’m so humble oh my god yes

34:30

yeah i just know my face and i’ve been doing it for seven years if you’re doing it for seven years and you still don’t know how to paint your face

34:36

you gotta do some more girl definitely i don’t paint other people i don’t hate

34:41

other people because it’s completely different for me because it’s completely different to paint someone to paint yourself it’s

34:48

like you’re working with different shapes you’re working different directions and everything it’s very stressful and i’ve uh

34:54

some people’s faces okay fair enough yeah so it i guess it

34:59

takes seven years to get good at your own face and you’ll need that same amount of time to do someone else’s or something who knows it’s yeah it seems

35:05

like such a challenge um but it’s just uh it’s so remarkable to see you know like

35:13

how your makeup has really evolved throughout the time um can we just i guess touch a little

35:20

bit more on the other aspects of drag so like wigs

35:25

so you have lots of different bright colorful wigs do you style them yourselves or how do

35:31

you go about deciding like a wig for a look or what’s the process there

35:36

so i’m really lucky my fiance uh he sews and he also is really great with hair so

35:43

if i need to wake down i could be like babe okay um he also i take his opinion too like

35:49

if he’ll say the shape would look good on you let’s go for it right i got a million wigs and uh

35:55

and it’s like i mean like not everything is super is super like down to the t

36:01

every detail is super thought about it’s like i have this outfit i don’t know this wig will look good with it let’s do the style

36:08

definitely and it seems like you know like when you have like a roster of wigs

36:14

like lined up you can kind of pick and choose depending on your mood uh which is really neat it’s really helpful

36:20

when you have like a partner that can do that stuff for you like you have your own like like crew in the background which is

36:26

really awesome did did they help you with any of the looks that you wore on canvas drag race yep okay that’s awesome yeah he took uh he

36:32

took a week off work and sat in my kitchen and so for me the entire week wow

36:38

so i guess like the process it’s like you know like you get the list and then you’re working on it it’s like

36:44

you just like full steam of head is that how it works it’s like you have your looks and it’s like you have a limited amount of time and

36:49

you just have to pull your team together exactly yeah okay very cool yeah that

36:55

would be kind of a stressful situation yeah it was very stressful

37:00

the most stressful thing i’ve ever done yeah and so when you got the call to be on the show

37:05

like what was like your reaction or like like you see that there’s an addition

37:11

for candice drake grace did you think you were going to be on it were you like confident i saw the announcement

37:18

and i was like kind of bad i was annoying ah now

37:25

so i did my audition and uh it was a very stressful process it just took a lot of demons out

37:32

of me and it made me have a lot of self-doubts and then when i got the call that i was on i sobbed i don’t i don’t ever cried so

37:38

hard my entire life yeah definitely and you were also on with some of your friends and peers like

37:45

what was that experience showing up and you see like other local queens it was nice it was like i knew like most

37:51

of them were going to be there because people talk yeah i kind of i kind of knew too

37:57

no one knew about me though i knew about you but uh or i heard i heard a whisper well

38:03

you know when actually not uh by the time your series aired so yes i didn’t know

38:08

until after it was all said and done but oh yeah no no i mean afterwards

38:15

but like get gearing up to go i didn’t tell anybody i was so good with uh with keeping it hush-hush

38:23

yeah well it’s more surprising when you see like you know people that you admire or people that you like

38:29

tipped in the bar or kiki’d with in the past on the show and you know it’s so great for canada’s

38:36

drake scene in general to have such like a platform for our talented queens and uh direct

38:41

performers so i think it’s like so nice for us exactly

38:46

definitely um so i’m just looking at the okay so

38:54

i have a couple i have a question in in the chat um someone wants you to spill the tea so

39:00

this is what they’re writing can we get the tea on the other candidates on cdr is boa still in contact with them so are

39:06

you still uh talking to the drag drag race girls yeah yeah we have a group chat we talk

39:13

almost every day we’re all good friends uh we all love each other we have our drama we fight with each

39:19

other all the time but like we love each other like yeah when we stand all together it’s hugs and kisses and

39:29

that’s great have you gotten to see any of them in person

39:34

yeah i’ve seen pretty much all of them i have seen all of them um i just saw

39:40

kiara she was here this weekend i spent the weekend with jimbo uh [Music]

39:47

yeah that’s very cool and you also done some collaborations with them like you were in priyanka’s video priyanka did

39:52

one of your garbage failed kids so it’s so nice to see like you know creatives like collaborating and doing

39:58

cool things together which is awesome yeah okay great so i’m just going to remind

40:04

people that if you have any questions please put them in the chat uh bo is here to answer your questions

40:11

uh and so if you have them like let us know um did you when you were on the show

40:19

um like what was like one of the most iconic

40:26

challenges you know we’re talking a lot about the show sorry it’s just so on top of my mind because i enjoyed

40:31

you so much on your season like yeah like you were one of my favorite queens and

40:36

one of the things that happened is there was this challenge about you know uh people it was like an acting

40:42

challenge and it was about you know bachelorettes uh going to the bars and taking up space

40:48

and you were there and you like it was very hilarious and i guess what is making me think about is a

40:54

little bit about allyship so you know we have this issue where lots of you know

41:00

uh you know people come to bars and they take up a lot of space uh do you have any tips and tricks for

41:06

people on how they should treat drag queens and be a good ally in general

41:11

yeah just don’t touch us literally don’t touch us if you ask if you can hug us if you do

41:17

hug us don’t don’t go over the shoulders hug go around the hips because people tend to do that and they grab your wig

41:24

and it kind of pulls it back and yeah yeah i know that’s all i want

41:30

that’s good to know like i think like it’s it’s really nice in the queer community because like

41:35

our our queens and our drug performers are kings are kind of like uh you know they represent us and

41:42

they’re out and about and they’re such like a light in the community but you know they deserve respect you

41:48

have to treat them politely so you know exactly don’t touch a drag queen’s hair

41:55

okay great i’m just checking the q a okay

42:01

so this is a little bit of a deeper question are you okay with a little bit of a deeper pleasure okay so

42:08

how did you deal with some of the negative things that the queen said about you um in the first episode someone alluded

42:15

to you having a little bit of a bad reputation in the toronto drag scene so how did you deal with that and also

42:22

congrats on your engagement oh thank you well i mean like juice box said that in the professional so i didn’t hear that

42:30

i didn’t realize my reputation was as bad as it was i didn’t see it like you know i think you had a

42:35

reputation as being like really fun and like the life of the party because i was kind of messy

42:41

because like i’ve been recovering now but i was like an alcoholic for a long time so i had a lot of i had a lot of crazy

42:46

nights and i did a lot of but as a lot of queens do you know like the thing is like with the

42:52

drake scene it’s like you know there is a lot of queens that you know

42:57

are having a good time and sometimes things get a little bit out of hand so um someone can go go go

43:03

like i don’t know how they do it like i get a hangover i’m i’m on a commission for the next day and

43:09

a half like my yeah they will go for weeks and they’ll go wake up the next morning and run

43:15

a marathon and this down the other thing and i cannot good good for that because i wish i could honestly yeah definitely

43:22

and it is such like a unique profession because like something that we touched on a little bit about is like you know you’re not just

43:28

doing one thing you’re not like you know you have music out you uh have wonderful looks

43:34

you get costumes made you do hair like specifically on the show it’s like

43:39

there’s so many things you have to be good at you have to be good at comedy music and it’s like

43:45

such a such a hard profession when you look at it that way that of course you know you’re gonna have some fun on a

43:50

friday yeah exactly yeah definitely um i guess let’s see if we have any more

43:58

questions it looks like i’m gonna just wait a

44:03

couple more minutes for questions to come in um because i want to make sure that you

44:09

know people watching this video can ask you questions you know i feel like i’ve been chatting a lot so you know it’s great that other people

44:16

can kind of get their thoughts in a little bit perfect yeah so we’ll just

44:24

wait a little bit model model a little bit i guess i’m sitting next to my ac and my

44:29

hair yes yeah i guess we’ll just give it another minute but in the meantime

44:35

i’m so curious about you know uh right now it’s pride or you know pride is so

44:42

different this year because of the pandemic and so uh how are you celebrating pride what

44:47

are you doing you know how does how is pride this year different than last year or like how is

44:53

how was your pride basically pride was probably last year

44:59

you know as as entertainers as public figures we uh keep an image where it’s like

45:06

everything’s great it’s just a bit different this year but it’s still good prime last year sucked it was so boring i hated it there

45:13

was no work it was like the worst thing ever yeah like i hate it online drag for a

45:18

long time but this year i’m real busy and i can be a gorgeous goddess in my apartment sitting here with my

45:25

outfit wig uh earrings makeup sweatpants and slides on and so i’m really enjoying pride this

45:32

year and then also like there was people there were people um out in a boat uh

45:39

all weekend so that was nice it was really nice to see like now we’re all being vaccinated and it’s a bit safer to go out so um

45:46

church street in toronto was really busy and it was just nice to be with people and see my sisters that’s amazing yeah

45:53

that was happening a little bit in alberta too so it’s so nice that you know we didn’t get a full

45:58

prize celebratory-ness but we were able to celebrate a little bit and things are changing uh so we have

46:05

another two questions in the chat uh did you always consider yourself an artist or performer performer did you

46:13

get any training from other queens or house mothers so uh yeah no i i kind of just jumped into

46:21

it i really just jumped into it i’ve always been uh i’ve always been like a big personality

46:27

and i i don’t really have any training to be honest with you um but like practice like you maybe you

46:33

don’t have training but you’ve done this for seven years so of course you’re going to be excellent at it you know it does it always takes time yeah exactly

46:40

yeah definitely and i guess another question is what advice would you give to your younger self so pretend i’m

46:46

holding up a picture of you as a kid like what kind of advice do you give for a younger self

46:51

embarking on this creative journey oh like don’t be afraid uh

46:57

to just be out there don’t hold yourself back be unapologetically you because when you do that

47:02

people love you for you and that’s when you make the biggest difference yeah definitely that’s amazing uh i

47:09

guess if there’s no more questions in the chat i’m going to ask one more question

47:14

oh one more just came in sorry people are really now starting to ask questions uh do you have

47:21

a favorite drag that you have worn a favorite outfit then yeah maybe like a

47:27

favorite look probably my finale gown it’s like completely encrusted of rhinestones

47:32

i work on the finale of drag race i look absolutely stunning uh

47:39

well i’ll have to look that up that sounds beautiful and then how do you deal with creative burnout

47:44

like you know just burnout in general

47:50

i don’t know i just gotta ride it i i don’t like i’ve had a lot of creative burnout

47:55

this year and uh i just gotta ride it and i just work on myself because like

48:02

i love doing drag and drag is my life that’s my job it’s my money maker it’s like the

48:08

table but like if it’s not making me happy then i’m just chilling for a bit

48:14

yeah i think that’s so important for like all artists to hear is like if it’s not making you happy take a break you know like i think

48:20

there’s this big kind of effort on productivity especially during the pandemic and you know it gets tiring it’s a

48:27

pandemic you can take a break you can be relaxed once in a while you don’t always have to hustle

48:33

so i guess my very last question is what’s next for you what’s on the

48:38

horizon what’s on the horizon um i’m finally retouring i’m really excited to be performing live

48:45

i’m in calgary uh next very close to us oh my goodness

48:50

that’s amazing i’m in calgary at twisted element next weekend i went to the ninth time there

48:55

um so that’s gonna be fun uh we’re going on tour in october and i have some other fun projects that

49:02

i can’t talk about yet but we’re going to be seeing good projects okay great and if you’re ever in edmonton

49:07

we’ll have to have a tea or something or spill the tea together okay okay and where can people find you

49:13

are you on social media yeah you can find me on instagram at bowen the drag queen on twitter at

49:18

on arrival uh i’m on youtube backpage x2 craigslist

49:24

okay everywhere awesome well it’s been such an absolute pleasure talking to you boa talking a little bit about

49:30

creativity giving people a better understanding about all the work that it takes to be a drag queen and like you know all the

49:38

influences that you have so it’s been such a pleasure thank you it’s been a pleasure it’s nice to see you

49:43

yeah super nice to see you i guess you know what let’s sign up there we have a little bit of a survey for people

49:49

if they want to tell us what they liked about this program or what we can improve so the survey will be popped up

49:56

in the chat and after we close this talk so without further ado uh thank you so much for attending and

50:04

checking out this thank you for to helen who’s our digital programs assistant on the other end of this call helping us

50:10

and uh have a good rest of your pride okay bye for now bye

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