An artist-run gallery in Harlem is currently showcasing the striking work of Shelley Stefan. The exhibition demonstrates her interest in queer subject matter and distinct style of bright contrasting colors. Azurcarara is a small space but packed with a strong message. The owner wanted to create an environment where artists, big or small, can display their work. I commend Nova Gutierrez for taking initiative within such a commercial field. Azurcarera’s goal is to expose the work of artists who fall into a minority, and currently the gallery is being out and proud with Shelley Stefan.
Upon my visit to the showroom, I was amazed by her work. Each piece is full of symbolism and it would be a mistake to only take a minute to study her work. Stefan’s pieces in B is for Butch are thought provoking and I kept saying to myself, “What is she trying to say?” One can look at her work and think because of the order and symmetry, everything is clear. But that is not the case and I took the chance to contact Shelley, who resides in British Columbia where she is on the faculty in the Visual Arts Department at the University of Fraser Valley.
Cherry Grrl (CG): What inspired you to create this collection?
Shelley Stefan (SS): 
The series “B is for Butch” is an offshoot from the work and research I developed in two prior visual arts projects entitled: “Lesbian Family Heraldry: An Achievement of Arms” (2005-2006) and “The Lesbian Effigies” (2006). These bodies of work, comprising of paintings, drawings, bronzes, and belt buckles, appropriate the art and science of medieval heraldry in order to engage queer subcultural commentary on topics of power, alliance, and family signification, prioritizing what Theorist J. Halberstam cites as the construction of “queer (female) genealogies.”[i] In 2004, I directed my visual arts practice and research into the world of heraldry and armour as an emotive response to real-life experiences of familial trauma, where I felt what it was like to be a person, a family “under siege.” My wife and I lost custody of our happy and healthy daughter due to several breaches of justice and a bigoted and homophobic US legal system. The experience and the loss left me and my lesbian partner feeling broken and beaten. I did what many artists do amidst strife: I turned to my visual arts practice as a method of emancipation, activism, and poetic justice in a world where, unfortunately and sometimes, bad things can happen to good people. Heraldry and this world of armour seemed like a perfect conceptual and aesthetic palette for me to think about notions of power and security from the “underdog” or subculturally liminal perspective, and how traditional visual symbologies (such as heraldry) have a way of legitimizing through the mere history of their visual currency. In these bodies of work, I problematized heraldry’s armigerous exclusivity and its heterosexist male monopoly on the meaning of family, as well as appropriated the heraldic medieval aesthetic to take part in what Third World Feminist Theorist Chela Sandoval calls a “Technology of Crossing” – a method to “identify and describe emotional, psychic, and social technologies that embody and circumscribe identities necessary for recognizing power, and changing its conditions on behalf of equalizing power between socially and psychically differing subjects.”[ii] I began using the power of heraldry and medieval armour as a method to transpose power on behalf of queer liminal subjectivity.
Through this research process, I encountered many, many images of armour. Some armour just seemed inherently queer-looking to me – very dykey, very butchy, and quite gender-bendy, all of which to me are very good attributes. Some armour also really seemed conceptually loaded for me on topics of security/insecurity and subcultural interiority. I began to think about the dual signification of the term “armour” – like, how armour signifies at once a sense of security and a sense of insecurity – a toughness and a vulnerability. To wear armour is to acknowledge in some way that you are vulnerable, but also and simultaneously that you aim to and claim to feel non-vulnerable, or protected. I started really thinking about subcultural interiority, what’s underneath the rock that’s underneath the rock. Near 2008, I began to imagine how different liminal subjectivities and minorities might relate to this notion of armour and how I might be able to manipulate these visualizations to open up conceptual doors. Butch subjectivity came to the forefront, partially because I live as a butch lesbian and my art is strongly tied to self-portraiture, but also because I like to do research in queer subcultural theory and this was a topic I was interested in investigating. So, I was inspired to create this collection of works entitled “B is for Butch.”
Stefan and her collection are an example of how art can heal. Reading her story and truly understanding where the collection comes from reminds me that in some way or another we all carry an armor. Whether is it the clothing we wear or how we present ourselves to the world. (continued on next page)
