Laurence Myers Reese

On the day after Yom Kippur, I set out to build a sukkah made from handmade shipping pallets. Decked in tzitzit, loose linen clothes, Marc Chagall socks, and my amulet shoes, I read from Isaiah 58 a psalm that decries those who fast without making proper changes and repentance. The author claims that real return (Teshuvah) happens when we have fed the hungry and clothed the naked. The Graduate Art Studios (GRS) is a common place for unhoused individuals to seek shelter from the 110+ degree heat. The university policy we are instructed to follow is to call the police anytime we see a “suspicious” individual. In a climate (and economy) so inhospitable, we have criminalized poverty and disability. and further put our neighbors in danger. We cannot claim to be acting in righteousness (by making art, or doing research) without working for major systemic change.

Embroidery on tallit katan (tzitzit) and chest binder, 35x15”

The work is a tallit katan set upon a chest binder, inspired by Rabbi Ari Lev Fornari’s story in Torah Queeries, in which he describes his morning ritual of putting on his binder, which has tzitzit attached. The Hebrew text embroidered on the tallit Katan reads “Blessed are you, breath of the universe, who commands us to create and recreate ourselves,” invoking the ritual of self-creation that trans people go through every morning when they dress themselves.

PALLET BALLET

Performance

“Reviver Performance Night,” GRS Building, University of Nevada Las Vegas

2019

This performance explores the precarity of gender presentation in labor environments. Wearing a nude leotard and figure skating outfit (complete with rhinestones), I come out throwing pallets on the floor, to the tune of Swan Lake and the Nutcracker Suite. I wear a pink hard hat, and protective goggles. After moving pallets about and throwing them dangerously close to the audience, I attempt to dance on the pallets, and relevé in ballet flats on the uneven wooden pallets.

Citrus III (in 3 acts)

Performance

Killjoy Collective

Portland, OR

2018

Akin to the previous citrus themed performances, Citrus III uses three acts of dressing, changing, and grapefruit-play to examine gender roles in factory labor settings. I use materials and processes from my day-job as a blue-collar worker, and take those affects and perceived “ethics” and apply it to drag, performance, and the narrative of transition and queer identity. As a worker I investigate how a capitalist labor environment affects the queer body, and how the queer body can radically disrupt the flow of “effectiveness” and efficiency with impractical labor and performance through gender.

This performance was done in tandem with my project “Songs for a Third Space,” an audio cassette project of mixed sounds from my work environment, queer spaces, my commute, and other places where my identity is formed.

My drag persona “Marlene Schiedich” is a tranimal, genderfuck, drag terrorist. On the fringes of society, Schiedich is inspired by her idols from eras gone by.

High camp, mid-western, low class. This slutty hipster drag queen serves “grandmother’s sitting room from 1992” realness. With a razor-sharp wit, Marlene is ready to slay the world with hilarious impersonations, decent singing, surprisingly competent dancing, and very questionable fashion choices. Hide your grand-dads and grab your drinks, she is one thirsty queen.

Outside of making occasional appearances in my performances, Schiedich hosts queer talent shows, Drag nights, and solo cabarets. She does a great Sylvester impersonation and can eat an onion covered in whipped cream. Still booking for the Summer season. Call now!

Installation, Performance, Momentum Ada Film & New Media Festival

“RE:…” is a major endeavor: the creation of an audition tape for RuPaul’s Drag Race Season 10, and a documentary about the process. This was commissioned by the Oklahoma Visual Arts Coalition for Momentum Ada, a  a festival of film and new media in Ada, OK, with keynote speaker John Waters. This project is as much sincere enthusiasm for drag culture and the queer community, as it is critical lens of trans identity and inclusion in popular culture. This project was done in collaboration with filmmaker (and transwoman) Keeva Danielle Lough.

A three channel video installation, each video explores a different part of the process of the creation of becoming a transmale drag queen.

The installation is a recreation of my dressing room and studio in situ, with three videos representing a different part of the process: Praxis, Preparation, and Performance. 

In Ada, I performed as Marlene Schiedich, my drag persona, to classic drag pop standards from the 90′s, using fruit and power tools as props. 

Gender Reveal Party : Name Change

Performance for Audience and Video, Oklahoma City, OK

2016

In a similar repeat of my gender reveal party, I celebrated my official name change to Laurence on my birthday. I repeated the cutting of a six-layer cake, and created an additional three layer cake patterned after the genderqueer flag: purple and green. As the cake was cut and served, I changed the candles that read “LAURA” to “LAURENCE.” Somewhere, something went awry, and the cake fell, creating a beautiful mess of cake parts all over the table. People ate it anyways.

Performance

2017

Front/Space, Kansas City, MO

“Life’s a Drag” explores trans identity and gender performance, drawing on my experience in the drag world and the process it has taken to become the first (apparently known) transmale drag queen.

In Front/Space I created a video installation from the “RE: FTM Plz Consider” series of videos that depict my foray into drag. The small gallery space became an expanded version of my even smaller home studio, in which my drag costumes, ephemera, sketch books, and items related to my transition are on display alongside a three video channel installation of work.

At the culmination of the exhibition, I performed in drag, giving a spoken word performance/lecture about my experiences in the drag world, as well as a performance of a gender reveal party, and a dance routine ending in a messy nightmare of fruit, vegetables, power tools, beer, body fluids, and whipped cream.

In collaboration with the Front/Space organizers and queer community leaders in Kansas City, during the course of the exhibition we lead a panels investigating queer issues in the art world, specifically arts administration.

Performance, Individual Artists of Oklahoma, Oklahoma City, OK

2017

HOW TO PLAY:

Step 1: Mix blue & red dye into jars to make blue and pink icing respectively; white icing in separate jar

Step 2: Spoon icing into mouth starting with white, then blue, then pink.

Step 3: While “chewing” icing, repeat questions asked of you, and things told to you as a trans person, no matter how benign or insulting.

Step 4: Spit out icing in order of colors of trans flag. Repeat until all icing is gone.

BONUS POINTS IF YOU

…Include an email and facebook chain about your gender (but not including you in the conversation), and the forced expulsion of you from a women’s group

…Make the audience physically ill

…Vomit. Congratulations! You’ve won worst performance! Celebrate by taking a probiotic

Performance

Momentum OKC

Gold Dome Building

Oklahoma City, OK

2018

Performance, Inverse Performance Art Festival, 21C Museum Hotel, Bentonville, AR
2017
A three act performance exploring death and transition through the metaphor of a grapefruit. The artist handles the citrus differently in each act: i. holding, caressing and kissing, ii. performing surgery and extracting the fruit, iii. peeling and eating the fruit, then sewing the peel back together. Surgery, clothing changes, and the deconstruction, metaphorically and physically, of the fruit serve as visual metaphors for death, changing of identity, and life as a transgender person. Each act shares the two intertwined narratives of the artist’s own changes through transition and the death of their mother.
With credit to Craig Arnold’s poem “Meditation on a Grapefruit,” (2009).

Performance & Public Event, McKinley Park, Oklahoma City, OK

2016

Event Invite: “Come celebrate gender with a traditional, heteronormative gender reveal party. This is a family friendly birthday-esque adventure in performance practice. We’ll cut a cake, open a box full of balloons, provide fun party favors, and have party games.”

Celebrating one year on hormone replacement therapy, and my official “coming out,” a cake was cut to reveal the artist’s “gender,” patterned after a traditional heteronormative celebration around pregnancy. However, instead of revealing a “boy” or “girl” with blue or pink cake respectively, this five-layer cake was patterned after the transgender flag. Local children from the neighborhood flocked over and were welcomed to the cake and party favors, and experienced something not-quite-a-party. No one ever answered their question “who’s birthday is this?” Using a public event as a platform for performance art allowed a larger community conversation around gender and the vulnerability of coming out.

Performance, Oklahoma City; repeated in Fayetteville, AR and Stillwater, OK

2016

Part of an ongoing series of performances surrounding Kate Bush’s “Wuthering Heights.” In this karaoke-style performance, I explore my changed voice as I transition as a transgender person. After 6 months of testosterone, my voice as permanently deepened. I have lost my soprano voice and my ability to sing songs that have significance in my career as both a performance and performing artist.

I am dressed in femme “drag”, wearing a leotard, heels, drag-inspired makeup and false nails. Underneath the leotard I wear a breast binder and a “packer” (a prosthetic phallus) a visual reminder of my male identity. As a karaoke version of “Wuthering Heights” plays, I try to sing along. Unable to match the pitch of the female vocals, my voice squeaks and cracks through tears as I mourn the loss of my voice, and by extension a more feminine identity and presentation.

Performance, Flesh/Crisis Performance Festival, la Esquina Gallery, Kansas City, MO and 24/7 Art Festival, a.k.a. Gallery, Oklahoma City, OK
2015

The studies of yoga and art history are often taken (too?) seriously by their adherents. The solemn attitudes of instructors and students alike often lead to unintentionally funny remarks. Yoga is now practiced in museums and art galleries as a way to drive up attendance.
Interested in the intersection of sincerity and humor, I performed yoga in the gallery along to a facetious audio track of a sun salutation sequence, describing the poses in relation to contemporary art historical movements. In doing a yogic practice in this setting, I am contemplating art walks and visiting galleries as a social, and perhaps even spiritual, ritual & performance.