More Stuff, Less Birds
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It’s the December 2025 AVA Open House and Open Studios. Studio shopping visits don’t make sense with my current practice as an artist, so I take a different tack: Mx More & Less, my drag avatar, roams the building, asking four questions:
Mx More & Less is one in a series of personae I have embodied in conjunction with garments I have found and repurposed as regalia – ceremonial wear for improvisational rites in the everyday. Everyday Regalia, as I have named this ongoing ten-year project, has become a way of exploring gender presentation, ritual roles, and social conditioning. It has become a path for bringing the sacred and the ordinary together. Under its auspices, I have reworked a series of found iconic garments: bridal gown, priest’s cassock, Vietnam War US Army dress jacket, mechanic’s overall, WWII US Red Cross Service nurse’s uniform. I have worn these vestments everywhere my life has brought me: in the winter woods, in the Walmart parking lot, at the tire store, in family spaces and spaces associated with training and practice as an expressive arts therapist. I pay attention to how each garment feels when I put it on and when I take it out into the world – both in each instance, and in the aggregate of carrying its particular cultural charge. For me the first glimmer that something new is arriving is often a sense of disquiet. Oh, no! That’s going to be weird and awkward. In the case of Mx More & Less, what showed up first was a phrase: “More stuff, less birds.” My imagination kept going, day after day. “More force, less choice.” “More ICE, less mercy.” “More cops, less school.” I was channeling some essence of Trump 2.0 violent absurdity in pithy opposites, thus satisfying a perverse impulse within myself. Eventually, the next impulse arose: OK, that’s fine, but what do you *actually* want? What’s the other side of this coin? This question was informed by a Buddhist teaching that imagines Nirvana (non-clinging, bliss, embodied knowledge of the Way It Is) as one side of a coin. The other side is Samsara (obsession, suffering, isolation, ignorance). They are indivisible. Buddhist practitioners cultivate moment-to-moment awareness in order to lean infinitesimally (and then hopefully more often) towards embodying the Nirvana side of the coin and bringing wise presence to the Samsara side. Under a certain light, they turn out not to be so different. I started listening for phrases that held actionable hope. Deep ecologist Joanna Macy tells the story of admiring an environmentalist friend’s clear desires. “I know exactly what I want,” he told her, “I want more birds migrating every year. I want less dioxin in every mother’s milk.” As I listened, I noticed these opposites were a little bit more shy, a little bit more risky. But they showed up when they felt my genuine interest. “More song, less rant,” they said. “More dance, less numb.” “More field, less cage.” “More wage, less hoard.” Once an idea has been around long enough, experience tells me that I either need to give it form, or kiss it goodbye. Together, this idea and I committed to the path of form. I went to RePlay Arts, our local all-donation art materials nonprofit, in search of tools to make a sign. There they were: 80’s technology at its best: sheets of blue, black, and red stick-on letters and numbers. Without getting too worked up about straight lines and ideal spacing, I used the stickers and some leftovers in my studio to make a double-sided protest sign. Nirvana on one side, Samsara on the other. Things started coming together more quickly. A name arrived: Mx More & Less, using the nonbinary salutation in honor of the fact that I felt I would be playing with gender presentation. I stitched a beauty-pageant sash from a thrifted green satin prom stole and some letters I cut from secondhand white felt. On an expedition to drop off rags for recycling at the Salvation Army, I found a long, sparkly $9.99 blue prom dress that fit me perfectly. I investigated tiara technology and found eBay to be chock full of used crowns. One modeled after a Princess Diana number with dangling pearls seemed just right, as did an orphaned blue crinoline. I ordered them both, and so Mx More & Less had a name, a sign, and an outfit. What she didn’t yet have was a way to interact with people on the subject of their own hopes and fears. What about handing out customized tickets for the future? Promising. I found a printer that could produce double-sided, numbered, duplicate raffle tickets and, from an airport waiting area, ordered a roll of 1,000 of them. On one side: a cheery yellow background with a red heart. On the verso: a queasy green drab background with a white skull. Good enough. A dear friend accompanied me for Mx More & Less’ first two forays: to WRJ, VT on a beautiful Fall afternoon, and to a No Kings Day rally shortly thereafter. In costume, I held my sign and my friend did most of the talking and scribing. M was amazing at talking with people, but I felt weirdly silenced by my own conception of the performance – effectively I was there to be seen and not heard. I realized that I wanted to embody a more active role, so for my next adventures I dropped the sign and went solo. Sometimes a project’s initial impulses are like the external booster rockets and fuel tank on the Space Shuttle. They are essential for the project to achieve liftoff, and they also must fall away for it to reach maturity. I bestow this image upon you, dear reader, as a gift from my childhood NASA lore of the 70’s and 80’s. Halloween felt like a perfect time to keep exploring. My neighborhood in central Lebanon, NH is one of several in the area that draw crowds of not only youngsters from the immediate vicinity, but also kids from more remote areas where trick-or-treating would otherwise require unreasonable slogs through the countryside. I love Halloween not only because I (obviously) love costumes but also as a chance to have short dialogues with the visitors who come to our door. For years, I would request that kids who were old enough to respond tell me One True Thing in exchange for their candy. I heard many truths, including, “That guy isn’t my Dad,” (stepdad) “I love purple,” and – on the subject of an actual trick-or-treating mini-horse – “Fluffy pooped in the minivan.” I decided to bring Mx More & Less to the festivities. I also decided to try something new on the treats front: no more obsessively snackable tiny chocolate bars of sketchy labor origins and abundant plastic wrappers. I bought serviceable fruit chews that were of no interest to my own palate, plus, on some intuition, several dozen small, red bananas. Here is what the start of this year’s Halloween dialogues sounded like: Mx: “At this house, you have two choices. You can either just get candy, which is quicker, or you can take a quiz, which takes longer, and then you have a choice between candy and a red banana.” Kid: “Candy, please.” OR Kid: “What’s a red banana? I’ll take the quiz.” A surprising number of kids wanted fruit, and/or they wanted to be heard. I was there to listen. I found many of their answers moving, some of them mischievous, and all of them alive. Somehow these young beings in their shepherdess, zombie martial artist, firefighter, and video-game regalia seemed eager to step into a co-created space for voicing real hopes and fears. I kept listening for the next stages of the project. In November, the Lebanon Opera House brought drag queen and singer-songwriter extraordinaire Flamy Grant to town for a weeklong residency, including a free Drag Workshop on a Monday afternoon. I knew as soon as I saw the announcement that I wanted to participate, and also parts of me worried: would I be taking up space that rightly belonged to someone queerer, younger, and less-privileged? Though these considerations felt real enough in their way, something in my desire rang so true that I sent in my application and soon was on my way. When I arrived at the Main Street Museum, I found four beautifully lit makeup stations arranged in the central gallery space. A quiet, self-contained person with a stocky build and a soft, shaved head was focused on nearby tables, laying out brushes, powders, and bottles of foundation. “Hi,” she said, “I’m Flamy.” Swoon! I don’t often think consciously about my grades 6-12 years of schooling in an evangelical Presbyterian prep school in Atlanta, but that afternoon, in Flamy’s skilled, compassionate company, a lot came back to me for reexamination and release. Flamy’s story is hers to tell and she tells it beautifully; here I will say that like mine hers involves the rigors of education in a fundamentalist Christian school in the South. My parents meant well in sending us to The Westminster Schools, and they sacrificed both financially and logistically so my brother and I could attend a very expensive school that was a grueling commute away from home. They wanted us to have the opportunity to be admitted to good colleges, they valued education deeply, and Westminster had a reputation for offering some of the strongest academics in the city. As immigrants to the US and to the American South, what they may not have understood was the degree to which racism, misogyny, and homophobia were woven into campus culture – both through the conservative mores of many of the families who sent their children to Westminster, and also through mandatory year-long Old Testament (grade 9) and New Testament (grade 12) courses that all students needed to complete in order to graduate. At Westminster, though I did very well academically, socially I often felt out of place, awkward, and judged. I knew at a bone-deep level that I couldn’t fit in with the high-status white Southern girls’ diminutive size, blonde tresses, and thin, hairless, zitless bodies. I didn’t have the social skills to begin to approach the less-nonsense, less-waify Black girls. It didn’t help that I was among the tallest kids in my grade, of any gender, plus a nerd with strict immigrant parents. In that world, because I was weird, insufficiently feminine, and had a best friend with a partially-shaved haircut and an Army jacket, I was taunted as a Lesbian. I wish I had felt permission to be queer, or at least curious. I wish I had heard Lesbian as a badge of honor and a potential escape from the rigidly-held binaries of that society. I wish I had wasted less time pining for the sons of prominent Atlanta families. I wish I had known makeup could be art and play – not just an angry rebellion or a wistful bid for the prettiness and acceptance I felt otherwise eluded me. I experienced Flamy’s Drag Workshop as a kind of makeup exorcism. Drag is a discipline, with clear steps. Its aims are performative transformation, not discreet enhancement. Drag doesn’t bow to anyone. Drag involves sacrificing one’s natural eyebrows – either to a glue stick and a toothbush, or to a razor. Drag is interested in beauty AND it is interested in power. Step by step, Flamy took her three (yes, only three!) disciples through three hours of powder, more powder, blush, contour, concealer, liner, towers of eyeshadow, and finally more powder. Then a wig from Flamy’s own collection – and what a wig! Long, red, silky curls – the likes of which no one ever grew out of their own head – hugged my shoulders. I felt… thrillingly in-between. Not performing my somewhat androgynous everyday gender identity. Not performing masculinity. Not performing traditional drag. Performing her own homage to gender play, Mx More & Less now had a clearer aesthetic lineage. Thanks to Flamy’s generosity with her post-covid makeup stash, she now also had a Sponge Bob eyeshadow kit, a deep pink lip-liner, and a heart-shaped lipstick in a bright pink hue called Stacy’s Mom. She soon acquired a long, lush red wig of her own. Back at AVA in December, after a few hours of mostly enthusiastic and occasionally deeply wary encounters in my studio and in the halls and galleries, I decide to take my Mx on the road. The building next door to our community arts center is seldom obviously open to the public and, with its mansion airs and perpetually drawn shades, I have never experienced it as welcoming on my regular walking commutes. Between the former clothing factory (AVA building) and the former factory boss’ house (Historical Society next door), I know instinctively which one draws me. Still, I am curious, and I know the Lebanon Woman’s Club is hosting an open house, arts and crafts sale, and basket raffle today. I push the heavy wooden door and find a group of decorous ladies gathered in the grandly decorated foyer. If anyone is startled by Mx More & Less, they are polite enough not to show it. Someone murmurs that I look cute, which makes me squeamish. Cute, from straight people, is rarely an invitation to authentic joy. Off to the right I see the entrance to a small library, with a printed poster of Prominent Women of Lebanon on an easel. A suffrage activist. A scientist. An Abenaki musician who later moved north of the border to Indigenous lands. Beyond the Welcome Ladies, beyond the Famous Ladies, sit two men behind a table: a stodgy-looking elder and a middle-aged man who’s giving mullet vibes. They take their time looking me up and down. “Doesn’t she have a coat,” the old one asks the young one, as though I can’t hear and don’t have a voice. I can feel how, around them, a younger version of me might have lost her voice. I step forward and tell them I’m an artist who’s come from the AVA building and I’m asking people some questions for a project. May I? They chuckle. The younger one defers to his colleague. I ask the elder:
As I peruse the mansion’s 1950’s kitchen and butler’s pantry, I realize this man has given me a gift beyond measure. I now have a vision for my next regalia project: a charcoal-grey pinstripe wool suit jacket with “I fear less of my disease” stitched in mirrored cursive along the back’s central seam. Also, my previous understanding of the hate people encounter when they play with the norms of Being a Woman or Being a Man is now informed by my experience with the History Trolls. And I am reminded why Everyday Regalia serves me as a powerful vehicle of insight and transformation: For every kind of being there is, I have been that. For every kind of suit there is, I have worn that. For every kind of joy there is, I have felt that. For every kind of fear there is, I have feared that. I remember: Without delay may I awaken and become a splendid companion for all sentient beings. |
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all photographs copyright Julie Püttgen