Miller Potoma may sum up the Trans Art Market in one word: “kinetic.”
“It’s a place filled with so much joy and excitement,” Potoma remarked.
Beginning in April 2022, Potoma and other trans community members have been holding art markets twice a season that primarily feature trans and queer artists. Additionally, the Bok Building hosted the following Trans Art Market on Sunday, December 10.
According to Potoma, the goal of the art market is “to increase trans artists’ exposure to buyers who want to support them by providing an environment where they can be surrounded by their peers and other trans performers.”
This year’s market will feature a variety of works of art, including ceramics, clothing, and soaps. However, they all share a depiction of transgender and gay areas as well as their love and support for those who live within them.
When Hunny Daniels sits down to write, they consider the leather gay community, the first neighborhood that made them feel at home when they moved to Philadelphia in 2017.
Daniels remarked, “It’s really a place that welcomes everyone. The fundamental premise is that our struggle to get accepted is what unites us. It’s undoubtedly a community of newcomers for me, and I feel quite at ease there.”
Daniels pays homage to the neighborhood through a variety of works of art that use leather, handcuffs, and locks as well as other well-known symbols associated with the leather gay community. They claimed that some of their drawings depicted intimate relationships between people wearing leather in vivid detail, making them more “adult.” Others, however, are a chain-shaped, enormous, soft, bright pillow or two handcuffs in the shape of hearts intertwined.
Daniels remarked, “I truly adore the contrast between something as tough and unyielding as the leather scene and the sweetness of a heart, sparkle, and flower. I really like tinkering with the balance between beauty and ugliness.”
Daniels claimed that this contrast exemplifies the leather gay community as a whole.
They claimed that there is quite a stigma associated with the leather industry that you miss out on much of the beauty, tenderness, and care that take place within our communities.
Kamil White, a first-time vendor at Trans Art Market who has been designing since he was 5 years old and didn’t like Charlie Brown’s shoes, will also be on display at the market.
But White didn’t discover his passion and niche in art until last year, when he lost his home.
White remarked, “The only thing that kept me going was that I started making apparel for myself. It rapidly evolved into other people’s apparel.”
White’s handcrafted jewelry is adorned with vivid hues and patterns. He finds crystals and stones on golf courses to use in his necklaces, rings, and bracelets. He also uses reclaimed silver spoons to make his chains.
All of this is an effort to give his customers a real and tactile experience, particularly at the Trans Art Market, where he has been attempting to sell jewelry since last year.
White remarked, “Seeing how some trans people made me feel at home. It’s reassuring to be able to breathe and not have to wear a helmet. It’s liberating.”
Potoma, who has posters and buttons that speak to transgender experiences, is one of the 50 vendors who will be attending the Art Market this time. Potoma’s craft primarily aims to refute the notion that we are trans people and that our bodies are also trans, wonderful and beautiful in that.
According to Potoma, “I produce work that I wish I could have seen because it would have made me feel seen. And I hope that when other transgender people see or experience my work, they feel seen.”
