Howdy, readers! I’m participating in an upcoming virtual art show, which opens on Saturday, April 17, 2021 at 6 PM PDT on the Crush/Repeat YouTube channel.
What is Crush/Repeat?
Crush/Repeat 2021 is an art event for queer community and friends, and will feature the work of artists of all ages and experience levels. Participants chose a small project to repeat every day during the month of March, with mediums including photography, painting, sewing, ceramics, music, comedy, video, and more. Topics range from lighthearted to deeply personal, with some artists using the project to reflect on a particularly challenging year.
Artist Statement
As a nonbinary person, I take out my frustration with cisgender people’s obsession with genital reveal parties and cakes in the form of satirical cakes celebrating the biggest “gender reveal fails” or “gender reveal disasters”; my prior work includes Fight At Applebees and 47,000 Acre Wildfire. During the pandemic, I was not able to work on my intermittent cake series using actual cake, so for Crush/Repeat, I’ve created artistic representations of 1. gender reveal fail cakes (works 2-7), 2. alternative gender reveal cakes (8-22), and 3. other as collages, mainly with colors and textures from magazines. All the cake designs could theoretically be baked and decorated, and I plan to make a few after my friends are vaccinated.
Gender Reveal Fail Cake 3: Balloon Escape 
The father-to-be and a party-goer chase after the escaped black balloon towards a white picket fence. 
Gender Reveal Fail Cake 5: Rainbow Balloons Suprise 
Pink or blue? Guess what? fuck you
Recommended Resources
Emily Breitkopf. “Gender Reveal Party Fail: On Cisnormativity and its disruptions.” The New School Gender and Sexualities Study Institute. June 3, 2020.
The anxiety of pregnancy is simultaneously confounded by the “regulatory anxiety” of gendering experienced by many (Corbett, 2011). When cisnormativity fails, even momentarily, it pulls the cisgender subject out of themself, causing — for many — a fundamental undoing as they are forced to recognize the limits of the discourses that define them.
Breitkopf, 2020
Incoherent Queer Screaming. “Gender According to the Cis, Based on their cakes.” YouTube. June 14, 2020.
- A baby can be a sport
- More specific sports are possible
- A bow is not a sport
- Bows appear to diverge from sports
- They are mutually exclusive
I'll Make It Myself! 