I’ve been mad busy recently with two major art projects: The Butch Project and The Queeriodic Table.

I’ve been working as a Production Assistant for SD Holman in getting The Butch Project up and running after a bit of a hiatus. It has been very satisfying working with such a talented and committed artist. I like using my organising skills in artistic contexts and I find collaborating with artists to be inspiring and energising for my own work.

The Queeriodic Table is one of those projects.

Back in December 2009 Kona Katranya was inspired by a periodic table of cupcakes.  She envisioned a fundraiser and I put up my hand straight away. We chatted and ruminated and our plan for a periodic table of queerness in cupcake form began to take shape. Out in Schools was an obvious choice as the recipient of funds raised. It is an organisation that we both have a great deal of respect for. It also gave us a deadline: October 2nd, 2010 was the next High School Confidential. Well time flies doesn’t it? All of sudden we needed to move very fast to get everything done. It was time to stop pondering and start doing.

As much as we both love cupcakes we decided that it wasn’t very practical to make, ice and transport 112 cupcakes so we decided buttons/pins/badges were the way to go. Each button would represent one element and a poster would show the whole table.

I had a total blast nerding out over the choice of words for the elements, and the choice of categories. We tried hard to be balanced and represent a wide cross section of the queer universe. As an extra geeky element I tried as much as possible to mirror characteristics of the periodic table.

With help from our excellent friends (thanks in particular to Jack, Elaine & Romham ) and after a few very late nights it all came together.  I was happy to be in Portland for the Butch Voices conference but so sad that it meant missing the launch.

There’s more to do. We need to update the website (http://queeriodictable.com/QueeriodicTable.html) with the table and create more merchandise so we can raise more money for Out in Schools.

I have been so excited by this nerdy art project and am stoked to keep pushing it further.