June 29, 2025 • 33 mins
Episode Summary
Join us for an intimate conversation with artist Joey Chabolla, whose work fuses Latino cultural heritage with queer, body-positive illustration. Joey shares the inspirations behind his signature shading technique, his focus on bearded, muscular physiques, and his commitment to authentic trans masculine representation. Discover how he navigates censorship, commissions, and community in the Dallas queer art scene.
Keywords- Joey Chabolla artist
- Queer Latino art
- Homoerotic illustration
- Body positive queer art
- Trans masculine representation
- Dallas queer art scene
- Latino cultural motifs in art
- Art and queer identity
- Social media censorship queer art
- Queer community organizing art
- Joey’s artistic style is deeply influenced by West Dallas’s graffiti culture and prison letter drawings with distinctive grayscale shading techniques.
- His mother’s cake decorating and encouragement played a key role in nurturing his early artistic skills.
- Joey’s queer identity began to emerge during junior high, inspiring early erotic sketches he carefully hid due to family dynamics.
- He celebrates bearded, muscular “bear” bodies in his art as a counterpoint to traditional homoerotic ideals of lean athletic men.
- Incorporating Latino heritage, he reinterprets motifs like Mayan and Aztec patterns into queer leather culture imagery, challenging machismo norms.
- Joey balances creative autonomy and client needs in commissioned work by deeply understanding the subject and adding personal artistic touches.
- He navigates social media censorship by hosting uncensored galleries on his own website and prioritizes technique as a form of vulnerability.
- The Dallas queer art scene presents challenges around inclusion and acceptance of nude, homoerotic art, requiring finding supportive venues.
- Joey deliberately includes trans masculine figures in his art, honoring their transition journeys through body structure and scar depiction.
- His advice to emerging queer artists: practice drawing regularly, embrace your unique perspective, and express yourself unapologetically.
- 00:00 - Introduction and Recording Setup
- 01:00 - Joey’s Cultural Heritage and Artistic Style
- 05:00 - Early Artistic Influences and Family Encouragement
- 08:00 - Queer Identity Emergence and Early Drawings
- 12:00 - Celebration of Bearded Muscular Physiques in Art
- 14:00 - Navigating Eroticism, Vulnerability, and Censorship
- 16:00 - Balancing Commissioned Work and Artistic Vision
- 19:00 - The Dallas Queer Art Scene: Challenges and Opportunities
- 22:00 - Trans Masculine Representation in Joey’s Work
- 25:00 - Latino Cultural Motifs in Queer Art
- 29:00 - Role as Artist and Community Organizer
- 30:30 - Advice for Emerging Queer Artists
- 32:50 - Rapid Fire: Joey’s Artistic Preferences and Inspirations
- 36:10 - Closing Remarks
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:01):
Okay.
I'll edit that we're recording now, but I'll edit this out.
So what I didn't tell you at the beginning, because we were messing around with all ofthat stuff is that I won't, I won't do like an introductory recording this way, what I'm
going to do is I'm going to, I'll record like an intro of me introducing you before Istart answering the quest, asking the questions on the podcast.
(00:28):
I'll generate like a little script that describes who you are, gives an introduction ofwho you are.
Um, and then I'll cut to just asking the questions.
Um, so you won't have to say, Hey, I'm Joey.
do this because I've already said that in the final episode.
So what I'm going to do is we're just going to dive into questions.
(00:49):
and, um, go from there.
Okay.
All right.
All right.
Three, two, one, right.
Joey, welcome to Art in the Roll.
eh Hey, thanks for having me.
Yep, absolutely.
ah So your your illustrations kind of blend traditional homoerotic ideals with Latinoinfluences.
(01:16):
Can you share how your cultural heritage shapes your artistic vision and the stories youchoose to tell?
I think a lot of the stories usually came from growing up.
In West Dallas, there was gang activity.
(01:37):
just a lot of, you would see graffiti sprayed everywhere.
This was back in the 80s, going into the 90s.
And it was just kind of all over the place.
Another thing that kind of shaped it was getting letters from loved ones in prison.
(02:02):
And they would do drawings that had this specific shading to it, that kind of grayscaleshading that I like to incorporate a lot in my drawings.
And I just kind of took that technique and fused that into what I do.
ah I've always, uh
(02:22):
just drawing regular items, not homoerotic stuff.
This was stuff back when I was in high school, just trying to figure it out.
And I was just drawing, you know, like an apple.
I shaded it the same way I would shade everything, which was kind of in that, I don't wantto say prison shading, but it was that general technique, you know, where it was very dark
(02:45):
on one side and it shaded gradually to the left.
um
over the top of it and then it also had like uh the big solid outlines.
And that kind of, I kind of held onto that in what I do, in basically everything.
Every time I do a drawing, it always tends to have that nice thick outline, which I justkind of go for it.
(03:08):
It's kind of key to me now.
Yeah, that's kind of your signature.
Would you say that that shading technique that you just described was uh part of that uhLatino prison culture that your relatives were part of?
Or was that just a technique that your your family, someone in your family used and youpicked up on it?
(03:32):
It uh was an uncle of mine that would get these letters and he just told me where theycame from.
uh they were religious drawings.
A lot of were like the praying hands or a cross.
And they all had this very uh well, very beautifully shaded uh backgrounds.
(03:55):
Or when they would draw Jesus, drew, the face was very well done.
and shaded beautifully, but that's what I pulled off of it.
I know back then I was a Catholic and a Christian and whatever else it was.
um But what I took away from it was the shading.
(04:19):
Because I wanted to know how did they do that?
How did they draw that?
And how did they make the cross look 3D?
How did they make the hands?
look that way on a piece of paper.
When I would draw it, it was like, you put your hand on it, you trace it, and that was medrawing a hand.
(04:41):
I was never drawing like this or like this or trying to capture the planes of theknuckles.
When I saw them doing it, I was just like, I want to learn how to do that.
And that's when I got into seriously learning how to draw people.
Were you already a little artistic as a child that way or did those drawings that youreceive kind of inspire you to learn to draw?
(05:09):
I was always drawing as a kid.
I was drawing dinosaurs and stuff like that.
My mom, she was a cake decorator.
And when she would start to design her cakes, she would set out a piece of paper, drawwhat she wanted, whatever the client wanted, whoever was getting the cake, they wanted
(05:29):
flowers here.
She would show me how to draw roses and stuff like that.
So she gave me paper, she gave me a pencil, had me draw alongside her.
And that's kind of where I got into it.
Later on, know, my parents were very encouraging about, you want to draw, here's somethingto draw.
(05:50):
know, here's paper, here's whatever you need.
You know, even to the point where I remember drawing on the wall in my bedroom, like whenI was like 11, and I like, just didn't have any paper, I didn't have nothing.
It was the middle of the night and I just took a pencil and I was just
rolled over in the bed and started drawing on the wall.
(06:12):
And it was there for like a long, for about a year.
And then one day I came home and my dad was just like, I painted over your drawing.
It's like, okay, you you could have at least told me.
Yeah, but yeah, they've always like been very encouraging.
They sent me to like art, uh like art things in the summer.
(06:33):
And you know, if I wanted to take art classes, they were all for it.
Especially my mom, she was pretty artistic in her way, but she really wanted me to go withit.
She liked it.
So you think you got your artistic skills from your mom?
Yeah, I think so.
(06:53):
When she would draw her cakes, she was drawing Daffy Duck and Woody Woodpecker and stufflike that.
And I was like, I knew how to draw the cartoon characters.
It was back in the 90s, so everybody was drawing Bart Simpson back in the day, and thatwas the thing.
And I just kind of had to grow up and learn to draw other things, like realistic things.
(07:16):
And it wasn't until I had to audition for the arts magnet.
school where I actually had to draw realistic things, not cartoons because they didn'twant cartoons.
They wanted, you know, bowls of fruit.
They wanted, you know, a skeleton.
You know, they wanted something that showed what you knew how to do and what you wanted todo.
(07:40):
So, I mean, it was, you know, it was very basic when I, when I got into high school, youknow, just drawing skills and everything.
I mean, I had never used like,
oil pastels, had never used watercolor.
You there were a lot of things that I had to go in there blindly, not knowing.
And it was just pencils for the most part.
(08:03):
So basically I gave them a lot of white pages with grayscale drawings.
And luckily, you know, they, I guess, you know, they saw the potential and they just kindof, you know, come on in.
So that's where all that came from.
When do you think your artistic skill and your queer identity started to fuse into the artthat you made?
(08:27):
Well, I knew my queer identity was changing in the seventh grade.
That was when I was in a, my first time in a PE class where we had to change and shower ina group.
(08:51):
And I think something clicked where I was just like, okay, this.
I definitely, I was crazy nervous because short, fat kid, nerd basically.
I was like, okay, I have to go do this, otherwise they're gonna fail me in this course.
(09:16):
going home with an F was not key at home.
So I did it and you see things and stuff like that.
And you start to see things differently and then you start to, you get that weird feelinglike, why do I feel this way?
Why am I thinking about the guys in the shower?
long after I'm out of that shower, long after I'm already at home.
(09:39):
So I knew that there was something going on there.
And that was kind of like where that tripped.
And later on, I found myself doing these tiny little sketches of naked guys.
And now, I was in junior high, was still in junior high.
(10:03):
And I remember I would hide them.
in between my mattresses.
Cause I was like, nobody's gonna look under here.
And nobody tells you that.
So I come home one day and I go to find my stash of drawings or like at least add to it.
(10:24):
And they're gone.
I'm like, my gosh, who is the one person that comes over to the house while everybody'sgone?
My grandmother.
So I was like, she had to have.
you know, swipe them.
Which means if she swiped them, she showed them to my dad because she was that kind oflady.
(10:45):
You know, I mean, love family and everything, but yeah, she was a shady lady.
And I think that's how my dad already knew I was gay long before I even, you know,started.
Yeah, before I brought it up and everything.
And I think it prepared him for when I eventually came out.
(11:06):
My mom, not too much, but you know, dad was cool with it.
Did you ever get those drawings back?
You still have them.
I don't know where they went, you know.
They were great.
mean, they were a little, they were very cartoonish.
They looked like they were drawn by a 13 year old.
So I was like, okay, exactly.
They looked cartoonish.
(11:27):
yeah, just, and you know the weird thing was?
When I think back on those drawings, they weren't like the skinny athletic guys.
They were of like the bulky football player type guys.
And so I was like,
When I think back on that, was like, was I into the bigger guys back then from the jump?
(11:48):
Was that what I was gonna chase later on as an adult?
That's so weird.
much of your work now centers on um celebrating bearded muscular furry physiques.
So I think you started on that quite early.
um How do you see your art that focuses on that particular ideal?
(12:16):
um
that type of person.
Yeah, like the bearded muscular furry guys.
How do you see that your art about those types of guys um challenging maybe standards ofbeauty within the queer and Latinx communities?
Because like in the prison drawings oh that I would see, the guys were always shaved head,goatee, they were either wearing like a...
(12:49):
They call it a white beater.
um Those muscle tank tops, they all had these trim bodies, chest, arms.
They all looked like a typical cholo back in the day.
They all had that Latin thug presence and everything.
There were no big guys.
There were no big guys.
were no big bearded guys.
So when I started drawing, always focused on the bigger the heft, the heftier guys.
(13:17):
um
later on in art history.
um Everybody back in the day, like the masters, they were all focused on drawing the mostcut, well-defined guys.
And I never saw any art with just the big, standard, normal-looking guys.
(13:40):
So I think that's, because I wanted to put that out there.
I wanted to put that to the front for me.
um
And I think that's kind of where I go to whenever I want to draw somebody.
I usually go for the thicker, the bearded, the more uh sturdier type of guys.
(14:03):
Not that there's nothing beautiful about a well-defined man.
It's just what I tend to go to.
Exactly.
How do you think you navigate the line between the eroticism of what you draw andvulnerability, especially in the context of some of your public exhibitions or social
(14:27):
media censorship today?
Like social media and stuff like that, when they tell you that, you can't show this, it'slike, okay, I'm gonna find someplace where I can't show this.
So I have, do, just my website is just a photo gallery.
(14:49):
It's just a place where I can just put my stuff out there.
If people wanna see it, it's there, it's uncensored, it's what it is.
Where I am, blue skies, they don't censor, so they're cool.
But getting all of the meta, censorship, and all of that, I was just kind of okay, I'mdone.
As far as vulnerability and putting that out there, I think where my vulnerability lies isin my technique.
(15:19):
I'm very, very hard on myself when it comes to producing a well-done drawing.
I will beat my head, beat myself over the head trying to get the proportions right, tryingto get the shading right, the lighting right.
Am I too focused on the portrait and not the background?
(15:41):
Do they even match up?
So that's where I put my vulnerable is my struggle to be good at what I do.
I may not put a lot of emotion and message in my
portraits, but you know, it's part of me.
(16:01):
This is what I do and this is what I want to be good at.
Yep.
So you, your art kind of includes, uh obviously, your personal art that you do.
um But you've also done some commissioned work.
um How do you how do you balance your creative autonomy and the commission work?
(16:22):
um And yeah, with a commission piece and still meet the needs of clients.
I think you have to find a happy balance between yourself and the client and say, you haveto, you have to give them what they want, but you have to give them what they want through
(16:42):
your eye.
you know, um, just for, as an example, um, a guy at TBRU, um, came up to my booth.
said I would love uh drawing, know, hot guys.
Great, no problem.
(17:04):
He sends me, he contacts me, you know, about two months after the event, says, hey, I metyou, you I'd like to get this drawing.
um And I'm thinking, okay, great, you know, let's see what this reference photo lookslike.
And uh I click on the photos, and this is of a lovely older woman, she's about 75, andhe's like, well, I would like to...
(17:26):
a portrait of my mother.
And I was like, okay, well, you know, after the initial letdown, I say, okay, well, let meconstruct something.
Let me throw you a couple ideas.
uh But I asked him a few questions, like what was her favorite flower?
What does she like to do?
You know, does she have any specific hobbies?
know, does she like the beach or the city?
(17:47):
Well, you know, who was this lady?
So I took the reference photo.
did her as best as I could.
she was a, you know, it was a really good portrait.
But when I filled in the background and like, you know, just around her, I filled it withlike, um, Gardenias.
I remember she, he responded, she likes Gardenias.
(18:09):
So I just drew a bunch of Gardenias.
They were all black and white and shaded.
It wasn't, you know, no color.
Um, but you know, he was very happy about that.
And that's where I had to find that balance, you know, just make, um,
make the portrait of his mother as pretty as possible and give her something that kind ofties it back to, this is what my mom was all about.
(18:34):
And that's how I kind of balance it out.
Just asking them questions, find out what they want.
Yeah.
Did you ever get a hot photo of the hot guy to draw?
No, but it's burning in my head.
I have a very good imagination.
Yeah.
So you and I met locally in Dallas.
(18:56):
um We both lived here for a very long time.
um What are you think what do you think the unique challenges and rewards of making queerart in Dallas are?
um How do think the local scene has shaped your development as an artist?
You know, uh the local scene, the local scene, there's a lot.
Like Dallas has a lot of art.
(19:18):
It has a lot of gay art.
Does it have my kind of art?
Not so much.
And you know, that's why I think we have to find venues where it's okay to submit and arewilling to accept what we do, you know, as far as nude artwork, homoerotic artwork, that
(19:39):
kind of stuff.
Cause even,
Even gay curators will not accept you into their show.
I don't want to say it's clicky, but they have a tendency to pull the people that are mostlike them.
They're friends.
(19:59):
that's, you can say it's Dallas or maybe they're just clicky that way, but they're notwilling to open the doors to other folks.
And it's just a matter of like, have to find the places where you can do that.
And for me, know, shows at the Eagle, know, shows with Cinewild, shows with TBRU, know,showing at TBR.
(20:26):
TBRU is my big one.
I'll put everything I've done for the entire year and just say, hey, this is me the entireyear.
Yep.
You've done shows for uh Artitude locally as well for Maricon X and how's that experiencebeen?
know, Artitude is a great organization, know, meeting them and, you know, working withthose guys has really, really just kind of given me a lot of boost as far as getting out
(20:54):
there in the art world as like, you know, I'm more than just, um you know, dicks andbutts, you know, but it's, you know, it's like, they can see, you know, the beauty in what
I go through for making this art.
um
You know, like right now, the Maricon X show that opened a couple of weeks ago, ratherthan move it to another gallery in downtown Dallas, they're actually taking it down to San
(21:24):
Antonio and hanging it up there.
So, another section of the estate is gonna get to see what me and my fellow Dallas artistshave done, which is really, really awesome.
Yeah.
I mean, again, I love working with those guys.
They're good guys and they have ideas of how to push things forward.
(21:47):
And that's
I'm looking to get Jerome on an episode of art in the raw soon.
Yeah.
So you, one of your artists statements that I've seen before mentions how you highlightyour art highlights um a focus on both male and FTM figures.
(22:11):
um That kind of signal signals a deliberate commitment to
trans inclusive representation.
um Can you describe your process for depicting trans masculine bodies in your work?
Yeah, for trans masculine bodies, because I don't want to say that it's a new thing,because it's clearly not.
(22:31):
um I guess the coverage has gotten a lot in the last, I'm going to say 10 years.
um And it's odd that they're in plain sight.
There were people that I didn't realize that that's what they were.
uh
(22:54):
So when I go in to draw a um female to male, take a lot of things into consideration asfar as what did they look like before and how did they progress now?
How's their facial change?
How does their facial structure change?
(23:14):
Did they have operations?
If they did, if they had the upper surgery, I wanna showcase those scars because the scarsare like,
It's a key signal of the change that they have gone through.
I mean, this stuff is not, this isn't just something that you, oh, I think I'll do thisover the weekend.
No, this is stuff that they have to think about.
(23:37):
And nothing shows that better than a scar that says, hey, I made the commitment to be whoI am.
When it comes to just body structure, who are they going to be?
Sometimes I think to myself like trans people, when they go through the changes that theygo through, what they're doing is they're deciding to become the best version of who they
(24:07):
are meant to be.
They want to be this person.
And I think for me as just a gay cis man, I take being me for granted.
I grew up being content with who I am.
They had
to struggle.
So if you can, if you can pull that emotion into their face, into their body language,then I think you've really captured the essence of what they had to go through as a trans
(24:38):
person.
You know, male to female, female to male.
You know, they do have a, they do have more duality because they had to change who theywere to be who they are meant to be.
And I think that's beautiful for them.
And I totally.
that you are able to show that and to tell that story in your art.
(25:03):
um That's beautiful.
In Maricon X, one of the drawings that I did was of a female to male trans person, Latinoin leather, in front of the trans flag.
And that's part of the group of the pieces that I'm sending out.
(25:25):
So I'm really happy that that one's gonna get to trampled as well.
Yeah, I'm excited to see that one of myself.
um So speaking of MariconX are there particular myths or symbols or motifs from yourLatino background that kind of recur in your work?
Yeah, this last, my big series from last year was the Latinos in Leather.
(25:51):
And I think you've seen my Leather Pride flag background and then the bear flagbackground.
oh When I design those, I like to take uh things like the tattoos on the big bear guy andthe scorpion tattoos and the spider webs and stuff like that.
(26:13):
a lot of Latino imagery in that.
And just kind of shape him that way, him that Mexican jawline, the beard and stuff likethat, and just kind of shape him how a Latino, a shy, Latino bear would stand.
(26:34):
uh And then for the leather guys, m
saying one of them has tattoos and stuff like that.
And then the other one, the hardware on their harness and I guess along his pants, Iwanted to incorporate uh traditional, like, you know, my take on a traditional uh Mayan or
(26:56):
Aztec motif, you know, skulls, uh just, you know, beautiful um pattern work, just.
just kind of add those in there to say, is what, you know, when I see Latinos in leather,I don't want to see just, you know, here's a harness and, you know, here's, you know,
here's a, you know, um a jockstrap, you know, a leather jock.
(27:19):
You know, I want to see that kind of stuff, that kind of, you know, commitment to, um toLatino heritage in the creation of a leather garment.
Do you think it's, ah well.
How do you try to reinterpret ah those ah cultural motifs for a queer audience?
(27:47):
You just have to go for it.
know, um, you know, a lot of people, you know, they may, they may not like the idea ofincorporating that into queer because of the whole machismo thing, you know, and growing
up in West Dallas or anywhere, you know, if you're growing up in a Latino family, there'sa certain level of masculinity that you have to have as a boy.
(28:09):
You know, if they see you crying, then you are weak.
If they see you, you know, not playing sports, you are weak.
You know, if you get hurt and you, shy away from things, you are weak.
You can't let that hold you back.
If I'm going to put something in my art and do it, I'm not going to be weak about it.
(28:29):
I'm going to do what I want and let everybody else just deal with it.
You know, you can't, you can't shy away from things anymore.
You know, I'm, you know, at my age, do I care?
No, I'm, you know,
Maybe as a kid, yes, I was worried about what people would think, but now, you I thinkyou've said it several times, you have to stop caring what people think.
(28:53):
And yeah, I mean, that's where we are.
And in this day and age, if you don't speak up, if you don't present your point of view,you're just gonna fade in with the rest of, with everybody else.
And why do that?
Why hold yourself back?
Because somebody else has a problem.
(29:13):
Stand out and be you and stand up for what you believe in.
Absolutely.
Absolutely.
um How do you see your role as both an artist and a community organizer evolving?
Because you've done some work with community organizing, I believe.
Um, not the most, community oriented.
(29:33):
mean, I, I've helped, you know, like in demonstrations, I've been to the protests andstuff like that.
I am there to lend support.
um art wise, yes.
I mean, you want something, let's, let's do this.
You know, let's put something together.
Um, you know, for Maricon X because that is, it is kind of a
(29:58):
It is kind of a, I don't want say it's a political show, but there is a political leaningto it to say, hey, we are, you know, this is who we are, you know, and this is what we are
going to give you.
You know, I'm, you know, I'm all about promoting, know, uh, running an agenda that workswith me, um, and my art.
(30:22):
Cause that's at the end of the day, that's what I want to be known.
for is my art and how it affected other people.
So if I can lend my art to others to do greater things beyond myself, then I'm all for it.
What advice would you give emerging queer artists who want to create unapologetically bodypositive work, but face barriers in conservative environments like you just described?
(30:55):
My thing, like, what?
Practice every day drawing regular people.
Draw people at the bus stop.
Draw people waiting in line.
Just draw regular people because these are the people that are out there every day livingtheir lives.
(31:18):
You may not know them, but they are out there part of this society.
When it comes to models, a scheduled model sitting in time,
draw every portion of that person or focus on one part.
Learn to draw legs, learn to draw hands, learn to draw feet.
(31:39):
Those are important.
Not everybody wants to see drawings with people's hands behind their backs.
Study it, study the lights, uh shading and shadow.
Just kind of go after everything, remember, you are creating this as an interpret, as a...
uh
(32:00):
as an expression of yourself.
Your art is you.
So don't be afraid to put yourself on paper and put that out there for everybody to see.
Because it has value.
Your work and your effort has value.
The sooner you learn that, the sooner you just go for it, the happier you'll be.
(32:25):
And other people will catch on to that.
Mm-hmm.
All right, well, as we draw this interview to a close, I have 10 questions for you.
These are inspired by the uh Inside the Artist Studio uh set of 10 questions that used tobe asked to actors, but I've added uh an artistic twist to the questions.
(32:55):
So you're ready?
All right.
What's your favorite artistic medium or tool?
pencils.
I can see that.
What artistic trend or cliche do you wish would disappear?
Minimalism.
(33:15):
Give me something.
Give me something.
What fuels your creativity the most?
um Music actually, yeah.
I listen to like, I'm pretty across the board.
love hip hop for certain things.
I'll listen to uh Tool or Perfect Circle when I'm feeling a certain way and I kind ofput...
(33:44):
What sound or noise instantly inspires you?
Crowds cheering.
What sound or noise completely kills your focus?
Dripping water.
You're not the first person to say that one.
That drives me nuts,
(34:05):
What's your favorite word or phrase to include in your work, literally or metaphorically?
technique.
If you could see any queer artists living or dead honored with a major public monument,who would it be?
(34:26):
There's a Latino artist in California by the name of Hector Silva.
I've followed him for ages and I absolutely love his work.
is like, so LA Latino pencil graphite drawing.
Look him up.
He's amazing.
And I draw a lot of inspiration from him.
(34:48):
I kind of wanted to emulate him, but I wanted to do it my way.
But he's amazing and he deserves.
to try and see if I can get them on the pod.
What is one profession or creative field you could never see yourself in?
Um.
Anything financial.
(35:09):
It's, yeah.
You don't want me there.
uh
I hear that a lot from artists.
Seems that creative people and finance don't mix very well.
It's hard to be the artist and the businessman.
Because at times I was like, do I really got to do numbers now?
(35:30):
I just want to draw.
Yep.
If your art could take on a life of its own, what form would it take?
I don't know, but it'd probably be like a club, like the hottest club on the planet.
(35:52):
If all these guys came to life, packed them in there.
absolutely go to that club.
And finally, 100 years from now, what do you hope your art says about you to those whofind it in the future?
(36:15):
Man, that pervert sure could draw!
There you go.
Love my art, love my techniques.
I wanna be that guy.
ah Well, thanks for joining me on this episode, Joey.
(36:36):
I really appreciate it.
You're a good friend and um I look forward to doing more art together with you.
Absolutely, thanks so much.
I really, really enjoyed it, Cool.
Thanks.
You too.
Okay.
I'll edit that we're recording now, but I'll edit this out.
So what I didn't tell you at the beginning, because we were messing around with all ofthat stuff is that I won't, I won't do like an introductory recording this way, what I'm
going to do is I'm going to, I'll record like an intro of me introducing you before Istart answering the quest, asking the questions on the podcast.
(00:28):
I'll generate like a little script that describes who you are, gives an introduction ofwho you are.
Um, and then I'll cut to just asking the questions.
Um, so you won't have to say, Hey, I'm Joey.
do this because I've already said that in the final episode.
So what I'm going to do is we're just going to dive into questions.
(00:49):
and, um, go from there.
Okay.
All right.
All right.
Three, two, one, right.
Joey, welcome to Art in the Roll.
eh Hey, thanks for having me.
Yep, absolutely.
ah So your your illustrations kind of blend traditional homoerotic ideals with Latinoinfluences.
(01:16):
Can you share how your cultural heritage shapes your artistic vision and the stories youchoose to tell?
I think a lot of the stories usually came from growing up.
In West Dallas, there was gang activity.
(01:37):
just a lot of, you would see graffiti sprayed everywhere.
This was back in the 80s, going into the 90s.
And it was just kind of all over the place.
Another thing that kind of shaped it was getting letters from loved ones in prison.
(02:02):
And they would do drawings that had this specific shading to it, that kind of grayscaleshading that I like to incorporate a lot in my drawings.
And I just kind of took that technique and fused that into what I do.
ah I've always, uh
(02:22):
just drawing regular items, not homoerotic stuff.
This was stuff back when I was in high school, just trying to figure it out.
And I was just drawing, you know, like an apple.
I shaded it the same way I would shade everything, which was kind of in that, I don't wantto say prison shading, but it was that general technique, you know, where it was very dark
(02:45):
on one side and it shaded gradually to the left.
um
over the top of it and then it also had like uh the big solid outlines.
And that kind of, I kind of held onto that in what I do, in basically everything.
Every time I do a drawing, it always tends to have that nice thick outline, which I justkind of go for it.
(03:08):
It's kind of key to me now.
Yeah, that's kind of your signature.
Would you say that that shading technique that you just described was uh part of that uhLatino prison culture that your relatives were part of?
Or was that just a technique that your your family, someone in your family used and youpicked up on it?
(03:32):
It uh was an uncle of mine that would get these letters and he just told me where theycame from.
uh they were religious drawings.
A lot of were like the praying hands or a cross.
And they all had this very uh well, very beautifully shaded uh backgrounds.
(03:55):
Or when they would draw Jesus, drew, the face was very well done.
and shaded beautifully, but that's what I pulled off of it.
I know back then I was a Catholic and a Christian and whatever else it was.
um But what I took away from it was the shading.
(04:19):
Because I wanted to know how did they do that?
How did they draw that?
And how did they make the cross look 3D?
How did they make the hands?
look that way on a piece of paper.
When I would draw it, it was like, you put your hand on it, you trace it, and that was medrawing a hand.
(04:41):
I was never drawing like this or like this or trying to capture the planes of theknuckles.
When I saw them doing it, I was just like, I want to learn how to do that.
And that's when I got into seriously learning how to draw people.
Were you already a little artistic as a child that way or did those drawings that youreceive kind of inspire you to learn to draw?
(05:09):
I was always drawing as a kid.
I was drawing dinosaurs and stuff like that.
My mom, she was a cake decorator.
And when she would start to design her cakes, she would set out a piece of paper, drawwhat she wanted, whatever the client wanted, whoever was getting the cake, they wanted
(05:29):
flowers here.
She would show me how to draw roses and stuff like that.
So she gave me paper, she gave me a pencil, had me draw alongside her.
And that's kind of where I got into it.
Later on, know, my parents were very encouraging about, you want to draw, here's somethingto draw.
(05:50):
know, here's paper, here's whatever you need.
You know, even to the point where I remember drawing on the wall in my bedroom, like whenI was like 11, and I like, just didn't have any paper, I didn't have nothing.
It was the middle of the night and I just took a pencil and I was just
rolled over in the bed and started drawing on the wall.
(06:12):
And it was there for like a long, for about a year.
And then one day I came home and my dad was just like, I painted over your drawing.
It's like, okay, you you could have at least told me.
Yeah, but yeah, they've always like been very encouraging.
They sent me to like art, uh like art things in the summer.
(06:33):
And you know, if I wanted to take art classes, they were all for it.
Especially my mom, she was pretty artistic in her way, but she really wanted me to go withit.
She liked it.
So you think you got your artistic skills from your mom?
Yeah, I think so.
(06:53):
When she would draw her cakes, she was drawing Daffy Duck and Woody Woodpecker and stufflike that.
And I was like, I knew how to draw the cartoon characters.
It was back in the 90s, so everybody was drawing Bart Simpson back in the day, and thatwas the thing.
And I just kind of had to grow up and learn to draw other things, like realistic things.
(07:16):
And it wasn't until I had to audition for the arts magnet.
school where I actually had to draw realistic things, not cartoons because they didn'twant cartoons.
They wanted, you know, bowls of fruit.
They wanted, you know, a skeleton.
You know, they wanted something that showed what you knew how to do and what you wanted todo.
(07:40):
So, I mean, it was, you know, it was very basic when I, when I got into high school, youknow, just drawing skills and everything.
I mean, I had never used like,
oil pastels, had never used watercolor.
You there were a lot of things that I had to go in there blindly, not knowing.
And it was just pencils for the most part.
(08:03):
So basically I gave them a lot of white pages with grayscale drawings.
And luckily, you know, they, I guess, you know, they saw the potential and they just kindof, you know, come on in.
So that's where all that came from.
When do you think your artistic skill and your queer identity started to fuse into the artthat you made?
(08:27):
Well, I knew my queer identity was changing in the seventh grade.
That was when I was in a, my first time in a PE class where we had to change and shower ina group.
(08:51):
And I think something clicked where I was just like, okay, this.
I definitely, I was crazy nervous because short, fat kid, nerd basically.
I was like, okay, I have to go do this, otherwise they're gonna fail me in this course.
(09:16):
going home with an F was not key at home.
So I did it and you see things and stuff like that.
And you start to see things differently and then you start to, you get that weird feelinglike, why do I feel this way?
Why am I thinking about the guys in the shower?
long after I'm out of that shower, long after I'm already at home.
(09:39):
So I knew that there was something going on there.
And that was kind of like where that tripped.
And later on, I found myself doing these tiny little sketches of naked guys.
And now, I was in junior high, was still in junior high.
(10:03):
And I remember I would hide them.
in between my mattresses.
Cause I was like, nobody's gonna look under here.
And nobody tells you that.
So I come home one day and I go to find my stash of drawings or like at least add to it.
(10:24):
And they're gone.
I'm like, my gosh, who is the one person that comes over to the house while everybody'sgone?
My grandmother.
So I was like, she had to have.
you know, swipe them.
Which means if she swiped them, she showed them to my dad because she was that kind oflady.
(10:45):
You know, I mean, love family and everything, but yeah, she was a shady lady.
And I think that's how my dad already knew I was gay long before I even, you know,started.
Yeah, before I brought it up and everything.
And I think it prepared him for when I eventually came out.
(11:06):
My mom, not too much, but you know, dad was cool with it.
Did you ever get those drawings back?
You still have them.
I don't know where they went, you know.
They were great.
mean, they were a little, they were very cartoonish.
They looked like they were drawn by a 13 year old.
So I was like, okay, exactly.
They looked cartoonish.
(11:27):
yeah, just, and you know the weird thing was?
When I think back on those drawings, they weren't like the skinny athletic guys.
They were of like the bulky football player type guys.
And so I was like,
When I think back on that, was like, was I into the bigger guys back then from the jump?
(11:48):
Was that what I was gonna chase later on as an adult?
That's so weird.
much of your work now centers on um celebrating bearded muscular furry physiques.
So I think you started on that quite early.
um How do you see your art that focuses on that particular ideal?
(12:16):
um
that type of person.
Yeah, like the bearded muscular furry guys.
How do you see that your art about those types of guys um challenging maybe standards ofbeauty within the queer and Latinx communities?
Because like in the prison drawings oh that I would see, the guys were always shaved head,goatee, they were either wearing like a...
(12:49):
They call it a white beater.
um Those muscle tank tops, they all had these trim bodies, chest, arms.
They all looked like a typical cholo back in the day.
They all had that Latin thug presence and everything.
There were no big guys.
There were no big guys.
were no big bearded guys.
So when I started drawing, always focused on the bigger the heft, the heftier guys.
(13:17):
um
later on in art history.
um Everybody back in the day, like the masters, they were all focused on drawing the mostcut, well-defined guys.
And I never saw any art with just the big, standard, normal-looking guys.
(13:40):
So I think that's, because I wanted to put that out there.
I wanted to put that to the front for me.
um
And I think that's kind of where I go to whenever I want to draw somebody.
I usually go for the thicker, the bearded, the more uh sturdier type of guys.
(14:03):
Not that there's nothing beautiful about a well-defined man.
It's just what I tend to go to.
Exactly.
How do you think you navigate the line between the eroticism of what you draw andvulnerability, especially in the context of some of your public exhibitions or social
(14:27):
media censorship today?
Like social media and stuff like that, when they tell you that, you can't show this, it'slike, okay, I'm gonna find someplace where I can't show this.
So I have, do, just my website is just a photo gallery.
(14:49):
It's just a place where I can just put my stuff out there.
If people wanna see it, it's there, it's uncensored, it's what it is.
Where I am, blue skies, they don't censor, so they're cool.
But getting all of the meta, censorship, and all of that, I was just kind of okay, I'mdone.
As far as vulnerability and putting that out there, I think where my vulnerability lies isin my technique.
(15:19):
I'm very, very hard on myself when it comes to producing a well-done drawing.
I will beat my head, beat myself over the head trying to get the proportions right, tryingto get the shading right, the lighting right.
Am I too focused on the portrait and not the background?
(15:41):
Do they even match up?
So that's where I put my vulnerable is my struggle to be good at what I do.
I may not put a lot of emotion and message in my
portraits, but you know, it's part of me.
(16:01):
This is what I do and this is what I want to be good at.
Yep.
So you, your art kind of includes, uh obviously, your personal art that you do.
um But you've also done some commissioned work.
um How do you how do you balance your creative autonomy and the commission work?
(16:22):
um And yeah, with a commission piece and still meet the needs of clients.
I think you have to find a happy balance between yourself and the client and say, you haveto, you have to give them what they want, but you have to give them what they want through
(16:42):
your eye.
you know, um, just for, as an example, um, a guy at TBRU, um, came up to my booth.
said I would love uh drawing, know, hot guys.
Great, no problem.
(17:04):
He sends me, he contacts me, you know, about two months after the event, says, hey, I metyou, you I'd like to get this drawing.
um And I'm thinking, okay, great, you know, let's see what this reference photo lookslike.
And uh I click on the photos, and this is of a lovely older woman, she's about 75, andhe's like, well, I would like to...
(17:26):
a portrait of my mother.
And I was like, okay, well, you know, after the initial letdown, I say, okay, well, let meconstruct something.
Let me throw you a couple ideas.
uh But I asked him a few questions, like what was her favorite flower?
What does she like to do?
You know, does she have any specific hobbies?
know, does she like the beach or the city?
(17:47):
Well, you know, who was this lady?
So I took the reference photo.
did her as best as I could.
she was a, you know, it was a really good portrait.
But when I filled in the background and like, you know, just around her, I filled it withlike, um, Gardenias.
I remember she, he responded, she likes Gardenias.
(18:09):
So I just drew a bunch of Gardenias.
They were all black and white and shaded.
It wasn't, you know, no color.
Um, but you know, he was very happy about that.
And that's where I had to find that balance, you know, just make, um,
make the portrait of his mother as pretty as possible and give her something that kind ofties it back to, this is what my mom was all about.
(18:34):
And that's how I kind of balance it out.
Just asking them questions, find out what they want.
Yeah.
Did you ever get a hot photo of the hot guy to draw?
No, but it's burning in my head.
I have a very good imagination.
Yeah.
So you and I met locally in Dallas.
(18:56):
um We both lived here for a very long time.
um What are you think what do you think the unique challenges and rewards of making queerart in Dallas are?
um How do think the local scene has shaped your development as an artist?
You know, uh the local scene, the local scene, there's a lot.
Like Dallas has a lot of art.
(19:18):
It has a lot of gay art.
Does it have my kind of art?
Not so much.
And you know, that's why I think we have to find venues where it's okay to submit and arewilling to accept what we do, you know, as far as nude artwork, homoerotic artwork, that
(19:39):
kind of stuff.
Cause even,
Even gay curators will not accept you into their show.
I don't want to say it's clicky, but they have a tendency to pull the people that are mostlike them.
They're friends.
(19:59):
that's, you can say it's Dallas or maybe they're just clicky that way, but they're notwilling to open the doors to other folks.
And it's just a matter of like, have to find the places where you can do that.
And for me, know, shows at the Eagle, know, shows with Cinewild, shows with TBRU, know,showing at TBR.
(20:26):
TBRU is my big one.
I'll put everything I've done for the entire year and just say, hey, this is me the entireyear.
Yep.
You've done shows for uh Artitude locally as well for Maricon X and how's that experiencebeen?
know, Artitude is a great organization, know, meeting them and, you know, working withthose guys has really, really just kind of given me a lot of boost as far as getting out
(20:54):
there in the art world as like, you know, I'm more than just, um you know, dicks andbutts, you know, but it's, you know, it's like, they can see, you know, the beauty in what
I go through for making this art.
um
You know, like right now, the Maricon X show that opened a couple of weeks ago, ratherthan move it to another gallery in downtown Dallas, they're actually taking it down to San
(21:24):
Antonio and hanging it up there.
So, another section of the estate is gonna get to see what me and my fellow Dallas artistshave done, which is really, really awesome.
Yeah.
I mean, again, I love working with those guys.
They're good guys and they have ideas of how to push things forward.
(21:47):
And that's
I'm looking to get Jerome on an episode of art in the raw soon.
Yeah.
So you, one of your artists statements that I've seen before mentions how you highlightyour art highlights um a focus on both male and FTM figures.
(22:11):
um That kind of signal signals a deliberate commitment to
trans inclusive representation.
um Can you describe your process for depicting trans masculine bodies in your work?
Yeah, for trans masculine bodies, because I don't want to say that it's a new thing,because it's clearly not.
(22:31):
um I guess the coverage has gotten a lot in the last, I'm going to say 10 years.
um And it's odd that they're in plain sight.
There were people that I didn't realize that that's what they were.
uh
(22:54):
So when I go in to draw a um female to male, take a lot of things into consideration asfar as what did they look like before and how did they progress now?
How's their facial change?
How does their facial structure change?
(23:14):
Did they have operations?
If they did, if they had the upper surgery, I wanna showcase those scars because the scarsare like,
It's a key signal of the change that they have gone through.
I mean, this stuff is not, this isn't just something that you, oh, I think I'll do thisover the weekend.
No, this is stuff that they have to think about.
(23:37):
And nothing shows that better than a scar that says, hey, I made the commitment to be whoI am.
When it comes to just body structure, who are they going to be?
Sometimes I think to myself like trans people, when they go through the changes that theygo through, what they're doing is they're deciding to become the best version of who they
(24:07):
are meant to be.
They want to be this person.
And I think for me as just a gay cis man, I take being me for granted.
I grew up being content with who I am.
They had
to struggle.
So if you can, if you can pull that emotion into their face, into their body language,then I think you've really captured the essence of what they had to go through as a trans
(24:38):
person.
You know, male to female, female to male.
You know, they do have a, they do have more duality because they had to change who theywere to be who they are meant to be.
And I think that's beautiful for them.
And I totally.
that you are able to show that and to tell that story in your art.
(25:03):
um That's beautiful.
In Maricon X, one of the drawings that I did was of a female to male trans person, Latinoin leather, in front of the trans flag.
And that's part of the group of the pieces that I'm sending out.
(25:25):
So I'm really happy that that one's gonna get to trampled as well.
Yeah, I'm excited to see that one of myself.
um So speaking of MariconX are there particular myths or symbols or motifs from yourLatino background that kind of recur in your work?
Yeah, this last, my big series from last year was the Latinos in Leather.
(25:51):
And I think you've seen my Leather Pride flag background and then the bear flagbackground.
oh When I design those, I like to take uh things like the tattoos on the big bear guy andthe scorpion tattoos and the spider webs and stuff like that.
(26:13):
a lot of Latino imagery in that.
And just kind of shape him that way, him that Mexican jawline, the beard and stuff likethat, and just kind of shape him how a Latino, a shy, Latino bear would stand.
(26:34):
uh And then for the leather guys, m
saying one of them has tattoos and stuff like that.
And then the other one, the hardware on their harness and I guess along his pants, Iwanted to incorporate uh traditional, like, you know, my take on a traditional uh Mayan or
(26:56):
Aztec motif, you know, skulls, uh just, you know, beautiful um pattern work, just.
just kind of add those in there to say, is what, you know, when I see Latinos in leather,I don't want to see just, you know, here's a harness and, you know, here's, you know,
here's a, you know, um a jockstrap, you know, a leather jock.
(27:19):
You know, I want to see that kind of stuff, that kind of, you know, commitment to, um toLatino heritage in the creation of a leather garment.
Do you think it's, ah well.
How do you try to reinterpret ah those ah cultural motifs for a queer audience?
(27:47):
You just have to go for it.
know, um, you know, a lot of people, you know, they may, they may not like the idea ofincorporating that into queer because of the whole machismo thing, you know, and growing
up in West Dallas or anywhere, you know, if you're growing up in a Latino family, there'sa certain level of masculinity that you have to have as a boy.
(28:09):
You know, if they see you crying, then you are weak.
If they see you, you know, not playing sports, you are weak.
You know, if you get hurt and you, shy away from things, you are weak.
You can't let that hold you back.
If I'm going to put something in my art and do it, I'm not going to be weak about it.
(28:29):
I'm going to do what I want and let everybody else just deal with it.
You know, you can't, you can't shy away from things anymore.
You know, I'm, you know, at my age, do I care?
No, I'm, you know,
Maybe as a kid, yes, I was worried about what people would think, but now, you I thinkyou've said it several times, you have to stop caring what people think.
(28:53):
And yeah, I mean, that's where we are.
And in this day and age, if you don't speak up, if you don't present your point of view,you're just gonna fade in with the rest of, with everybody else.
And why do that?
Why hold yourself back?
Because somebody else has a problem.
(29:13):
Stand out and be you and stand up for what you believe in.
Absolutely.
Absolutely.
um How do you see your role as both an artist and a community organizer evolving?
Because you've done some work with community organizing, I believe.
Um, not the most, community oriented.
(29:33):
mean, I, I've helped, you know, like in demonstrations, I've been to the protests andstuff like that.
I am there to lend support.
um art wise, yes.
I mean, you want something, let's, let's do this.
You know, let's put something together.
Um, you know, for Maricon X because that is, it is kind of a
(29:58):
It is kind of a, I don't want say it's a political show, but there is a political leaningto it to say, hey, we are, you know, this is who we are, you know, and this is what we are
going to give you.
You know, I'm, you know, I'm all about promoting, know, uh, running an agenda that workswith me, um, and my art.
(30:22):
Cause that's at the end of the day, that's what I want to be known.
for is my art and how it affected other people.
So if I can lend my art to others to do greater things beyond myself, then I'm all for it.
What advice would you give emerging queer artists who want to create unapologetically bodypositive work, but face barriers in conservative environments like you just described?
(30:55):
My thing, like, what?
Practice every day drawing regular people.
Draw people at the bus stop.
Draw people waiting in line.
Just draw regular people because these are the people that are out there every day livingtheir lives.
(31:18):
You may not know them, but they are out there part of this society.
When it comes to models, a scheduled model sitting in time,
draw every portion of that person or focus on one part.
Learn to draw legs, learn to draw hands, learn to draw feet.
(31:39):
Those are important.
Not everybody wants to see drawings with people's hands behind their backs.
Study it, study the lights, uh shading and shadow.
Just kind of go after everything, remember, you are creating this as an interpret, as a...
uh
(32:00):
as an expression of yourself.
Your art is you.
So don't be afraid to put yourself on paper and put that out there for everybody to see.
Because it has value.
Your work and your effort has value.
The sooner you learn that, the sooner you just go for it, the happier you'll be.
(32:25):
And other people will catch on to that.
Mm-hmm.
All right, well, as we draw this interview to a close, I have 10 questions for you.
These are inspired by the uh Inside the Artist Studio uh set of 10 questions that used tobe asked to actors, but I've added uh an artistic twist to the questions.
(32:55):
So you're ready?
All right.
What's your favorite artistic medium or tool?
pencils.
I can see that.
What artistic trend or cliche do you wish would disappear?
Minimalism.
(33:15):
Give me something.
Give me something.
What fuels your creativity the most?
um Music actually, yeah.
I listen to like, I'm pretty across the board.
love hip hop for certain things.
I'll listen to uh Tool or Perfect Circle when I'm feeling a certain way and I kind ofput...
(33:44):
What sound or noise instantly inspires you?
Crowds cheering.
What sound or noise completely kills your focus?
Dripping water.
You're not the first person to say that one.
That drives me nuts,
(34:05):
What's your favorite word or phrase to include in your work, literally or metaphorically?
technique.
If you could see any queer artists living or dead honored with a major public monument,who would it be?
(34:26):
There's a Latino artist in California by the name of Hector Silva.
I've followed him for ages and I absolutely love his work.
is like, so LA Latino pencil graphite drawing.
Look him up.
He's amazing.
And I draw a lot of inspiration from him.
(34:48):
I kind of wanted to emulate him, but I wanted to do it my way.
But he's amazing and he deserves.
to try and see if I can get them on the pod.
What is one profession or creative field you could never see yourself in?
Um.
Anything financial.
(35:09):
It's, yeah.
You don't want me there.
uh
I hear that a lot from artists.
Seems that creative people and finance don't mix very well.
It's hard to be the artist and the businessman.
Because at times I was like, do I really got to do numbers now?
(35:30):
I just want to draw.
Yep.
If your art could take on a life of its own, what form would it take?
I don't know, but it'd probably be like a club, like the hottest club on the planet.
(35:52):
If all these guys came to life, packed them in there.
absolutely go to that club.
And finally, 100 years from now, what do you hope your art says about you to those whofind it in the future?
(36:15):
Man, that pervert sure could draw!
There you go.
Love my art, love my techniques.
I wanna be that guy.
ah Well, thanks for joining me on this episode, Joey.
(36:36):
I really appreciate it.
You're a good friend and um I look forward to doing more art together with you.
Absolutely, thanks so much.
I really, really enjoyed it, Cool.
Thanks.
You too.
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