The Art Corner: Porch beers with Elliott Stewart
This month, we talk about community, unapologetic queerness, and the writing process with West Virginia-based artist Elliot Stewart.
“Blessed are the queer kids, for they shall inherit the earth” Elliott Stewart, Porch Beer Zine 5
It is a hectic day for me when I meet Elliott Stewart in the Art Corner, but the minute he begins speaking, I feel my shoulders relax, and my jaw loosens up, the stress of the day is gone. This is a heartful person, I feel it in the way he speaks. It is the day after Valentine’s day, and I am deep in research about deconstructing romantic love in a capitalist society. Love is the theme I have strapped on my back those days- and with it a little anger. But the beauty of the Art Corner is that no matter what is going on, this is an hour of presence, where two humans meet, and talk freely.
Elliott Stewart is a brilliant writer, musician and visual artist. His roots lie in Huntington, West Virginia, but as a child, he moved around a lot. He loved drawing and writing since a young age, and he tells me his grandmother still has most of the booklets he used to make. Today, he writes for Porch Beers, a zine that intersects queer joy, identity, social justice, and personal storytelling. It is absolutely brilliant.
“As the Department of Homeland Security handed down a statement saying my loved ones and I were the targets of domestic terrorism — after some goobers in NC cut power to 40,000 to prevent a drag show — a Billy Joel line ran through my head: “they say that these are not the best of times / but they’re the only times I’ve ever known.” I wish I’d never lamented in the past that Gen Z “had it easy” because they’d never known the hard times queer Millennials had, as now they’re getting them in spades.”
This is how issue 5 of the Zine begins. “What I write about starts out as a personal story, but I’m a big believer in the personal is political, and that in telling my stories with my own experience, and that of various marginalized communities, is a political act,” he tells me. Porch Beers started as a project to “keep me sane” during Covid times, where he was away from his hometown on a job. He tells me he had had a sort of creative block for a while, and that when he started porch beers “it was like a dam broke. And suddenly I was experiencing all the things that were a powerful changing force in my life”. As a writer I deeply relate to the sentiment, oftentimes being overwhelmed by what is going on in the world, and constantly overloaded with content and information, it is hard to find the space to be creative.
The name Porch Beers derives from a typical Appalachian tradition; “A lot of older houses in Huntington have porches, and one of the first things you do in the summer is sit out with your buddies and have ice-cold beers,” he explains. “Huntington is also a very walkable place so it’s very likely that somebody will be walking by and just step out on your porch and have a beer with you.” The sense of community is strong in Elliott’s Zine, in his writing, and it is starting to come up in our conversation. I am reminded of a book by bell hooks. In it, she quotes psychiatrist Scott Peck, who defines community as the coming together of a group of individuals “who have learned how to communicate honestly with each other, whose relationships go deeper than their masks of composure, and who have developed some significant commitment to ‘rejoice together, mourn together,’ and to ‘delight in each other, and make other’s conditions our own.’” I ask Elliott how Community has defined his journey.
“The overwhelming narrative of Appalachia to the rest of the world seems to be, very white, very cis straights, neurotypical, and ignorant. Very much like the oppressor.”
“Community is so vital to marginalized groups,” he says. “I’m fairly lucky that most of my family has been incredibly supportive of my gender expression and sexuality. But there are a lot of folks in my community who don’t have that.” He tells me that he has a tradition of attending trans-centric movie nights organised by his friend Oliver Snow, where they watch B movies like Attack of the Killer Tomatoes and create a safe place. Community is important because often the emotional labour of having to explain your situation to someone who is not in your shoes is often exhausting. “When I first started transitioning,” says Elliott “I was using the term non-binary, even though it didn’t necessarily fit me. I personally felt like it would be easier for people to understand that concept than to have to explain I was a trans man. Spoiler alert, they do not.” Community is important to create a sense of home, another incredibly strong theme in his writing.
Porch Beer discusses a variety of topics from radical and unapologetic queerness to the history of the food revolution in Appalachia, through deeply intimate stories that arrive in a truly tender way. “The overwhelming narrative of Appalachia to the rest of the world seems to be, very white, very cis straights, neurotypical, and ignorant. Very much like the oppressor,” he says, “and what I want to show is that is not the case, necessarily. There is a rich black culture and immigrant culture in the state. And I guess I just kind of want to prove to the world that other people exist in this region.
Our conversation happens just weeks after a major anti-LGBTQI+ legislation denying gender-affirming care for transgender youth was passed. Along with this, the Religious Freedom Restoration act has advanced to the senate and threatens the livelihood of LGBTQI+ folks in the state. Some risk their right to housing, education, and healthcare. The rhetoric going around is shameful, and Elliott confesses that this is a heavyweight to sustain.
Yet, his work is to counteract the hatred. I was recently watching an interview with Prince who said something that blew me away, it was delivered simply like a truth bomb always is: “The truth is you are here to enlighten or discourage.”
In issue 5 of his zine, Elliott writes: “There is a holiness to queer joy and gender euphoria, a joy that can’t be bought or sold, and that’s dangerous to scared, small people. You kicked us out of your stained glass museums, so we shrugged and found church in the ballrooms and back alleys. You said we were worthless, so we found worth in ourselves and our communities.”
Undoubtedly, he is here to enlighten.
