Queer creative wellness
Dani: I’m Dani here with Conspire, and I’m talking with Bobby from Emote. We’re talking today about queer creative wellness. To start us off, Bobby, you have these amazing nails that I’d love to hear about.
Bobby: I'm not saying that my self-confidence is totally tied up in them, but like they just make me feel more complete. I'm like, “This was the missing piece of the puzzle for the body dysmorphia of it all,” like the gender stuff. And it's funny because before I had top surgery, I would've never worn dresses or skirts or gotten long nails and stuff like that, but there was some kind of hold up with my boobs where once I got rid of my boobs, I was like, “Now I can actually play with.”
Dani: That's so interesting too, just like what it means to create your body.
Bobby: Bodies. Yes. Yes.
Dani: Like the creative process of taking away and adding.
Bobby: I definitely grew up in a family culture that really micromanaged our appearances a lot, and so I think now that I'm an actual adult and get to have choice around it, that just feels like even more freeing for me because I'm undoing things that were like hard for me as a kid. I was like that kid that was like, I am taking my allowance money and I'm like walking myself to the grocery store and getting hair dye and doing it in secret behind my parents' back and then just accepting the consequences of getting grounded for dyeing my hair like black or bright red or whatever that they like didn't want me to do. But I'd be like, "Well, it's too late. I already did it.”
Dani: Wow. That's courageous. Especially when you're being micromanaged for your body.
Bobby: Yes. Families... But now they gotta deal with all this. I'm like, "Y'all didn't know you had it good back then. If y'all hadn't pushed it so much, I might not have been scared of it." But it also feels like just ingrained in who I am as a person to be on some weird shit.
Dani: Yes. That makes me wanna ask the question that I was thinking about because I was just telling you I got my nails done inspired by seeing your nails. For me, it makes me feel more animal. It makes me feel like I have claws.
Bobby: Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Dani: Which maybe is different than for you.
Bobby: The primal piece.
Dani: But I've experienced your aesthetic, and especially your nails, as an inspiration, it feels like a gift to me to see you being you.
Bobby: That's so sweet.
Dani: And I just wonder what that's like for you? I'm sure lots of people experience that from being around you.
Bobby: Yeah, I get to… it kind of opens up a window of connection with strangers that it doesn't really matter where I go. It could be a cashier or I'm ringing people up at the shop, or just random people in passing will stop. We live in a culture now, especially since COVID became a big thing, that touch is not (especially stranger touch, for a good reason) is often not accepted the way that it used to be. But there's something about having a stranger touch your hand, hold your hand to see it better, and I know their intention from the jump. They're doing it in a complimentary way, and I'm wearing the nails. I do want to get compliments on them.
It's just really cool to be able to connect with people. It takes that barrier wall down and kind of lets people know that I have open energy to connection, which is something I had to work a lot on and get on medication to deal with, because I remember years ago, my goal for myself was to reopen my energy because I had become so closed off to other people, especially strangers. For a long time, my goal was just to make eye contact with people on the sidewalk again, because I had realized that I was like in fight or flight around everyone, kind of feeling, because the world has felt so unsafe, that it wasn't even safe to connect with the strangers around me.
But I really didn't like how that generalized to the rest of my life as far as being closed off to just experiences in general. So it's funny how something like wearing your nails long actually is a ripple effect to having open energy to a lot of other things besides just somebody touching, a stranger touching your hand.
Dani: I love that. That's beautiful.
Bobby: And they do just make me feel more like myself. I love my nail tech.
Dani: I was gonna ask about your nail tech and what that experience is like.
Bobby: I go to Chancey at Lucky Dice. She's the co-owner of the nail salon, and at this point I see her every two weeks for the last three years or something. So I used to go longer in between when I had them shorter, but now that they're long, I gotta go every two weeks. Especially doing clay and stuff, it dries out my hands. So like I'm more rough on my nails than most of her clients are. But she is just a joy. I love her so much, and I feel really lucky that I snuck in. Her books have been closed for a long time, and I was like one of the last people to get in with her before she closed out, so Chancey Stan forever.
Dani: And what is your experience-- I'm thinking about a lot, because since I just got my nails done, about what you were saying about the intimacy of someone touching your hands and that creative relationship. What are Chancey's pronouns?
Bobby: She/her.
Dani: Okay. She's touching your hands and making them beautiful. But you're in it together. You're co-creating.
Bobby: Yes, I come to her with a lot of ideas. Like this month, I didn't have any pictures of what I wanted, but I knew the products that she had, and I knew my vision was a transparent rainbow, but not on the nose pride. But I wanted to do a transparent rainbow because I was like, “My metaphorical gay closet is see-through at this point, because people just look at me and know.” So I was like, “How funny for my pride month nail set to have a rainbow that you can see through.”
Dani: Oh my God, I love that.
Bobby: Cause I feel like I am at the point in my expression and presentation that people know what they're getting when they see me. Which is nice. You know?
Dani: I love that.
In the way of thinking about community spaces and ongoing creative community, I'm really curious to hear more about Emote as a community space. How are you thinking about queerness, fashion, art, community, and what is that like for you right now?
Bobby: And can I start off just by telling you maybe a little bit about how we got to where we are with Emote?
Dani: Please, yeah.
Bobby: So I was doing social work at an agency and did a nonprofit in town that works with teenagers that have court cases and stuff, trying to teach the adults in their lives to understand them and keep them safer. And that was back in 2020 when the shutdown first happened. So all that's happening, I'm learning more about police culture and how social work can sometimes run parallel and cross over lines with that. Not parallel, but intersecting lines. And I was going through a really rough breakup all at the same time. It was just the perfect storm for me to have a tower moment and do the Scorpio thing and burn my life down to the ground.
So I quit my job in social work, and I just started making art to process. I was in a very low place. I didn't even wanna sleep in my bed. There was literally just art supplies all over my house, but in a chaotic way… I was taking eight baths a day and not able to do much. Lots of angsty art. And I was posting it online just to my close friends. But people were connecting with it already, and that helped my mental health a lot. And so then I was like, "Well, I can't get a job inside anywhere right now, and I really just wanna focus on my art because it's the only thing that's feeling doable," to be honest. I felt really paralyzed at that time.
And so I started vending at markets, and that was, a great way to meet other artists and build community was vending together 'cause most of the markets you're just trading art with each other, buying from each other, and hoping for a stranger to come by and connect with what you do. And so I was doing that for a while. I am a Virgo rising, so I do things at 1,000 when my focus is on them. So I was doing several markets a week, driving out to Johnson City, loading, unloading the car, just really throwing myself into it as a way to heal.
But very quickly I started fantasizing about what it would be like to be able to just park my stuff in one place, like a store. And I actually met someone at a market that knew where the original Emote space that Haywood Famous is in now. She was like, "So I know of this spot that's for lease, and if you want we can go in on it together." And I was like, "Answered prayer." I'd literally been meditating on that and it felt pretty powerful that it arrived to me within a season of me doing the markets. Truly like one weather season change and I already had someone approaching me about this.
Of course, it was during the shutdown so it makes sense why there were so many empty spaces. But she ended up backing out and I was like, "I don't know, I still think that I should just go for it." And really thought of Emote being like my personal workspace where I also can sell my art and some friends' art. The vendors that I had met, I had formed relationships with so I was like, "I love your art. Like, I can sell it at Emote." And then you know about our opening kinda going like da da da da on again things getting cranked up to a thousand and very quickly I realized that it wasn't gonna be my vision for it.
The community kinda stepped in, because I've always had the mentality that I want to share the space and my resources and my position of privilege to be a small business owner in a gentrified area, as a white person I'm like “We should be prioritizing BIPOC artists” and just like really anybody that couldn't afford or be accessed, whatever it is, whatever the roadblock is to being able to open up their own space. I knew I wanted to do the artist pop-ups from the beginning with free tabling space, because I had done one market out in Johnson City, and the person that was organizing it, when I'd asked about vending fees, he was like, "I would never charge an artist to set up and sell their art." And that meant so much to me at the time, 'cause I was spending a lot of money on tabling fees, and sometimes not even making it back.
And so his perspective on that just stuck with me, and I knew immediately that I would never charge anyone to table at the shop. And it's mutually beneficial. They have people, their friends coming in to shop, coming into the store and falling in love with it, and they get a platform that's already somewhat established to help connect with even one or two new followers, stuff like that. So that just immediately made sense for there to be like reciprocity in the shop.
And then from there, again, it just generalized out with Helene happening, the free rack. That is again, something that we get credit for a lot of this stuff all the time, but it's the community that keeps it running. It's people that bring in the clothes. We're just putting them on a hanger and putting them outside. That literally we can do on shift at any time that it's slow. It's like the difference between sitting on your ass and letting somebody get a free outfit. What are you gonna do? You're gonna get the free outfit.
So I feel like community was like never even, to not have it was never even an option with the shop because I was embraced so much upon opening that it just became really natural and easy because people wanted to be involved with it. So I never felt like I was like having to... Again, this is like another privilege point. Like a lot of people have to put themselves out there in really challenging, hard ways to access community, and they're like grasping for it, and I felt like it just flowed into the shop in a way that felt like very destined and meant to be guided. That's, I don't know if that answers the question.
Dani: Yes.
Bobby: It's like the context of all of it for me. And because I lived it, I know the nuance of all of it and the twists and turns, and it's hard to describe the last six years in a way that honors the wholeness of the picture. Because there's so many micro moments that have led us to where we are right now. And it wasn't always easy, but I feel like it did flow out into my life… It's like it wanted to take its own form and shape and was like, "I have a better vision than like what you have for this."
Dani: Yes. And what's that been like for you, having what unfolds be different than your vision? I feel like that's such a creative process.
Bobby: Yeah. In the beginning, I felt like I was really struggling with the amount of feedback that I was getting from everyone about how we should do things and what we should do, but there were a lot of things that were very helpful to take from that. But sometimes people's delivery is not always gentle and kind, and I am a kind person. So when people don't function that way and they don't know me and make a lot of assumptions about me, I internalized a lot of stuff.
So there were like years while all of these amazing things on the surface were happening and unfolding naturally, that I was dealing with some really hard mental health stuff on my end of wanting to be a good steward of the opportunity that I have. Because I don't do things lightly and I care a lot. And I've had people literally tell me, "You shouldn't care so much." And at the time I was like, "That's so rude." But now I get what they meant by that where I'm like, “Oh, you're saying be nicer to myself and not beating myself up.” I didn't know all the ethical ways to source clothes when we first started doing clothing resale and stuff. That was such valid feedback, and sometimes I think just the... I wasn't on medication at the time. I didn't really have the wellness practices that I do in my life now and the relationship with myself that I do.
So it was really easy for me to feel like this monster behind the scenes that was like, getting praise and stuff in person, but then at home, people on your phone, they just have access to you all the time when you don't have phone boundaries, so that was something I had to learn, was to, like, not read the DMs at 12:30 at night and feel the need to respond to them right away. And so I just had this urgency when I first opened the shop that it meant so much to me, and I wanted to do such a good job with it that it ate me alive for a little bit, but it also really helped me grow. I kinda needed that. I had burned my day-to-day routine life to the ground, but this was more of an internal burn and regrow for me, which was real…
That's been, to me, my favorite part of the shop, is just how it's helped me grow as a human and a person, with my boundaries, with my self-talk, with--I feel like I've always been a pretty empathetic person, but being accessible by the public during your entire shift, like it's like a whole other level of you're being open, but you're also protecting yourself. It's been-- It's hard to put into words.
Dani: There's so much there.
Bobby: Yes, there's so much there. It's definitely been the most important thing that I've ever done with my life, and my time, and my privilege, and my resources, and it is the happiest I've ever been. And if we're gonna work, spend all of our time working, you know, can I make it into work that's meaningful for me, meaningful for others, that has like ebbs and flows, and rest, and hustle, and balance? And that's really hard under capitalism.
Dani: It's so hard. It's hard, especially when what you're doing is what you're doing. What is your vision for the next phase of Emote? You told me you just signed another five-year lease.
Bobby: Yeah, we're in for another five years, and at this point, I think we've really found our lane, and our capacity/bandwidth, and our systems are all in place. So it just feels like the perfect opportunity to just hone in on what we know we do well. And when we have the capacity, stuff like this where we get to take our established spot and help plant seeds with other people that are trying to do things for others.
Dani: That's beautiful.
Bobby: I don't have a big vision board for what's to come with Emote because I feel like we've not reached our full potential, but I'm really happy, and the balance of it all is really very-- I'm very protective of it.
Dani: I'm inspired by the way you're talking about it and holding it. I feel like running a business in capitalism, it's hard not to be in the growth-mindset and maintaining something well is so important. I'm just moved to hear you say it that way.
Bobby: It's very important to me for the team to be satisfied with their workload and their daily tasks. That's a whole other passion-piece of the shop that is beyond, not beyond, I guess it's if you hone in from the bird's eye view, there's this whole other side, which is the behind-the-desk side to me. I genuinely respect and care for and like the people that work for me and that I work with. I feel like a very important sense of responsibility to honoring their work environment and making sure that they're not being taken advantage of, that they are not just satisfied, but on board with it all and happy and able to take breaks and live, have hobbies outside of it, live the life that they dream of while they're doing this with me. And getting them to a place where their dreams can be actualized.
Dani: I'm really moved by how you're talking about... I feel like you're holding it, Emote and your people, with such care and thoughtfulness, and also lightness. Like, allowing things to change. That is a creative capacity that's really difficult. What do you think about being in the creative process and allowing for change? You seem very good at that.
Bobby: That's like our sculpture class that we took, where it was like, “Embrace your roadblocks and failures.” I grew up in a very type A household. Love my mom. My parents had high standards and were fairly critical of me growing up, and we were all critical of each other, and I'm guilty of it, too. It was just our family culture. And I think that ran a lot of my relationships and friendships into the ground in my young adulthood, keeping that family culture alive, and being defensive.
And I think that moving to Asheville and really connecting with the friends here in the queer community… Like, growing up in Texas, I didn't have what I have here. Coming here was my first time to... I had gay friends growing up here and there, but there weren't a ton of them that I knew. And they let me mess up, act a fool, not be perfect. They let me break the standard that my childhood had set for me, and loved me the exact same, held that space for me, and it really allowed me to adapt their culture and let go of my, like, childhood culture. So I'd say any of it you see, like the ease and pivoting and change and flow, is truly like a reflection of the people that I love that have given me the opportunity to have long-term relationships with them. I just hadn't had any really truly healthy relationships until I came to Asheville. So I would say the pivoting has been a lesson from the friends for me.
Odyssey and clay have really helped me with the pivoting too, because ceramics are always gonna--
Dani: Yes, tell me more about your art!
Bobby: I have been going... Do you know what Claying Around is?
Dani: No.
Bobby: They're in South Asheville. They're a business where you can go and just paint pottery or make little things. I had done my birthday there the last two years before I started going to Odyssey, and I just had so much fun with it. It was making me so in the moment, and I love the surprise of what can come out of my brain. And so I'm like, "Can I do this thing?" And of course it always ends up different than my vision. That kind of let me know that I was interested in taking classes there.
Have you taken any classes with Jason?
Dani: Yes.
Bobby: So he was my very first teacher in an intro combo class, and he's such a great instructor. He just got me so in love with it, and I was doing stuff that surprised me from the jump, and he made me feel like I had a natural knack for it. And Virgo rising, I like to be good at things. I think that that is part of art and wellness for me is that it makes me confident and connected to other people. Like, when they--kinda like my nails--if they like my art, I'm like, "It gives us a chance to connect” and see what they're working on and stuff like that. If you like my art, then you've got a little bit of that freakiness that I do in you at least, if not a lot.
Dani: Yes. I love that appreciating other people's art can be a way of resonating and connecting.
I'm curious, what is creative wellness, and especially queer creative wellness? What does that mean to you theoretically and in practice?
Bobby: Queer wellness.
Dani: Also, it's okay if it doesn't mean anything…
Bobby: It definitely does. It's just, again, like one of those big concepts that I'm trying to be like, "How do I put that in a sentence?" When I was reading that question this morning in the bathtub, I was definitely thinking about how... So if you, like, split my body up into different fragments, there's obviously the big, a big one of those fragments would be, like, my creative self, and I think it's just like being in a relationship with a part of myself that's really big and important to me. So it's like pouring into a long-term relationship with the creative part of myself. When I have a practice with it and prioritize it and water the plant that is that, then I just feel better.
You've been in the studio with me. Queer creative wellness is sitting around with you and Kira and Meg and shooting the shit and laughing and being like, "Should I throw a dick on this?" Or like just getting into that funky space that is like art that isn't just the norm or, like trying to perfectly recreate something that you see. It's more like putting your gay little twist on it, where it can read a little bit off center to people.
Dani: Ooh, I love that.
Bobby: So creative wellness is probably the most important practice in my life, but it's not something that I really am consciously thinking about most days unless I feel creatively blocked. And then it's mostly about being like, “It's okay, just rest. Play a stupid game on your phone and watch a Real Housewife, and know that she'll come back to you.” Holding that space to pick up whatever the project is when you feel like doing it, but also not trying to force it, or doing something easy and little and stupid that you might really get tickled by. I love joy in art and the ridiculousness of it all.
I think, again, circling back to my childhood and having to be... Like, I've always been a clown of a human, and being in a family where a lot of the members are more serious people, now I'm like, "I've gotta make my clown art shit," because it would make little me proud. I did love the Teletubbies, and here I am drawing Teletubbies with penises.
Dani: I'm also curious about creative inspiration in the natural world. I think one of the first pieces I ever saw of yours was when you were making that big cicada piece.
Bobby: Oh, yeah. The cicada piece. I remember that one.
Dani: And it was so cool, and also you were talking about going to the ocean. I'm curious what's your relationship with the natural world and your creative process?
Bobby: Yes. I love animals. Obviously, I've sculpted my dogs, a lot of them, not all of them, but I've got-- I've had and do have a lot of dogs, so there's a lot of sculpting to do. With the cicadas, Tutu, he was just a puppy at the time, and he kept getting the cicadas in his mouth, and their wings were flapping, and he was bringing them in my bed and in the house, and he was retrieving the live cicadas. And it was just-- 'cause they were flapping fast, and he's this little Chihuahua mix, Helene survivor puppy, and I don't know.
I feel like the way that the natural world is like the... I feel like my art is mostly relationally and emotionally driven, and the natural world just gives that setting to house all of that for me. So I'm like, “I wanna remember the summer of all the cicadas when Tutu was just a baby and was making me laugh so hard every day,” and I was finding cicadas in my bed and just being like, "This is so ridiculous, but so precious." I won't get that time. He'll never be that little baby again.
And I feel the ocean just allows me to flow. I love to just float on a surface and feel the waves. I put my goggles on so that saltwater doesn't get in my eyes, and I'm just like-- dead man in the water. The places that your brain and your heart go to when you are just away from the screen, away from just people and the hustle of it all. When you get to be still and empty in a way. Almost as if your vessel is open for whatever the creative idea that's gonna shoot into your... I'll just lay there and eventually I'll be like, "I should do this. I have an idea for this thing." So I'm a water sign and I love, I love baths, I love swimming, I love a river, I love a lake, I love an ocean. Can't keep me out of it. And I do feel like that's when fresh ideas come in.
So I'll get stuck on a theme or something that I'm interested in or trying to grow. And then when I'm out in nature, it allows for all of that to go away and something new to enter me, which is nice.
Dani: I love that.
Bobby: I'm like, “Get in here!”
Dani: Yeah that slowing down, opening up.
Bobby: It's weird having a one-sided conversation because I feel like, “What about you?”
Dani: You're doing a great job. Interviews are weird that way.
Bobby: I wanna be asking you and learning more about you too.
Dani: I appreciate all of your generosity and sharing.
Bobby: Like Dani's gonna know everything about me and I'm gonna be like, "You're such a mystery."
Dani: Aw. Well, is there anything else that you wanna share that we didn't touch on that feels exciting to talk about?
Bobby: No, I feel like we talked about my whole freaking life.
Dani: I feel like you've shared so generously.
Bobby: I'm a yapper. I love to talk. I like to be on... I think this might be something. Of course I've come up with something… Like, as far as just sharing, whether that's sharing your art or your thoughts or whatever, a lot of queer people have grown up feeling very misunderstood, and the more you share and put yourself out there, the more you will find the people that naturally understand you. And that is love to me. I love to feel understood for who I am and accepted for who I am. And so that is definitely a motivator for making, is it helps connect people to other people. We find each other, like we found each other. You know? So that's my closing thought.
Dani: That made me wanna cry. It's really beautiful.
Bobby: It's hard to be misunderstood.
Dani: And then the ways that we can overprotect ourselves--saying about earlier, that then it makes sense to be wanting to be safe and protected and closed off and overprotect, and how much courage and generosity it takes to share despite.
Bobby: Yes. Making art and sharing your art, and I think when I started ceramics, it was so important for me to have it be something that I was just doing for myself. I didn't wanna go and be like, "I'm doing production work to sell." Thinking about selling stuff at the shop. I do sell stuff at the shop now because I'm in a place where I can't keep it all, and when I give stuff away, I want it to be thoughtful and intentional. Sometimes I'm just making something for the hell of making it, and I'm like, "Well, someone will enjoy this." But I really wanted to make sure that I was protecting that creative practice where it wasn't for anyone other than myself, and I was always gonna make the things that I wanted to make, not thinking about “What would people want?”
Dani: Exactly.
Bobby: I think having that be part of anyone's creative practice is really important. If you are a working artist, is there some component that you can protect and have just for yourself so that you're not losing touch with that side of yourself?
Dani: I love that because it's like what you said earlier, there's the art that you have to do for yourself, and then there's the art that feels really good when people like it and connect to it. And that balancing making things that are authentic. I'm curious about what you're saying, like when you're thinking about making something to sell or that you hope people like, it's risky, which might be a good kind of risk, but also there are times when it's okay to not take that risk.
Bobby: Yes. I think it's been really nice to... I'm sitting here, I am making these weird tubby tops for the shop. And I know that somebody is gonna see these and get so jazzed. They're gonna be like, "Oh my God, who thought of this weirdness?" It's really fun when I'm checking people out at the shop, and they're buying my, or reacting to my art in real time, whether they buy it or not, and they don't know that I'm the one that's made it, and they're like, "This weird little guy, I love it." And I'm like, I don't know, it again, makes me feel connected. I feel instantly in community with those people because I'm like, I just made this 'cause I liked making it. I had fun making it, and they're over here loving it. It feels good.
Dani: It feels so good. Do you have any stories of that happening recently?
Bobby: Yeah, do you remember that red Teletubby bug that I did that was very haunted looking? He had tattoos everywhere. And the reason why I sold this one is he actually got misfired, so I didn't get to glaze him. I had underglazed, and then they did, instead of doing a bisque fire, he somehow ended up skipping the bisque and going all the way through. And so it was like a weird finish on him, which, you know, now I'm like, “Okay, it was fine,” but it wasn't my vision for the piece. So I was like, “I'll just make another one sometime and take this one up to the shop and have it find a home.” And I was at the register, and my ceramic shelf in the shop is right there next to it. And hearing this person was like, I think shopping for their birthday maybe. But they were like, just so tickled, like the way that I get tickled by my art. I'm like that clown again.
And I could just tell that they were like immediately, "Yes, he's coming home with me. I love him." He found his new home with somebody that was as excited to have him as I was to make him, and that felt awesome to overhear and then be able to be like, "Thank you, by the way." And they were like, "Oh my gosh, this is from you?"
Dani: That's so fun.
Bobby: Yeah. So little stuff like that is always really nice when I'm right there for it. And even though I've been selling stuff through the shop here and there for years now, I still get super surprised when somebody wants to buy my art, I'm like, "You wanna take the money that you had to work hard for, that you need for something else, and you're gonna put it towards this thing that I got to, it came out of my brain and my soul and my heart, and you like it?" Like that is so affirming. That's queerness again, in a society where we're like rejected for a lot of things, to feel embraced in that way when you share your art is, that's very “creative wellness,” to put it in the Conspire lingo maybe.
Dani: Oh my gosh. It makes me wanna cry. So good.
Bobby: I guess that's my big brain thoughts for the day.
Dani: Thank you. Thank you so much. I'll pause the recording. I could literally talk to you all day.
