REFLECTIONS OF THE RAINBOW QUEENS -.

 

BY ANGELKA Dooo

e Rainbow Lounge, formerly known as
the Rainbow Cattle Co., is a gay bar in
Dummerston where a group of local

drag queens performs monthly. In a collection
of black-"and-white photographs entitled
“Backstage at the Rainbow Cattle Co.,”
Westminster photographer Evie Lovett brings
us an intimate look at the preparations and
transformations that precede the dazzle and
spectacle of drag.

At the Rainbow Lounge, the dress-
ing room is the basement of the bar, a former
restaurant on Route 5 between Putney and
Brattleboro, and backstage is_the kitchen.
Through these photographs, we are invited
into the dim, crowded basement where water
heaters and rusty pressure tanks vie for space
with metal shelving packed tight with shoe
boxes and handbags, racks of clothing, piles of
plastic bins, chipped foam mannequin heads
sporting all manner of hats and wigs, and of
course clouds of boas. A couple of mildewy-
looking rugs run the length of the long, nar-

y row room, and various pipes and tubes hang

from the ceiling along with bare fluorescent .
light fixtures.

This dingy chaos is the backdrop for
Lovett’s subjects: the drag queens themselves,
working their magic. We see the performers
shaving, applying makeup, inserting padding,
preparing for the grand entrance. The mood of
the images is contemplative and focused. We
are drawn into a very private space, both cozy
and intense, as Lovett’s lens reveals the medi-
tative, ritualistic flavor of the performers’ evo-
lution from average Joe to Fabulous Queen.

A self-described quiet, modest and
private person, Evie Lovett found her work in
recent years turning toward costuming on

now drag. -

many levels, from children playing at dress-
up, to Halloween, masquerade parties, and

But when she first approached the
Rainbow Cattle Co., it was with some trepida-
tion: “When I first saw the show, I thought,
‘these queens will eat me alive!”’ But when
Evie introduced herself and proposed the proj-
ect, she found herself welcomed immediately

‘and invited back stage. For about a year she

photographs. It became a give and take. [The
Queens] have an ease with themselves, which
was good5 for me because Iam very modest.
What I learned about myself was quietly
revealing. Whenever someone is open with
you, it causes you to deliberate on your own
openness. It cracks you open in some way.”
As someone who has been to many
shows at the Rainbow Lounge, danced to the
same techno remixes many Saturday nights as

“When I first saw the show, I thought,
‘these queens will eat me alive!”’

 

-went to the monthly shows and hung out in

the basement dressing room taking pictures,
and it was there that she found her connection
with this rowdy, raunchy bunch.

“On the one hand, they were totally
welcoming‘, and on the other hand they com-
pletely ignored me, which was great,” Evie
says. “Eventually, I found myself crossing the
line between photographer and participant.
Someone would say ‘Oh, can you help me
with this, can you carry this tray on stage?’
And I was always coming back and bringing

emgeapttee eta teams 4

various exes and their exes and theirs looked
on, cheered and hooted as the drag queens
strutted and worked their lips to the vibrato of
some diva’s defiant howling and got sloppier
and more sloshed as the night wore on, I was
especially curious to see this set of photo-
graphs.

I was ‘curious to see what my friend
Evie Lovett would make of this crazy scene.
She is a friend you might meet for a walk in

the woods, or run into at a bowl-a-thon for Big
Brothers/Big Sisters, or sip wine with at an art

 

opening. She has a husband and two young
kids and says she doesn’t really like to hang
out in bars.

But as I looked over the pictures in
“Backstage at the Rainbow Cattle Co.,” some-
thing quite amazing began to happen. I could '
feel Evie’s tenderness called out in her sub-
jects, and I could feel their wildness resonat-
ing in her. This show is as much a story about
the photographer as it is about drag queens,
and probably more so. There are a couple of
pictures, both images of reflections in a mir-
ror, that illustrate that reflection. The first
shows a performer, fully made-up and
bedecked with sparkling choker necklace and
wrist cuff, tenderly brushing her hair. She
looks like her kids are tucked into bed and
she’s getting ready for some elegant party. The
second is another performer, hair tousled, in
her bathrobe pulling a smoke out of a pack of
Newports. She looks like she’s been slinging
coffee all night at a truck stop, and you better
not give her any lip.

It would be easy to watch the
Rainbow’s queens on stage and never see what
Evie has captured so lovingly in her photo-
graphs: the seriousness with which they
approach their work, the depth of devotion to
their art. What struck me most as I looked at
the images was that here was a true collabora-
tion, a testament to the way we reflect our-
selves back to one another and grow closer
and more connected as a result of that process.
Both the photographer and her subjects took
risks in order to make this happen, and
embodied in that risk is the tension and depth
of feeling that makes art speak. These beauti-
ful images speak volumes. V

Angelka Dodd lives in Westminster with.her
partner Adrienne and loves to grow vegetables
and walk the land when she ’s not dancing at
the Rainbow Lounge.