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Celebrating Pride: How Queer Craft Night Creates Community
Words by Nina Alegre
Edited by Abigail Vela
Many Pride-related events, activities and celebrations have been occurring throughout the Rio Grande Valley. Friday, May 31, marked yet another Queer Craft Night at Cactus Valley Art & Supply Company, hosted by Souther Recio, who works to create a safe space for the community in Harlingen and beyond.
Queer Craft Night is an event that usually occurs at the end of every month and is open to the LGBTQIA+ community and its allies. May’s Queer Craft Night was a pay-what-you-can event, which made it more accessible for anyone interested in joining.
Craft nights usually involve participants bringing their craft or following a guided craft. During the months of May and June, the guided crafts included making paper garlands, friendship bracelets and keychains.
Crafting, Community and Mental Health
Recio, owner of Cactus Valley Art, mentioned that Queer Craft Night was created as a way for the LGBTQIA+ community to have a safe space. Recio noticed that there were not many spaces in the community that were not centered around drinking or partying. For this reason, Queer Craft Night aims to provide a space for people who don’t drink.
Recio mentioned that they weren’t aware of queer-centric creative events like Queer Craft Night happening in the Valley but that they have witnessed them in bigger cities like Houston or Austin. “I know it’s centered around crafts, but you don’t have to be an artsy kind of person to come in and hang out and enjoy the evening,” said Recio. Ultimately, Recio hopes Queer Craft Night participants take with them a sense of community and belonging.
If you’re unsure about participating in a craft night, you may be interested in knowing that crafting has many advantages. Crafting offers physical, intellectual, emotional and social benefits for children and people of all ages. Crafting has also been proven to help improve mental health. According to a a news article from CNN, crafting can be considered a natural anti-depressant as dopamine is released from our brains when doing something pleasurable such as creating art, cooking or quilting. Experts also believe that crafting helps those who suffer from anxiety, depression or chronic pain.
Our Safe Spaces
Joseph Decilos, a participant in Queer Craft Night, said that it’s been fun to see how the queer community in the RGV has been activated, especially on the “eve of Pride.”
Decilos featured his “Espacio Seguro” photography exhibit at Cactus Valley Art on May 24. The exhibit will be on display until June 28.
Decilos also said he has attended queer-oriented art events along the East Coast. However, they always felt less diverse than Queer Craft Night, which helped him be around people who look like him or have shared experiences.
Paulina Guerra, another participant, said she had a very busy weekend, but after seeing the flyer for Queer Craft Night, she decided to attend because she was interested in finding a space where she could “hang out and be creative.”
Like Decilos, Guerra has also participated in similar creative events in Austin and felt those spaces were busier and less intimate. What Guerra enjoyed most about Queer Craft Night was not only that it was free but that everyone was “welcoming and supportive of what you were doing regardless of what type of medium or what type of concept you were working with.”
Finding Your Own Queer Community
Although many people may rightfully express that the Valley lacks LGBTQIA+ spaces and events, we can only hope that events such as Queer Craft Night gain the traction and the spotlight they need to grow into something bigger for our community.
Many large corporations market Pride and participate in inclusivity, but once June is over, they forget about LGBTQIA+ individuals. In the article, Pride Beyond Rainbows, the author writes about performative allyship and how to prevent it by supporting local LGBTQIA+ organizations, performers, businesses and community members, educating yourself on Pride history, and standing up for the LGBTQIA+ community.
You, too, can support our LGBTQIA+ community. Find more events and happenings across the RGV by keeping in touch with what Pride Brownsville (Pride BTX) and the South Texas Equality Project (STEP) are doing. If, for whatever reason, you didn’t get to attend the Pride Flag Raising at the City Plaza in Brownsville or celebrate STEP’s 10-year anniversary at the Pride Kickoff in Harlingen, you can always find new activities to do or participate in the 956. Perhaps that means attending an upcoming drag show or simply getting crafty at Cactus Valley Art with your besties!
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