“GIVE A LITTLE…” WITH LIVIDITY

With no WiFi in my home, and a call from the East Coast incoming, I had to find connection somewhere.  

And as I always seem to, I did find it on the couch with Zelda Kollins. This house, and more specifically The Haus, have been like wires of community. Lividity (@lividity.sfx) was introduced to Lydia B. Kollins through an online competition series and thus found her “bridge to Pittsburgh” all the way from Western Massachusetts.  

Lividity had been an artist for practically their entire life, his mother was a teacher and as well as an artist herself, and they had always been allowed the openness to create. “It didn’t really get acknowledged by my parents until I started making messes,” and if there was a mess to be made, the product had to be “good.” Her inspiration started from the television series Face-Off, a competition series for SFX artists that their family regularly watched together. “[Face Off] was my goal since second grade…they canceled the show when I was 18, so I said, well, I have to do drag!”  

The journey, though, was much more natural than the joke of it. Lividity had been making prosthetics since they were 11 years old, and officially started drag at age 16. He’s had 6-year long career from sharing their creations on social media, as well as performing in both Western Massachusetts bars and the Boston drag scene.   

Drag, by Lividity, is inherently based in the concept of creation. It had been much easier to transfer her skills from the detail-oriented nature of prosthetics into the persona itself. “I get tunnel vision in different sections…I can cut a gloryhole out of a garment, and no matter where I put it, it needs to look cool.” Lividity’s art is authentic in a way that is entirely tailored to her tastes, though they hesitate on the concept of originality, a popular topic in a time where drag has become much more widespread. “Drag is such a referential art…there’s no to true way to be original…The most original people are the ones that are able to exactly lay out what they are inspired by.”  

This artistic outreach, though, has been particularly beneficial in their personal life and career, as well as their local scenes. Lividity began performing in front of audiences through a friend’s invitation, and shares that in Western Mass, the opportunities are already slim. “Theres’s a bit of a scarcity mindset,” he says, “People nourish the shit out of it because it’s so scarce.”  The community outside of the big city is so concentrated that even Lividity’s drag children had all been long time friends of his, and overtime, she influenced them to join the scene. “We were friends for so long that they’ve seen me create…entire ball gowns in a dorm room.” This same encouragement and familiarity was what allowed her to “flourish,” becoming a “Haus Monster” at Satellite Bar in Northampton’s monthly dance party. “…People have been kind and given me opportunities far before I’ve earned them. Everyone can afford to give a little.”  

In comparison, Boston’s drag scene is massive, covering all aspects of identity and genre, from trans and lesbian performers to showgirls and brunches. “[Boston has] a really great amalgamation of performing opportunities,” and with a community as closely knit and as kind as Western Mass, “there’s a lot of crossover.” However, with so much art coming from so many different artists, there’s a fear of “oversaturation.” Shows in Boston are happening every night, and there is always an audience. Though what seems to hold all aspects of these communities together is not only the artists, but the supporters. “There are people who are in drag and drag adjacent…not just nourishing the performers, but the audience.”  

Lividity’s experience can appear very niche, but this year she recently made major strides in Boston’s “The Big Competition.” He was asked to prepare for both a challenge and a runway presentation every two weeks over the course of eight and ended up placing as the runner up. This was their first consistent booking in the city, and while difficult in ways that did not match her familiar origin story in the online competition circuit, “I wouldn’t change it for the world…it made me feel so justified in being a nobody.” 

It would be unfair for anyone perhaps Lividity himself to say that they are “nobody,” though. To be a connector, in not only your small local scene or even just the big city across the pond, and to have your art highly respected states away, is not only a testament to the work itself, but the welcoming nature that she possesses. In the same phrasing they self-describe where the confidence of their physical art comes from, lies the answer in their success in community: 

 
“I made it. It’s on my body…it’s me.”