My First Year at #TCAF
Best TCAF - The Toronto Comic Arts Festival moment (after that surprise Junot Diaz visit of course) was getting approached by Cartoon Network to discuss my ideas/pitch for a new show on their platform.
Worst TCAF moment (after being cursed out by the custodial for using the bathroom at the library at 5:05pm) was 'my location'.
*clears throat*
The third floor was great! I was grateful to be seated in the least crowded level, considering that it was my first year there, it made sense to be up there not surrounded by hundreds of people in a hot room for 8 hours straight. But it was the being seated in between a British publication(?) and a yt cartoon guy that made me feel a bit unsafe:uneasy:anxious.
Even though these individuals were quite nice and kept to themselves working hard like we all did, I could not help but feel the pressure of having to 'keep my voice down' and having to 'keep conversation short' with people who would visit to share a good time and talk about the themes in my work which (obvi) mainly revolve around decentering whiteness.
It was awkward every-time people left my table, after talking about intersectional feminism, sex, war, shaving all the hair from your vagina with the only purpose of taking and epic p***y pic, and of course, the recurrent 'yeah no....I dont know if there are any Indigenous artists here'...Was tough...You know it was 'awkward silence mode' whenever my people would leave the table, because the person sitting right next to me(on my left), again, quite nice and lovely, who makes work about "what would happen if baby jesus had super powers?" probably was thinking the same thing as me "who is this person? which planet did they come from?!! and why they sit us together?"
Like I don't even know who to feel bad for - me - for feeling the need to silence myself and tone myself down to make my white neighbors feel OK or rather non threatened by my presence/laughter/speaking in another language/subjects of my artwork...OR feel bad for the super baby Jesus guy who probably knew that apart from the weather and well...the weather, there was nothing else that we had in common that we could talk about in at least a meaningful way.
Whenever things got less busy at our spot, it got super awkward and tense - and to add the cherry on top to that sour cake...to my right side, it was quite obvious that the constant "HI LIDO I LOVE YOU LET ME GIVE YOU A HUG" made my British neighbors irk because the hugs would happen much too close to their carefully arranged pile of super nice hardcover science fiction novels, like EVERYTIME A BUTT WOULD TOUCH THE CORNER OF THEIR TABLE WAS SO UNCONFORTABLE!!
Again...how can you break the ice with your tabling neighbor when you were just speaking about 'holy shit white journalists are doing the most rn with that appropriation prize scam".........And dont get me wrong...I know I can only do my thing and worry about myself and all of that, but this really was a question about being confortable in my lane and in my own skin.
I have been tabling since I was 13 years old, so this is something I take seriously, so seriously that I waited 4 years to actually submit my work to this version of TCAF, because I know how every single cartoonist, publication, writer etc LIVES FOR THIS and I have learned (better late than never) to not take space from others far more ready and involved than me. I knew for this version of tcaf, I was ready, finally.
And I am not saying that I do not want to sit next to white folks, I am just saying that perhaps knowing before hand who you will be sitting next to (for a total of two full 8 hour days), would be super helpful. Like i was never really into blind dates you know?
The reason why Indigenous/trans/poc are significantly under represented at an event like TCAF is of course the (non)access to money. I live in TO, so spending 150-200 whatever on half a table is not so out of reach, but to many emerging/up and coming and future Indigenous cartoonists, thats a bit much! I wonder if there is a sliding scale artist fee designed specifically to cater to black trans womxn for example, also, I can think of at least 3 poc/two spirit/trans fols who are very talented but who simply wont make the trip to TCAF for the same reasons I was feeling a bit uneasy at my spot, only that like..multiply that experience times 1000!
Shit! If womxn and women in general make less money than men, shouldnt we be paying a bit less than the men for a table at these art fair convention events? I mean, they get published significantly more than us gxrls so.........
Is there a grant available to Indigenous/trans/artists of colour that could help alleviate some of this financial stress? I mean, it was my first time at TCAF, and I probably missed so much of the behind the scenes that these issues might already be taking place or at least had started a thinking session or acting upon the issues that come with it, but from the surface and from what I experienced this weekend, the doing or the trying to do better was not quite evident - and
please (of course) correct me if I am wrong in any of this. I am not friends with the the patricks and the deforges or the koyamas or D&QS or the gemmacorrels, you know I just do my own thing and feel blessed!
But I do know that zine culture, cartoons, posters, prints and such come from a his/herstory of punk and DIY culture, all products and work of black and indigenous resistance, of poor folks! So when I go to these conventions and I don't see me everywhere, I feel as though maybe it is not for me, and that is b u l l s h i t .....
PHEEWWWPPHH!! SO MANY FEELS!!!! Kudos for reading this far if you did!
In the end, I still had a terrific time, and was able to make amazing connections. I feel inspired, motivated and above all, loved. Thank you for saying hi and for supporting my work, wether if you did in person or online! See you at the next hot mess! <3
EDIT: Shoutout to Andrew at TCAF for helping me so much when I was super lost and confused, and also shoutout to the many volunteers who were super quick at hooking me up with info and anything else we needed. Shoutout to all the different people commenting on my hair, like cartoonists KNOW how to acknowledge the effort that takes to get two perfect buns together.
With love and criticism,Yours Truly - Lido Pimienta