Upcoming Events
- Sunday 6/9 – Queer Temple in Ithaca’s Pride in the Park, from 10-4 in Dewitt Park
- Monday 6/10 – I am co-leading “Courage to Become: A Queer Firewalk Journey” from 6:30-10 with Ithaca Firewalks!
- All June, Queer Temple window display at Handwork Artist Coop in Ithaca
- Late June/July – tapestries for the Queer Temple will be a part of the set for The Wedding Show, a queer, interactive, & immersive wedding performance (and I will likely be in the July 13th performance with folks the local queer/trans choir I’m a part of called Transpose)
- June 20-24 – Queer Temple at Cosmic Burn in Ithaca NY
- June 30 to July 6 – Friends General Conference Gathering (Theme: Rooted in Story) – I will be leading a workshop titled “Queer Re-story-ation,” giving a book talk, and doing another storytelling event, as well as having an installation of the Queer Temple (and also I’m FGC staff and helping run this 1200 person conference!)
- July 20th – (pending) the Queer Temple will hopefully be in the Rochester Pride Parade with the Rochester Quaker Meeting
- July 25-29 – Queer Temple at PortalBurn in Almond NY
- August 1-4 – Transcendence exhibition, keynote talk, 4 workshops, and the Queer Temple at SentientFest, a body justice and empowerment gathering in Moravia NY.
- September 12-15 – Queer Temple + workshops at Spirit of the Kindred Women’s Medicine Gathering
- Fall (date pending) – “Queer Forms” at University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire with “Transcendence” and “Queer Temple”
More events coming soon. Sign up for Cai’s email list to be notified when more are added.
Past Events
Queer Temple Exhibition at the Community Arts Partnership Gallery in Ithaca NY
Step into the Queer Temple, a unique sanctuary that celebrates the diversity and vibrancy of queer life. This exhibition is not just a display of art; it’s an immersive experience where each tapestry tells a story. These pieces, born from Cai’s photographs of the queer community, have been transformed into stunning, stained-glass-like images on fabric, reclaiming the presence of queer folks in sacred art such as stained glass. The Queer Temple is more than a gallery; it’s a space where personal journeys and community narratives converge, challenging the often limiting views of queer and transgender lives. As you explore this rich tapestry of resilience, beauty, and complexity, you’re invited to reflect, connect, and perhaps discover new insights into identity, community, spirituality, and queerness. Join us in celebrating this vibrant mosaic of experiences, a testament to the ever-evolving and sacred essence of the queer community.
Location: CAP ArtSpace, 110 N. Tioga Street, on the Commons (also home to the History Center and Visitor Center)
Hours: Monday – Saturday, 10am to 5pm (1/5-27). Cai will be in the gallery on Wednesday the 24th 10-4:30, and Saturday the 27th 2-4:30.
Online Celebration and Q&A: Monday, January 29th, 7-8:30pm ET
Virtual Exhibition: link here, and photos of the in-person exhibit at the bottom of this page
This program is made possible in part with funds from the Statewide Community Regrants program from the New York State Council on the Arts, with the support of the office of the Governor and NYS Legislature, and from Tompkins County; administered by the Community Arts Partnership of Tompkins County.
Ohio Valley Yearly Meeting (Quaker)Annual Sessions
Plenary: A Rainbow of Spiritual Gifts
Imagine a rainbow with red blending to orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, and violet… all colors coming together to reflect the beautiful array of this world. Blue is no more or less important than yellow or green, and just because red is on the edge doesn’t mean rosy hues are forgotten. The colors come together in harmony, just like the various songbirds at twilight or the many instruments of an orchestra, each individual part creating a vibrant divine whole. What would the rainbow be like without blue, or the orchestra without the woodwinds? Many people cherish spectrums in color and music but begin to hesitate when it comes to celebrating the vibrant diversity of humanity. What do our communities lose when we only support some of the gifts and identities Spirit has given people among us? More specifically, how does supporting and nourishing the people most often marginalized by society truly help us all grow, both as individuals and as Quaker meetings?
Annual sessions: June 14-18 in Cincinnati, OH, more information here. My plenary is Thursday evening, my workshop is Friday.
Beyond Pink and Blue Workshop for Spring Writes Literary Fest
We grow up with many narratives fed to us about how the world is ‘supposed’ to be, but so often these tales are limited or false versions of deeper truths. Oppression has narrowed gender to a binary, but together in this interactive writing workshop we will discuss and write poems that invite healing and freedom. This workshop will be based on Cai’s poetry series Beyond Pink and Blue, using metaphors of color to explore gender and other identities. Through small and large group discussions and writing prompts, together we will create visions of a world beyond binaries.
Wed, June 28, 6:00 – 7:30pm on zoom, register HERE
Group storytelling with the Community Arts Partnership for Spring Writes Literary Fest
An evening of tales from Ithaca-local storytellers, including Cai Quirk, Rachel Dickinson, Kyara Perkins, Carolyn Clark, Jon Raimon, India Sada, and David Guaspari.
Thursday, May 11th, 7-8pm online. Registration here.
Solo Show – Transcendence: Queer Restoryation at CSMA (Ithaca, NY)
• February 3rd through March 31st at the Ithaca Community School of Music and Arts on 330 E. Martin Luther King Jr / State St.
• First Friday Gallery walks are on February and March 3rd from 5-8pm
Book Launch at the Society for Photographic Education National Conference
• Image-maker talk – Transcendence: Queer Restoryation at 9am, Friday 3/17
• Book release and signings at the Skylark Editions table
• The SPE conference in Boulder, Colorado – more information is here
Ithaca Book Launch Celebration
• The celebration is March 31st from 5:30-7pm at the Community School of Music and Arts on 330 E. Martin Luther King Jr / State St., Ithaca, NY. More info here.
• There is a virtual event for those who wish to celebrate from afar, on Tuesday April 4th from 7-9pm EST. More info is here and zoom registration here.
Solo Show – Transcendence at the Portrait Gallery (Ithaca, NY)
• January 6-23, opening night is January 6th from 5-8pm at 108 N Cayuga St
Group Show – SE Center Open at the Southeast Center for Photography
• January 6-28 at the SE Center on 116 East Broad Street, Greenville, SC
National Coming Out Day – “Your Story Your Way”
Stories, myths, and legends aren’t just tales created long ago, but ones newly created as well. Looking at myths and stories today offers ways to find deeper insight into our own lives and ways of interacting with the world around us. In a world that tries to erase the presences of LGBTQIA+ folks, it is even more vital that we continue to tell our stories, whether they are the everyday realities of our lives, or mythic tales of realities deeper than ordinary truths. Binary ways of seeing the world will not simply disappear — they must be replaced by ways of seeing and honoring fluidity and change as natural and necessary. This workshop is an act of restoryation, engaging with new stories, myths, and legends, ones that walk the many paths beyond supposed binaries: male and female, night and day, land and sea, earth and sky, life and death, self and other, self and earth.
Ithaca College LGBTQ+ Center
Tuesday, October 11, 12-1:30pm
Spirit of the Kindred Women’s Medicine Gathering
Workshop Title: Healing Through Our Stories
Description: Connecting threads of storytelling, mythology, nature, and personal and collective healing, we will explore the transformative power of weaving our own narratives. Stories, myths, and legends aren’t just tales created long ago, but ones newly created as well. Looking at myths and stories today offers ways to find deeper insight into our own lives and ways of interacting with the world around us. In a world that tries to erase the presences of LGBTQIA+ folks, it is even more vital that we continue to tell our stories, whether they are the everyday realities of our lives, or mythic tales of realities deeper than ordinary truths.
September 8-11 near Ithaca NY
Find more information here
The Self-Portrait Show
Show with the Evelyn Peeler Peacock Gallery at The ARTS Council in Corning, NY.
The selfie has taken on a ubiquitous and larger than life presence in today’s digital landscape, however, the self-portrait has long been a part of an artist’s introspective desire to explore and share themselves fully with the world. The Self-Portrait Show is continuation of this tradition.
The Self-Portrait Show is aligned with The Rockwell Museum’s fall 2022 spotlight exhibition, Frida Kahlo: Through the Lens of Nickolas Muray. Muray obsessively photographed Kahlo who is famous for using the self-portrait to explore aspects of her experience and identity. In the spirit of these two artists, we call on artists to turn their brushes and lenses inward. Artists are encouraged to explore a variety of responses across any medium.
The selfie has taken on a ubiquitous and larger than life presence in today’s digital landscape, however, the self-portrait has long been a part of an artist’s introspective desire to explore and share themselves fully with the world. The Self-Portrait Show is continuation of this tradition.
The Self-Portrait Show is aligned with The Rockwell Museum’s fall 2022 spotlight exhibition, Frida Kahlo: Through the Lens of Nickolas Muray. Muray obsessively photographed Kahlo who is famous for using the self-portrait to explore aspects of her experience and identity. In the spirit of these two artists, we call on artists to turn their brushes and lenses inward. Artists are encouraged to explore a variety of responses across any medium.
Exhibit on View: September 2 – October 14 Reception: September 2, 4-6pm
MINIMAL. SIGNS AND FORMS OF THE ESSENTIAL
Show with LoosenArt Gallery in Rome, Italy
September 2022
Public Record: Portraits of Affection and Intimacy
Online exhibition curated by Richard Renaldi with the Los Angeles Center for Photography
LGBTQIA+ life and experience are constantly contested, negated and marginalized within public discourse. As Gilbert Baker, who created the pride flag as a symbol of hope in 1978, once said, “When all else fails, art is the ultimate weapon.” With this in mind, this virtual exhibition will explore intimate, private portraits of closeness, affection and camaraderie as sites of strength and vulnerability, making space for a more complex, nuanced human experience and interaction.
August 11 – October 11 2022
See more information and exhibit here.
Ithaca Artist Market
The 30th annual Ithaca Artist Market is a juried show and sale with regional fine and functional artists (and some authors!) at the beautiful Ithaca Farmers Market, an 88 booth open-air covered structure on the inlet leading to Cayuga Lake.
All 88 booths at the Ithaca Farmers Market will be filled with over 80 artists, local arts organizations, and food & drink vendors.
Cai Quirk will have photographic prints from scenes of Ithaca and surrounding gorges, as well as images from their series Transcendence: Queer Restoryation. Cai will be launching presales for their book at the market.
Date: Friday, August 12, 2022
Time: 12:00pm to 7:30pm
Location: Ithaca Farmer’s Market
See the link for more details.
Philadelphia Trans Wellness Conference
Join thousands of transgender, non-binary, gender-variant people and their allies when they come together in the name of trans wellness in all senses of the word at the largest free trans conference in the world.
Queer Re-story-ation (my workshop)
The powerful act of queer restoryation repopulates the realms of story and folklore with queer-centric ones. Gender diversity is far from a new phenomenon, and hundreds of cultures around the world include(d) genders beyond a binary system, yet so many of these identities and stories have been erased through oppression. The tapestry of such stories and traditions has holes and tears, gaps and gashes that will not heal themselves. This harm will not simply end, binary ways of seeing the world will not simply disappear — they must be replaced by ways of seeing and honoring fluidity and change as natural and necessary. Cai Quirk’s photo and story series ‘Transcendence’ creates new stories, myths, and legends, ones that center figures beyond binary gender. This interactive workshop will explore connections between gender, nature, mythology, spirituality, empowerment, and storytelling.
Gonna Make This Garden Grow…
… a spiritual deepening conference for Young Adults (18-35). Inch by inch, row by row. A garden is a beautiful thing. At this conference we’ll get our hands dirty planting and weeding as well as think about the ways our community is like a garden. How do we want this garden to grow?
Growing a Sense of Place in our Identities (my workshop)
We live in a society that tries to weed out anyone who doesn’t fit in neat rows, but when we look to nature, we see a world far beyond binaries. How can we find empowerment in the natural world and grow this within ourselves and our communities so that we and others have more chance to bloom into our full selves and bring our rich gifts into the world?
Naturally Beyond Binaries
Society tries to force humans and the natural world into categories and boxes, but nature holds onto stories even when humans forget and erase. As a part of the natural world, humans also naturally expand beyond binaries. Through stories, photos, and poems from ‘Transcendence’ and ‘Beyond Pink and Blue’ Cai Quirk will bridge gaps in societal beliefs in binaries, in gender as well as in humans’ supposed separation from the natural world.
July 14th, 6pm EDT
“Restoryation and the Power of Stories” 5-day workshop online with Friends General Conference
How do stories and myths relate to our lives today? What can we learn from ancient and modern stories and how can these connect us more deeply to each other and Divine? Together we’ll explore meaning, metaphor, and spirituality through the power of stories, including creating some of our own.
July 4-8, 5-day workshop, 2-4pm ET daily with Friends General Conference.
“Queer Restoryation” workshop at Mythaca in Ithaca NY
Stories, myths, and legends aren’t just tales created long ago, but ones newly created as well. Looking at myths and stories today offers ways to find deeper insight into our own lives and ways of interacting with the world around us. In a world that tries to erase the presences of LGBTQIA+ folks, it is even more vital that we continue to tell our stories, whether they are the everyday realities of our lives, or mythic tales of realities deeper than ordinary truths. Binary ways of seeing the world will not simply disappear — they must be replaced by ways of seeing and honoring fluidity and change as natural and necessary. This workshop is an act of restoryation, engaging with new stories, myths, and legends, ones that walk the many paths beyond supposed binaries: male and female, night and day, land and sea, earth and sky, life and death, self and other, self and earth.
Mythaca Festival June 22-26, local/in-person in Ithaca NY. In addition to this workshop, Cai led the ‘Rainbow Arc’ queer tent including four discussions and a trans/genderqueer integration circle.
Transcendence gallery show at Pendle Hill
Transcendence explores the connection between gender, spirituality, and mythology, specifically as involving transgender and genderqueer identities. Many cultures around the world include(d) genders beyond a binary system, and many of these figures had strong ties to the spiritual tradition of their respective cultures, including roles such as healers, seers, oracles, and shamans. Countless traditions, legends, and identities have been irretrievably lost, ravaged by colonialism. This project includes restoryation — telling new stories that center gender-diverse people. In the spirit of myths — not false stories, but ever-relevant ones — these images create not just a body, but a figure of transcendence.
The exhibition will be up at Pendle Hill from mid-April to mid-June. Currently the space is only open to people who sojourn or come to events here, but that may change later in the spring, and I will share pictures here and on Instagram.
Beyond Pink and Blue: Inner Depths of Gender
We live in a world of many vibrant colors, especially now as spring is turning to summer, but when it comes to gender, society trains us to describe the world only in terms of pink and blue. Even as knowledge and ideas of gender have expanded in recent years, the gender binary is still too often seen as default. Beyond Pink and Blue uses poetry and photography to explore gender through metaphors of color and nature. This event will use poems as a jumping off point for further discussions of gender beyond binaries in our world today.
Artist Residency talk 3 of 3: Tuesday, June 14th, 7:30-9pm, via zoom from Pendle Hill. More information and registration here.
