Representing queerness is, appropriately, less often straightforward than full of complexity, contradiction and interrogations of self. But in the images of Vermont photographer Craig Harrison, what you see is pretty much what you get: queer folks radiating acceptance, hope and joy.
Harrison’s pictures are on view through March 30 in the exhibition “I am___: Portraits Illuminating Identity” at Catamount Arts in St. Johnsbury. The show presents a selection of portraits taken at three drag events hosted by Catamount in 2023 and 2024: the Fall in Love Ball, the Be Mine Ball and Drag King Night at the Telegraph Club, which was copresented with Vermont Humanities.
Both the events and the exhibition were the brainchild of Catamount Arts artistic director Molly Stone. Early in 2023, she decided to host a drag performance in the Northeast Kingdom, where Pride events had been rare to unheard-of until the first NEK PrideFest, held in Newport in June 2023.
Stone wanted her own event to include opportunities for people to mingle and be introduced to the community, as well as see a performance. “If you drop anything like that in a rural community that hasn’t had it before — it’s new, it’s different,” she said. “Not only can you upset folks that might be against it, but [you can] also upset folks that are in the community who weren’t ready to have all this happen.”
She connected with Galen Blodgett, who at the time was involved in Rutland County Pride, producer of gatherings such as the annual Rutland County Pride Festival. Catamount partnered with the organization to plan its first drag event.
The Fall in Love Ball was held that September in the gutted, 24,000-square-foot former Sears department store at the edge of St. Johnsbury. Blodgett drove a Chevrolet Suburban full of drag royalty straight onto the dance floor.
Stone set up a “Beauty Bar” where people could see drag performers transform before the show started — and have a chance to try glitter and false eyelashes themselves. That’s how Harrison got involved.
Primarily a commercial photographer, Harrison does product and marketing shots for clients in and around St. Johnsbury. When Stone asked him for help lighting the Beauty Bar, he brought the backdrop and strobe setup he’d typically use for fashion shoots, just in case anyone wanted photos with their makeup before the event. “‘It’ll be done before the ball,'” Harrison said the organizers told him. “‘You’ll be there for maybe two hours, no big deal.'”
“Well,” he added, “as soon as the performers got there, they were like, ‘Pictures?!'”
“You could tell they wanted to be seen.” Craig Harrison
Soon, it was indeed a big deal. Harrison shot portraits not only of drag kings and queens but of attendees off the street. He ended up staying for eight hours and returning for Catamount’s other drag events, shooting thousands of frames in total.
Harrison didn’t pose or coach his subjects. He mostly just kept his finger on the shutter, he said, and prayed the lights wouldn’t burn out. But “from the very first shot, it was clear there was something different” about these pictures, he said. “You could tell they wanted to be seen.”
That honest sense of celebration is what makes the portraits so powerful. From drag king Prince Muffin’s manically energetic pose, literally hanging on to his hat, to queen Carmen Getit pointing her Madonna-esque bustier at the viewer like a pair of bazookas, the people in these pictures are doing exactly what they want. Nonperformers grin widely in the images: beaming, energized and at ease.
Each picture is paired with pronouns and an identifier — “I am Bethadone Clinique,” “We are Jessie & Courtney,” “I am Jill” — and a short statement from the participant. The narratives highlight acceptance and the importance of connecting with other LGBTQ+ people.
Hinesburg’s Jacob Boulet, now 25, attended the Fall in Love Ball to support Blodgett, his partner, who was emceeing. It was his first experience of drag, and he was dazzled. “I didn’t even know those things happened in Vermont,” Boulet said in a recent phone call. “Three days later, I was in drag for the first time.”
Boulet is pictured in the exhibition as Alexis Tential Crisis, with flowing hair and a gorgeous gold dress. Having professional photos has helped Alexis and other performers build their portfolios. Alexis performed at the Be Mine Ball and will return to the stage at the 2025 Fall in Love Ball this Saturday, February 15.
Many of Harrison’s subjects comment on the need for such events in rural communities, especially this one. Poet and longtime Northeast Kingdom resident Toussaint St. Negritude, who is pictured in the exhibition, writes in his statement, “It is soooo wonderfully and necessarily important that this happened in the Kingdom, clarifying for all the room to see, that we too are free and fabulously here to be, here in the Kingdom.”
Despite the new Pride events, many queer residents of the Northeast Kingdom have felt less than welcome. The region has seen anti-LGBTQ+ protests, actions and online chatter over the past couple of years. One of the most powerful aspects of the show is how Harrison and Stone make that context apparent while banishing it from view.
Nearby Littleton, N.H., made national news just a month before the Fall in Love Ball, when city councilor Carrie Gendreau sought to ban all public art because of three identify-affirming murals by Granville artist Meg Reinhold. Gendreau told the Boston Globe that they contained “demonic hidden messages.” A monthslong controversy exploded, ending with the resignation of the town manager.
Those paintings, originally on plywood boarding up the windows of a Littleton building, are now on view at Catamount Arts in a smaller show concurrent with Harrison’s exhibition.
Reinhold’s paintings are pretty and, it must be said, extremely innocuous. “We Belong” shows two birch trees in a landscape. “We Will Not Be Banned” features a stylized dandelion growing up through an open book. “We Are Joy” pictures an iris with a rainbow halo. If there are any demons here, they’re well hidden.
One couple pictured in Harrison’s show allude to Littleton’s art controversy in their statement. They describe that public altercation as one reason that Catamount’s events were “important, necessary, and welcomed.”
Such incidents have, in turn, sparked demonstrations of broad public support for the queer community in the NEK. Last fall’s 10- or 15-person protest of a Drag Queen Story Hour in St. Johnsbury, for instance, brought a response of more than 100 counterprotesters.
But the voices in opposition are loud and can be demoralizing, said Avi IC Ward, cochair of the Northeast Kingdom Rainbow Coalition, who is also pictured in the exhibition. And now, those voices are being bolstered by the most powerful people in the country.
“It’s super, super scary to be queer — and especially to be trans — in the world right now,” IC Ward said. “There’s been a difference since the election but especially since Inauguration Day … It just feels like something bad is going to happen, at any second.”
To allay those fears, Stone and Blodgett are working hard to make this year’s Fall in Love Ball fabulous, welcoming and, above all, safe. Their precautions include hiring security.
Harrison will be there with his camera. Like his photographs, he suggested, the event is only political in the eyes of its detractors. Participants simply see themselves.
“They’re just happy to be able to express who they are,” Harrison said. “I’m just lucky to be able to record it.”
“I am : Portraits Illuminating Identity” by Craig Harrison, on view at Catamount Arts in St. Johnsbury through March 30. Reception and artist remarks, Saturday, February 15, 4-5:30 p.m., followed by the 2025 Fall in Love Ball. catamountarts.org
The original print version of this article was headlined “Kings and Queens of the Realm | Craig Harrison takes joyous portraits of drag in the Northeast Kingdom”
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This article appears in Love & Marriage Issue 2025.
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