Community Support 4 PNW Based Trans Artist Cosmo

Greetings All!

My name is Cosmo, I am a Port Townsend Based performance Artist, community Clown, and Event Producer.

*LONG STORY SHORT*

This past month my Bank account was Hacked - 2500$ was stolen and Wells Fargo has so far refused to credit $2000 back to me. This money was all of my savings and was my food, house/studio rent, and car repairs for the next several months.

THIS GO FUND ME HAS 2 GOALS

#1 is to support Cosmo the human who is currently struggling with the basics. The Goal is to raise the 2,000$ they lost to fraud.

#2 is to support Cosmo the Clown who is brining their performance art on the road. If Goal #1 is met then the funds will go specifically to Cosmo's Performance tour.

*CONTEXT* WHY AM I ASKING FOR COMMUNITY SUPPORT?

Over the Past two years of living in Port Townsend Full time I have been a part of organizing, performing, and producing over 40 events all throughout east Jefferson county (the occupied lands of the Chem-a-kum, Quileute, S’Klallam, and Twana). I work specifically with groups, organizations, and boards that support local & touring artists by building platforms to share their unique visions to audiences in an ever changing world. I am grateful to the many humans who have come out to whiteness & participate in the numerous shows, dances, and artistic containers I have helped create on the Olympic Peninsula and beyond.

In my dance-theater Work, I investigate Trans & Queer dreamscapes built by generational disembodiment, and use somatic inquiry & performance research as tools to explore authenticity, compassion, and transformation. In producing local events I found myself investigating the questions “what do gathering spaces look like after community separation?”, “How have our senses changed (as artists and witnesses) in the landscape of multiple pandemics”, “how can a community re-meet itself?”

The performances I have created over the past two years are born from the fibers of the communities I have grown to love and care for out here on the Peninsula. In the scarce resource landscape so many of us have found ourselves in, a huge focus of my work has been to create experiences that are accessible to PNW audiences that are made up of a diverse age and socioeconomic background. With every performance I put forward my energy as a love letter to the building we are all doing to create home with each other.

As a full-time performance artist, living in such a rural area continues to challenge the creative strategies I have for surviving. To continue to be based in Port Townsend and produce these kinds of spaces out here means that I also have to leave upon occasion to share my Pacific North West Love letters to the world.

Currently I am seeking financial help to recover from a hacked bank account and to have community assist with the launch of my first solo tour that I'm embarking on in October.

*LONG STORY SHORT*

This past month my Bank account was Hacked - 2500$ was stolen and Wells Fargo has so far refused to credit $2000 back to me. This money was all of my savings and was my food, house/studio rent, and car repairs for the next several months.

I am in a precarious place where I am beyond EXCITED to bring my art on the road AND am currently in unexpected financial crisis.

THIS GO FUND ME HAS 2 GOALS

#1 is to support Cosmo the human who is currently struggling with the basics. The Goal is to raise the 2,000$ they lost to fraud.

#2 is to support Cosmo the Clown who is brining their performance art on the road. If Goal #1 is met then the funds will go specifically to Cosmo's Performance tour.

$$$ FOR THOUGHT

As many artists know it is it is hard to face the ways in which we have been left outside of and devalued in community PARTICULARLY when it comes to economic resourcing. As a Trans Artist I am aware that I am sometimes used to create "Queer aesthetic" in environments and venues created by folks who benefit from their intersections of identity, positionality, and resource. For example, when I have produced queer surrealist theater in venues that have a bar, Me and the performers walk away with maybe 100$ for the show, where as the venues make thousands off of drink sales and our Trans Bodies.

*Consider this a virtual tip!

IF YOU HAVE EVER SEEN ME PERFORM, DANCE, COME TO A CABARET, BARN PARTY, ATTENDED BUTOH WORKSHOPS, OR TALKED TO ME ABOUT ABOUT MY PRONOUNS... THIS IS YOUR TIME TO SHARE A TIP. I AM COUNTING ON YOU*

As resources are spread ever so thin these days I ask with an open heart knowing that folks are doing the best they can. ANYTHING HELPS.

For More Information about my upcoming Performance tour check out my Instagram @cosmorap OR Visit my Website for Updates and Details www.CosmoMovement.com