In 2017 Jack Davis retired from being an office worker, which means that he can now devote as much time as he wants to being a visual artist, a witch and a radical faerie. His most recent visual art show, called FAGGOTS, was at the Center for Sex and Culture in San Francisco in January 2019. In December of 2018 he created the dancers' costumes for Winter Circle X, a ritual/performance piece instigated by Keith Hennessy in collaboration with Snowflake Towers. Episode Highlights Jack tells how he first started studying art and education in college, and then got a masters degree in textiles. He started making crocheted penis shapes as his own way of glorifying sexuality during the sexual revolution of the 70's. He shares the history of the word faggot, and about his exploration and usage of "faggots" in his artwork as part of queer liberation. We discuss the public's response to his art, and how censorship and exclusion of his art has been part of that response. Jack uses performance art and ritual activism, such as in "Faggots around the Labyrinth," in San Francisco prior to the 2016 presidential election to protect queer youth. He gives us a brief history of the Radical Faeries, starting in 1979 with a gathering of gay men who were anti-assimilationist, who believe that gay men are different and have a special purpose. Now Radical Faerie community is co-created in cities and sanctuaries around the world, with gatherings that are open to all gender identities. Jack got involved in '82 and eventually became the treasurer of a local division. He was also part of the support team to care for two of the founding members (Harry Hay and John Burnside) at the end of their lives. He offers his ideas about how and why the Radical Faerie communities have been, and continue to be, so influential in queer culture. Jack shares how he uses pagan prayer beads, which have been a significant part of his spiritual daily practice. Contact Jack Davis Contact Jack by email here. Visit the Queer Spirit episode page to view some of Jack's art.

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