User:Socklover64/sandbox

Article Evaluation
The intro sentence of the article is distracting and uses a quote, should find a better sentence to start out with.


 * Find birthdate

The article needs information about Del LaGrace's childhood years and how they developed their identity. I think it should start with information about their childhood. "not only through their gender but also through their name" is a weird sentence


 * could also be improved with photos of their work.


 * Most sources are primary and come from Volcano's website


 * Article must adhere to BLP standards (Biographies of living persons)


 * Should adhere to identity guidelines
 * The use of "intersex" as opposed to "genderqueer" or "transgender"

Del LaGrace Volcano
Del LaGrace Volcano (born in California in 1957) is "one of instigators of polymorphous perverse queer culture." A formally trained photographer, Del's work includes installation, performance and film and interrogates the performance of gender on several levels, especially the performance of masculinity and femininity.

EDITS:

Del LaGrace Volcano (born July 26th, 1957) is a genderqueer artist, performer, and activist from California. A formally trained photographer, Del's work includes installation, performance and film and interrogates the performance of gender on several levels, especially the performance of masculinity and femininity.

Identity
Born intersex with both male and female characteristics but raised as female from birth; Volcano lived the first 37 years of their life as a woman, but since has been living as both male and female. Del LaGrace Volcano (formerly named Della Grace) continues to adopt their true self through their name and gender. After marrying a queer man, Johnny Volcano, Del took on their current name to challenge the "bi-gendered status quo." Del and Johnny Volcano have two children, Mika Alexis and Nico Ilon, to which Del refers to themselves as a "MaPa."

Life and career
Volcano earned an MA in Photographic Studies at University of Derby, UK in 1992 after studying photography at the San Francisco Art Institute from 1979-81. Prior to Studying at San Francisco, Volcano attended Allan Hancock College as a student in the Visual Studies program from 1977-79.

Volcano's work complicates understandings of both femininity and masculinity by depicting lesbian masculinity. In "The Feminine Principle," Volcano takes queer femininities as a focus. Included in this project is a portrait of Kate Bornstein. In "Lesbian Boyz and Other Inverts," Volcano's celebration of butch dykes, transsexual boys and other gender-queers, masculinity is shown as a tool of subversion.

Volcano's photographs demonstrate how intersexed bodies can offer an entirely new perspective on the body. The 'normal' body in relation to Volcano's photographs becomes queer, describing the bodies in their latest works as "sites of mutation, loss, and longing." In these newer works, Volcano takes on the loss of their friend, Kathy Acker and the transformation of their lover Simo Maronati's abled body into a disabled one. Here, Volcano illustrates the queerness of any body marked by illness or trauma. Their self-portrait "INTER*me" photograph series (formally the "Herm Body" series) is a raw rendition of the artist's body using black and white Polaroid film, in conversation with their pervious work it speaks to the construction of different age-selves and the technologies of gender in photography.

Volcano's artist statement of September 2005 reads:

 "Volcano also explores themes of both sexual and gender fluidity throughout their work. Volcano often depicts the instability of gender identity, by pushing past the binary gender system, and frequently uses their queerness in their work to contest the idea of sexual identity as something that is permanently embodied. As shown in Volcanos photography book, "Love Bites", Volcano presents various images of women at sexual play, dressed "in costumes ranging from brides to gay leather men". Volcano, in this way, seems to aim at defying conventional gender norms and feminist principles within their text. In "''Teddy Boy David", Volcano further pushes this agenda and toys with the idea of age dynamics and, mainly, youthfulness in terms of sexuality and sexual play." ''