“Final Form / Transition Incomplete” explores clay as an extension of the body. I use clay to adapt the form I was given and the imaginary identity I was assigned. The weighted material that makes up my identity is parallel to the malleable quality of the clay. The performative process of expanding my body with clay relates similarly to the trans body which has undergone personal transitional experiences. Clay, with its unique qualities of both malleability and strength, is able to modify and abstract my body. In this way, performative building with clay offers seemingly impossible opportunities for my body to change perceived gender.

I had about 100 pounds of clay on a pedestal in the center of the space, with my body performing closely around it. The audience was invited to comfortably watch the performance as closely as they wished. For the entire duration of the performance, the audience members were allowed to watch in this manner. Many chose to remain seated, and others continuously walked around the happenings. I used the clay to manipulate and add to my trans* body, more specifically the parts of my body which I feel are most heavily charged by gender aesthetics. Exaggerating these parts of my body, for example my chest and crotch, I began to construct and deconstruct, continuously changing body layers, connecting myself to the clay body. Using the clay as a temple to abstract my body, throughout the course of the performance I removed clay from the large mound atop the pedestal, eventually falling to the floor beneath my body. After the large mound had been used up, laying on the floor, the pedestal free of the clay body, I climbed atop the pedestal and stood up with a large mass of clay in my hands. Forming the clay into a large, exaggerated, campy phallus, then excavating clay from the site of the phallus to create a trans* penis—with both balls, shaft, and orifice. I held this stance, this “final form,” this “incomplete transition,” with the trans penis in my hands by my crotch, standing atop the white pedestal.