It was 2001 when Mechee Harper took her nineteen-year-old friend Meko Lee Burr to Chicago for his first ball. “We ended up taking over a KFC as our dressing room,” Harper recalls. “And the employees were like, ‘Well, alright!’” The underground, largely black and Latinx LGBTQ ball culture has mostly existed out of mainstream awareness…
The Influencers
Meet fifteen LGBTQ community members making a major impact in St. Louis Where do we get off, telling you who the influencers are in this town? Well, we’d like to think we keep our ears to the ground and watch who’s moving and who’s shaking, who’s driving the discussion and who’s pressing buttons. This collection…
Chuck J. Pfoutz: Running the Runway
In 2013, photographer and producer Chuck Pfoutz attended his first drag pageant. He was inspired. “Some of the best production I’d ever seen,” Pfoutz says. “I was fascinated by how far people would go to win a crown,” he adds. “Hours of effort to achieve something great and entertain while doing it. I documented 30…
For Chuck Pfoutz, New Show at Third Degree Glass Factory Is a Triumph Over the Haters
Blacklisting is an art deeply woven into the culture of St. Louis, a city that produces cold winters, but even colder shoulders. The July and August 2017 efforts of a disgruntled rival to blacklist photographer and producer Chuck Pfoutz, however, completely lacked the hallmarks of our local style. There was no subtlety and intrigue, no…