Winter Mendelson couldn’t wait to get the hell out of Georgia. “I graduated college and moved here, like, the very next day,” laughed the founder and editor-in-chief of Posture, a fresh-faced queer-centric magazine dedicated to gender, identity, and the arts. “I didn’t have a community there at all– it was like three lesbians and they were all dating each other, so it was kind of torturous.”
Arriving in New York City, she immediately realized things were going to be different. “I was so relieved and excited that there were people like me, like, everywhere. I was like, ‘This is a dream!” Â And yet, she realized there was something missing from the scene. “I just felt like there really needed to be a platform that showed all kinds of voices and aesthetics,” she said.
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Rashaad Newsome
Rashaad Newsome’s ‘Coming Out’ Ball in Bushwick Was Insane
I made a couple of mistakes when I first spoke with Rashaad Newsome—  a visual and performance artist who makes digital and video work largely inspired by vogue– ahead of his third King of Arms art ball. In these situations I usually shrug and move on, but what I assumed were slight missteps actually indicated a larger misunderstanding on my part of some essential tenets of ballroom culture. Thankfully the King of Arms, held Sunday night in Bushwick, offered an introduction to the pillars of vogue for many newcomers like myself, while pushing the medium beyond its bounds for the old school ballroom crew in attendance.
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