Culture & Community | East Rock | Arts & Culture | Trans Haven | Peer Pride
Top: Syck Bell, one of the artists at the market. Bottom: A resource table. Linda-Crystal Young Photos.
Beneath a blazing summer sun, the artist Syck Bell presented a toddler-sized plushie, its arms and legs a a green-and-brown stripe that was soft and wooly to the touch. Beneath two neat pinpricks of eyes, a zigzag of thick thread formed its mouth, with just a hint of punk and sass at the edges. On its stomach, a bright white patch with long stitches completed the look, like an egg just waiting to become its chick self.
Earlier this month, Bell was one of several vendors at Trans Haven's "Egg-Crackin’ Summer Art Market," a celebration of queer community, art and artists held outside of Trans Haven's hub at 952 State St. (the building where Spruce Coffee is also located) in the city's East Rock neighborhood. Organized by Trans Haven's Kirill Staklo, Fable Burley and Eliot Olson, the event marked a joyful return of the market, in a summer packed with vibrant programming from the organization.
Founded under the wider umbrella of Peer Pride, Trans Haven provides both resources, peer support and counseling, and programming to members of New Haven's diverse trans community, with a focus on solidarity building and grassroots support that is extremely intersectional.
During the market, for instance, resource stations included information on immigrant justice, mutual aid, and Palestinian rights, interspersed between cheerful blue, pink and white stickers. Frequent collaborators include the New Haven Immigrants Coalition, Artists Against Apartheid, and the Party for Socialism and Liberation among many others.
Eliot Olson and Kirill Staklo. "Right now is a time when everyone is getting put in their boxes and being turned against each other, and I really see our mission and our duty as reaching out to everyone," Olson said when asked how Trans Haven brings the community together.
"It's been really good for the community," said Burley, an activist with both Trans Haven and the Party for Socialism and Liberation. "It's very good to, you know, support queer artists, trans artists, and we're helping bring money into the community. Especially given the political times, community is more important than ever, especially for the trans community. So we're happy to run just as many events as we can ... we're stronger together."
"Now more than ever, we need to come together—not just as the trans community, but as a community generally," Burley added. "And this is our attempt to try to bring the trans community and the rest of New Haven together."
The market, which started on Easter in 2024, is designed to both amplify trans creatives and bring together community, at a time when gathering itself can be a form of resistance. Often, it takes place as a safe space to be with chosen family around holidays; this one put a new spin on the idea of independence as it unfolded on the July 4 holiday weekend, and just before Trans Haven's Queer Liberation Fest. Staklo said there is not yet a date for the next one on the books.
"It was [initially] really about just bringing trans community together to celebrate each other, to be publicly out here with our friends, but also just in the world," Olson said. "It has grown and grown and grown, and now we're hosting them every season. It's a joy every time that we host one and it is a great opportunity for us not only to get to know the community locally around East Rock, but also for vendors to meet each other and connect with us."
"We're a space for joy, but also a space that recognizes the need for resistance and ongoing advocacy and organizing," Staklo later added.
Artists Cade Marosz, Dax, and Ryan of Paw Prints.
Across the market, artists echoed that enthusiasm and sense of purpose. Cade Marosz, who leads the small business Paw Prints with collaborators Dax and Ryan, had high praise for Trans Haven and the market specifically which has inspired him to grow the business and dip a toe into the pop-up and art market scene. Last fall, "we weren't really prepared to do something super professional, and they [Trans Haven] gave us the opportunity," he said.
"It was thanks to them, honestly, that we were able to get off the ground, even a little bit," added Marosz' colleague, Ryan. Prior to vending with Trans Haven last year, Paw Prints was less of an established business, and more of a creative idea. Then the three artists came together to form a limited liability corporation (LLC), and make their business official.
Ryan's favorite part of the market, in which the three have now participated several times, is catching up with other artists, and figuring out creative ways to trade art. That economy of exchanging items—rather than just pulling out cash—both pushes back against capitalism and helps artists connect with each other.
Top: Miss Gender. Bottom: Certain Creations.
Vending inside Spruce Coffee was artist Kat, who goes by Miss Gender (they declined to give their last name). They said they were grateful for the opportunity to show their art—zines, art prints, cards and stickers—in a safe, intentionally queer space. Often, they said, they hear from people who want to put artists into a single box, or restrict them to a single medium. That's never been the case with the organizers at Trans Haven.
As an artist, Miss Gender draws inspiration from drag, fashion, and performance art, they said. "Like, when I see it, I know it," they said with a laugh. The market found them surrounded by vibrant, hand-rendered images of performers and models with kinky, voluminous red curls and dresses and gowns of all shapes and sizes, each more eye-catching than the next.
"Art is such a vibrant part of the trans community and I just know so many trans artists," added the artist Ronan Hernsdorf-Smith of Certain Creations, who has become a beloved fixture at and champion of the market. Before the most recent market, "I thought about like how getting us all together would kind of be a celebration of our joy and our resilience and making art."
"Even if you don't like purchase anything, it's just great to be a community," Hernsdorf-Smith added. "It's a really joyous space."
Artist Hannah Winters, who collages with comic books. The market, for her, was "not necessarily even to sell things, but to be part of the community." "I've known who I was ever since I was, like, five," she added, remembering her own journey to finding Hormone Replacement Therapy (HRT). "As a child, I never thought there would be community like this."
Vendor Chris Nash of Bupgames. "I'm always just happy to be around other artistic people," Nash said.
Lucy Gellman contributed reporting.