glitterbeard
pim halka
Ink and marker drawing of a person with white skin, black hair swooping to the right side, and left arm behind head to show an armpit with hair. The person has caucasian features and light pink skin. The arm has patches of whiteout on it near the hair. The person is wearing a white and black striped shirt. The background is split into red and blue sections. The top is red with white whiteout coming down from the top. A black line separates it from a lower turquoise blue section with white squiggly designs. The person is wearing a gold glitter beard and has red lips drawn with a golden pen.
Voice Over Transcription:
It was the day the Trump defeat was announced.
Outside, the normally quiet street exploded with horns honking, flags waving.
After an election-day relapse, I had recommitted to not drinking. I was recovering from a concussion and a fresh pre-move out divorce.
I felt trapped.
And I wanted to celebrate.
I walked to the dollar store and got some packs of glitter and glue.
I decided to celebrate with my first glitter beard.
Painting the glue on my face–making slow, even pats of glitter on top–I felt something.
I felt like an adonis.
When the shine dulled a bit, I got to experience ecdysis–shedding my skin.
My old name, marriage, career, home, life, brain–everything.
Freshly shaven for the first time–pink and new.
My skin felt soft–unsure.
But my new skin was glowing.
Visual Description: Close-up marker drawing of a person with pink and beige skin, dark eyes, and dark hair. There are white patches of paper showing through the white shirt that make highlights on the neck. A white band around the face is an empty space for a beard. The background is color blocks: the top is a red triangle and the bottom is a turquoise blue. The person is holding their hand behind their head posing. The video is stop motion animation with gold glitter.
The video begins as glitter sweeps in from the top left frame. The glitter covers the face and then reveals eyes and starts filling in a beard, making a swirl around the figure’s head. The glitter beard becomes more angular and defined. The glitter continues to move, covering the mouth and arm. A new beard and glittered eyebrows emerge. The glitter sweeps totally across the face from the top left to bottom right. A tiny bit of glitter goes back, hugging just the eye sockets, nose, and mouth. Glitter sweeps across the face from right to left. At the word “celebrate” some vertical lines in the swipe of glitter reveal the figure’s face. The glitter quickly swipes across the face from the bottom right and makes swirls and circles all through the figure’s face and head. The wild swirls come together and convene on the figure’s nose in a neat pile.
The pile of glitter is slowly patted down and begins covering the whole face. There is a hard swipe of the glitter from the top of forehead down past the nose to create a very silly-looking facial hair. The beard transforms to a long beard down the person’s chest. The mouth is revealed. Long swipes of eyebrow facial hair are created. The long beard is cut in half with two swipes. The beard is further cut into a goatee and the eyebrows are trimmed. The goatee is transformed into a big mustache. A beard reforms as the eyebrows are brushed away to either side. Bigger arched eyebrows are created and the beard is elongated and given more texture. The glitter makes a zig zag from the top right temple across the face under the nose turning at the left ear and going down the right neck. A thick beard forms with the mouth visible and some pools of glitter pouring off to the right side. With a hard swipe from the top left, the face is clear of glitter. The glitter forms a teardrop shape and begins spiraling into the center of the face.
The pile in the center of the face is broken by four strokes which make a starburst shape that pulses twice. The glitter is swiped from creating messy patches and strong lines from the top left to bottom right. A thin transparent layer of glitter covers the figure’s head and body. There is a swipe revealing the mouth clearly and the glitter covers the face once more. A gentle swipe from the top left reveals the face clearly again.
The video starts back from the beginning on a loop. A tiny bit of glitter is hugging just the eye sockets, nose and mouth. The whole scene has a swipe of glitter from the right. Vertical swipes reveal the face again. Swirls in the center of the face repeat. Original swipe of glitter from beginning plays backwards jumping up from the bottom right to the top left of the screen. A few beats on the drawn image of the face clean with no glitter. Swipe from beginning soars across the page from top left and splashes to reveal a freeze frame of the person with a glitter beard and exposed mouth. This image stays for a few moments then ends.
Photo of caucasian gender non conforming person wearing a black and white striped shirt, a gold glitter beard, glittered eyebrows, spots of red glitter, and glittered lips. Their hand is behind their head in an “adonis” pose revealing armpit hair. The face has a gold glitterbeard, gold glitter eyebrows and red glittered lips. There are books and black shelves in the background.
Photo of caucasian gender non conforming person wearing a black and white striped shirt peeling off a gold glitter beard with their right hand, which has purple fingernails. The face is contorted into a grimace and the eyes are mostly closed. There are books and black shelves in the background.
A Note from the Artist:
I have always conceived of my gender as DIY, a “grab whatever you have in the room to create a look for the kink event tonight or borrow for that interview” kind of aesthetic. There is a freedom in being able to go half a block down the street to a dollar store to buy a selection of glitters for a dollar to create beautiful fantastic facial hair, and then let my skin shed as I peel it away. At the time I was in a terrible place: the height of the pandemic, my marriage had fallen apart, I had recently gotten a concussion, had relapsed from a few months of sobriety, and I had just chosen a new name (Pim) that I hadn’t yet started to go by. I was very much going through the fire and creating glitter beards was a fast, affordable, and safe way for me to express my gender and celebrate in full queer fashion. This work documents my first glitter beard. Afterwards, I continued wearing them for Zoom events, and later as everyday wear at my next safe and stable home.
about the creator
Pim Halka (ze/zir or he/him). is a visual artist with connections to the ancestral lands of the Monacan Nation (Lynchburg, VA, USA) and Pataxó (Salvador, Bahia, Brasil). Ze is committed to creating community artwork. Collaborating to build youth mural projects, an anti-racist sewing circle, intergenerational storytelling program and free online art learning communities to name a few. Ze has traditionally created using paint and are currently playing with mixed media and animation. Zir work is inspired by divine intervention, moments of supreme clarity, and spontaneous creation.