For the month of June, LGBTQIA* folks and allies across New England come together in thoughtful reflection and celebration of Pride, which highlights progress since the Stonewall Riots. While much progress has been made, it is also an important time to reflect on what work our LGBTQIA* communities need to do in order to promote inclusivity, safety, and basic civil rights in the face of a hostile political system. We at Take want to acknowledge this important month by highlighting the artists whose work engages with LGBTQIA* themes and issues, as well as the creatives who claim these sexuality, minority, and gender non-conforming identities. All the folks featured on this list enlivened our editorial by challenging normative understandings of gender, sexuality, and identity in general through their unique work.

The following stories are about all kinds artists: previously pregnant butch dykes, rural drag queens of color, cis gay Asian-Americans, trans femmes, lesbian separatists, non-binary babes, and many individuals and groups of people whose identities aren’t as easily summarized. This diversity in our editorial exists because that is the diversity of our region. Though it’s true that we live in a society that constantly works to erase and delegitimize the existence of LGBTQIA* people, we’re still finding artists and cultural leaders who boldly embrace this sometimes fraught, yet always beautiful, spectrum of existence.

While we are proud to present our highlighted list of artists we’ve covered since January 2015, we’re not so naive to think that these are the only LGBTQIA* folks we’ve featured. While some artists openly share their identities with our staff and contributors, other artists have asked us to keep their identities off the record, or choose to never disclose for privacy and safety concerns.

Take is proud to feature these artists and our team will work harder to bring you more creative voices from the LGBTQIA* community as we expand our web edition and return to print this fall.

Massachusetts

Car Wash

Wading In

This Ain’t No Game

Comfort & Discomfort

Catastrophe in Provincetown

The Insider’s Take: Eternal Slumber Party

Come Closer

Tender, Forever

Becoming The Gold Dust Orphans

Facebook-to-Face

The Kids Are Alright

Cave and the Art of Community

Connecticut

Women of Abstraction

Gender Bender

Feminine Mystique

BL&D Interview – Arien Wilkerson

From Clay to Catastasis

Life is Gross

Sacred Stones

Crossing Equators with Arien Wilkerson

Maine

Portland’s Cherry Lemonade

Notes from an Expat: Where Are You From

Not-so-Little Women

Take Q&A: Crystal Williams—Writer, Advocate, Advisor

Slow Boat to Iceland

The Simple Power of the Cup

New Hampshire

Manchester’s “Sexy Industrialist”

Hood is Downtown…For Now

Rhode Island

Kitty Eyes & Spandex

Taken: Todd Oldham at RISD

Rachel Blumberg Sees And Hears More Than You

Hustler of Providence

Aurora Catalyzes Variety and Community in Providence

ART/Crush: J.R. Uretsky

Meet Rhode Island’s Newest City Boy

Nine Months in Drag

Vermont

The Rainbow Cattle Co.

Make Some Time for Angus McCullough

What Happened Before Homosexuals?

New England

Artists to Watch 2017

10 New England Tattooers You Need to Follow on Instagram

7 New England Niche Film Festivals You Can’t Miss

The post Take Magazine Pride Month Round-up appeared first on Take Magazine.

Toni Johnson’s radiant energy cannot be missed. Adorned in bright colors and multiple pieces of jewelry, she emits warmth with a glance and a joyous laugh. Now residing in Hartford, Connecticut, with her “twin-flame” and love, Azua Echevarria (owner of Age Into Beauty), Johnson’s healing creativity is seen in her unique jewelry, Rework Creative, and several projects with her partner including the Wild Women’s Collective.

Johnson has lived many lives: as a hairdresser post high school, a singer with a record deal at Capitol Records, a photography stylist, and now as a jewelry designer who uses the power of stones for both aesthetic beauty and healing. “You know I have always been a healer. Whether through singing or counseling friends, it has always flowed naturally from me,” Johnson says. “I have always held a lot of healing joy for the world around me.”

Johnson’s journey into metalsmithing and jewelry design began as part of her own self healing after experiencing a lull in her music career and leaving California to become a photo studio stylist in New York City in the early 2000s. “I moved to New York to take a break from music and found a career that I felt I could do full-time until I found another path in music,” she says. “But then I realized that my music path had just come to an end and I turned to making jewelry to help with my own grief—the grief of losing my music career, the grief of losing a lover—and it became something of my own.”

Toni Johnson, Rework Creative, photo by Roy Photography

Channeling her creativity to heal isn’t that surprising. After all, Johnson has been creative since early childhood. “My grandmother would always say, ‘There is nothing new under the sun,’ and it’s true. Everything we do is just a reworking and reinterpretation of the things we experience around us,” Johnson says. The concept of “reworking” is at the heart of Rework Creative, where Johnson incorporates the healing powers of earthbound metals, minerals, and stones to reimagine and reinvent their beauty through jewelry.

Toni Johnson, Rework Creative, photo by Steve Ben-Shalom

After experiencing a life-changing car accident, Johnson says her body began to undergo physical and psychic changes. At that time, her jewelry shifted from beadwork to increased use of crystals and copper metals, both conduits for energetic healing. As friends and strangers expressed interest in her work, she decided to begin selling her work in 2008. “Crystals are very reactive to mental energy, so as I create, it is all about implementing love vibrations,” she says. “And I get responses from clients and customers that they can feel this in their pieces, so it reinstates and validates the work that I am doing.”

Toni Johnson, Rework Creative, photo by Roy Photography

Although Johnson has been offered a chance to mass produce her designs and sell in larger retail stores, she has decided to stay grassroots with her work. “I have turned down the opportunity to sell my work to larger vendors because I want my jewelry to always be from my hands. It is my baby,” she says. “I charge all of the pieces myself through song and touch, and that is what makes the work so special, because I am energetically connected to those who wear my jewelry, and I try to bring joy directly to them.”

Johnson has sold her work to artists and musicians all over the world, including pieces commissioned for Lily Tomlin for her role in the Netflix series, Grace and Frankie. She is currently a part of Brunch of Art, put on by the Wild Women’s Collective, as well as collaborating with Echevarria and Hartford-based dancer Arien Wilkerson on a play called Universal Womb that is still in process. Besides creating jewelry, Johnson also works as a healer doing mineral prescriptions and collaborating on artwork with her partner.

Toni Johnson–jewelry designer, Rework Creative
New Haven, Connecticut
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Top image by Roy Photography

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