OH-3114_DeLaGraceVolcano_e02.mp3

Del LaGrace Volcano: [00:00:00] I think it was more subcultural in production, like in the beginning, ‘Love Bites’ my first book was looking at, you know, bad girl lesbian nightlife. You know, it’s kind of attending a working class motorcycle dyke bar where it was very Butch/Femme the Butches road Harley’s and friends worked in the strip clubs

Del LaGrace Volcano: [00:00:22] and it was where I went as a refuge from the San Francisco Art Institute, because it was real people. And they were the bad, wrong side of San Francisco, bad side of the tracks, you know, they were role playing was butch femme it was this was just the early 80s and I could be talking about the 70s as well.

Del LaGrace Volcano: [00:00:44] It’s very similar, so I went from I mean, I went from being a student body president with long curly red hair and very female to having shaved my hair, gotten a motorcycle, gotten into leathers from taking photographs of the area where I lived, which is the Mission District, and taking pictures of people on the street and the drug dealers and the prostitutes. They all love that. You know, I would take I did a good method, you know, my way of doing it. I took pictures back and I did that, that it was kind of strange in some way because I didn’t really belong in the mission, even though I lived there. But it was still trying to come home and stay close to home. And it was easy. It was interesting to see how that work was applauded, and then when I started taking photographs of my where I was really at, which was kind of like discovering, queerness…

Del LaGrace Volcano: [00:01:37] …discovering lesbian San Francisco, riding a motorcycle. They weren’t interested and I was pretty much ostracised. I think the shock of me cutting my hair and changing so much in one summer…..caused a lot of you know, and then I dropped out. But it’s you know, when I really think about that, it is it’s kind of interesting that now they love that, you know, now that kind of work is like I started the first lesbian and gay society in the college. Cathy Opie went there after me. At the San Francisco Art Institute.