INTERVIEW: MaeSteal Collective
MaeSteal - the bold new arts collective that “may steal” your attention. MaeSteal Collective creates thought-provoking art and design that pushes boundaries while also upholding ethical and sustainable practices. Their resulting work explores personal identity, destruction, and human perspective, encouraging audiences to be curious.
Rat World sits down with founder and creative directer, Copper MaeSteal, to chat about the collective and their upcoming New Zealand Fashion Week show.
Photos supplied by MaeSteal Collective
Rat World: Who are you and what do you do?
Copper MaeSteal: I'm Copper MaeSteal. I'm a queer artist, event designer, creative director, and image maker. I specialize in world building - trying to create an environment where artists can come together and actually showcase their true, authentic selves.
Rat World: I'm really interested in the fact you define event designing as “world building”. How do you manifest your ideas into the structure of the event
Copper: It all comes down to the visualization of it. And when you're working with such an amazing group of artists, it’s easy to sit around a table and brainstorm ideas about the “world” together.
Rat World: So, you founded MaeSteal collective - what was the decision behind that? How did you get people involved?
Copper: We were all pretty much friends beforehand. A lot of us had been doing drag with each other or just having fun together, and everyone was doing art by themselves on the side. It got to a point where we all wanted to do something bigger. We wanted to put more effort into it and make something professional…But there’s not really opportunities like that in Aotearoa – It’s quite hard to make your way as an artist, especially when you’re told to avoid an arts career and go to law school or something when you’re growing up.
Rat World: Absolutely. I mean, I did the “law school” thing. It’s cool that you’ve made opportunities for yourself.
Copper: Yeah. There are 10 of us in the collective altogether, ranging from fashion designers to photographers, music producers, event designers, graphic designers and performance artists. We make sure to cover a wide spectrum of artistic disciplines. As I said, I’m Copper MaeSteal - the founder. My main job is bringing the whole collective together and making sure everything runs smoothly. I’m also the creative director so I oversee the subdivisions of art and design. Godmother Solari MaeSteal is a drag artist and leads administration for the collective. They are very involved in the theatre and performance of glamour. Silva MaeSteal is one of the head fashion designers for NZFW. They’re also a drag artist and are studying sustainable fashion at Whitecliffe. They mostly work in detailed crocheting around tight knit and tightly bound crocheting. Angel MaeSteal is also a fashion designer. They mostly work in distressed crochet and is the founder of KONGCORE. Jarry Dobell is a graphic and scenic designer working in set design. They have been a huge part of the world building and make sure the visuals come through in this event. Tiger MaeSteal is a visualizer, photographer, and videographer with a strong sense of kaitiakitanga and an understanding of the te ao Māori perspective. Jinkie MaeSteal is a more traditional artist. They are in the painting and sculpture world but are also huge into glamour and redefining the vision of royalty for contemporary audiences. Diva MaeSteal is a model, singer, makeup artist, and 24/7 Diva. She serves high glamour and is ready to walk the runway at any given moment. Stain MaeSteal is a music producer, photographer, and sound and visual designer. They did all of the music production for the NZFW MaeSteal event. Stain is also a drag artist who uses clothes and music as a means to express femininity and masculinity. Clara MaeSteal is another one of our fashion designers. They focus mostly on sustainable practices, working within pattern making and more tailored garments. Her goal is to shed light on the vulnerability of the human experience.
Rat World: That’s such an awesome and eclectic team of creatives.
Copper: We had a couple of meetings about creating a collective, but it was organic - there were no big plans about going to Fashion Week or anything. It just started out as a group of friends wanting a queer arts group to hang out with. We didn’t expect to be offered the New Zealand Fashion Week opportunity within a couple of weeks of meeting!
Rat World: Holy shit that’s crazy! How did that happen?
Copper: NZFW shows are ridiculously expensive because it’s all so commercialized. We initially just asked to get free tickets so we could head to Fashion Week and mingle, maybe create a bit of ambiance. But when they saw our portfolio and Instagram, they offered us the opportunity to have our own event. And then we looked at the roster and found out that we are closing Fashion Week. We’re the last performance on Saturday Night! It suddenly got very serious. This isn’t just 10 friends hanging out at my house making art. Now we are doing a whole production. I mean, it’s still 10 friends in my house, but we’re setting up machines and putting together a schedule.
Rat World: Wait, so when exactly did you start the collective? This is such a short timeline!
Copper: We announced MaeSteal on the 18th July, so it would have been early May we started having conversations about MaeSteal being a proper collective. It’s been about 2 months. Again, it started really authentically – just friends wanting to hang out and make things.
Rat World: And you mentioned that you do a lot of the meetings in your house – is this the primary studio space for MaeSteal?
Copper: Yeah! The studio is built out of my house. We have all kinds of sewing machines and industrial machines in my kitchen and living space. There’s a lot of embroidery and wire pieces being made in my bedroom, and extra detailing is happening in my garage – It’s definitely a bit hard living in a studio full time. But when you take an outside look, it's honestly so beautiful. People are able to work on their own schedules – they can come and go as they please.
Rat World: This sense of creative freedom really suits the ethos of MaeSteal – I actually wanted to ask what are the core values of MaeSteal?
Copper: We really try to focus on authenticity and showcasing ourselves or our art in its purest form. But we are also interested in heightening our work so that our authenticity is put on the beautiful pedestal it belongs. A lot of what we are doing is about making people question the world around them. We play with contradictory elements of glamour vs grunge, traditional vs non-traditional. We want people to question what they’re viewing and why they are viewing it. Especially with Fashion Week, we’re playing with professional wear and gendered clothing. It’s about making people question and check their perspectives.
Rat World: Where do you hope for this collective to go in the future?
Copper: It’s still very early days. I think we will reassess after NZFW and ask ourselves what we want out of MaeSteal and where we want to take this as a group. But we are in a really exciting place at the moment. There’s free reign to take this in any direction we want!
Rat World: An exhilarating time of discovery!
Copper: We do want to tick a few boxes for ourselves. Our first project was the birth photo shoot, and our second project was NZFW – which is our first event as a collective. After this, we want to do a gallery moment and some more performance art works. But then…it’s open! Honestly, I’m just so grateful to have the opportunity to host events where people can come and showcase their art.
Rat World: It’s awesome how you are bringing so many people together from different sectors of artistic practice too.
Copper: Yea, I think at the start we made sure that everyone coming into this project was on the same page – like, what are your values? What are your morals? Do we care about the same things? It’s so important to know this about the people you are working with. So, even though everyone has different skills and practices; we all have the same morals. We value authenticity and that is the base of MaeSteal.
Rat World: Absolutely agree. I want to focus a bit on the show now – I was really struck by the concept of “capturing the queer body in a state of stress and anxiety”. It’s such an interesting angle of the queer experience. Where did that idea arise from?
Copper: Growing up queer meant I was aware of my body from a very young age. People would question why I walked a certain way or talked a certain way. You’re made to see your own body from a third-person perspective. I think these ideas lead a lot into gendered clothing and how queer people hold themselves in societal or professional contexts. I also just think life in general is distressing. I don’t think anyone can go through life without trauma. So, the show is really just about showcasing what it feels like to go through life and to be put into situations we don’t feel comfortable with.
In saying that, I definitely do recognize my white male privilege – it’s extremely important to acknowledge this in the context of discussing ‘fitting in’ within society. But it’s interesting to also reflect on my white male privilege and how I associate with queerness. I notice that it’s an image that I’m putting out and showcasing to the world, which links back to queer distress and queer alienation. A lot of this does go back to the origins of the word, “queer”. Before it was used as a derogatory term for the LGBTQIA+ community, it just meant “weird” or “alien”. Unusual. And LGBTQIA+ people were perceived as unusual, weird, and alien-like. So we are kind of reclaiming the original meaning of the word and saying, yeah, people are weird and bizarre. People are strange. And that’s where authenticity is held. That’s where the real beauty is.
Rat World: Wow. So cool how you are exploring etymology through fashion and arts.
Copper: Also, we are really interested in gendered silhouettes – challenging what is expected of men and women in professional settings. What is professional? What do you deem acceptable or normal? How do you interact with these concepts again after the show?
Rat World: And I wanted to ask about “creature wear”? It’s mentioned in the NZFW blurb and the term intrigued me a lot.
Copper: Creature wear is about the alien and the non-human silhouettes. I relate to it because of drag. People’s perception of drag is often the very traditional glitz and glamour – big wigs, boobs, hips, make up. Whereas drag is about the art and image making. There is the traditional style, but what I (and others) do is very different. We play around with drag creatures and drag monsters – bug silhouettes adding textures and multiplying arms or elongating fingers. Again, it links back to that idea of bizarreness. I find it quite interesting because a human is still a creature, so it’s almost questioning the human form and bringing it back to its original basis: a human is just a nonspecific animal. A living thing.
Rat World: It really ties into the way you want to challenge people’s perspectives and encourage curiosity about the body and gendered silhouettes.
Copper: We also try to incorporate that into our music production for the show too – Knux, also known as Stain MaeSteal is our music producer. A lot of the music we play is an overlap between ambient, classical, and techno. The use of the classical and techno relates to the traditional vs nontraditional; glamour vs grunge.. We also use audio sound bites from 1950s education videos about how to present yourself as a woman or office life in the 50s or what a man is. That sort of stuff. The audio correlates to the origin of the word queer because in the 50s, “queer” was used to describe aliens. When people were asked what they thought aliens would look like, the response was often, “I think they would be queer looking people”. We are taking that idea and really deep diving into it and expanding it out into the show.
Rat World: Sounds like it’s going to be such an immersive experience. What should people expect from the show?
Copper: I would say go in not expecting anything. Having no expectations is so exciting! I don’t think people will know what they’re getting themselves into when they arrive. There’s such a gradient of looks that your expectations are always getting twisted on their head. We want people to be nervous and anxious and to feel the nerves that we will have backstage.
Rat World: When is the show and why should people go?
Copper: The show is on the 2nd of September at 8:30pm. People should come because it’s the first event MaeSteal is producing. And we are closing NZFW! But it’s also an art piece. We are showcasing young, diverse, queer artists and highlighting them at their most authentic. We’ve put in a huge amount of work and effort into this on a non commercial level, and I think it shows our value as a collective. At the end of the day, this is gonna be amazing and you don’t wanna miss it.
Rat World: Lastly, what is “MaeSteal” and what does it mean?
Copper: MaeSteal began as just my drag name but has become something much more significant. It's a play on words - MaeSteal has a double meaning of “may steal”. An almost anti-capitalist approach to creating art and design, whilst believing that everyone should feel as though they have the right to take what is theirs and hold it close.
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