My Interview With Richard Eagan

A few weeks ago I met with Park Slope-based artist Richard Eagan to talk about his sculptures, his Red Hook karaoke show and his bee-keeping operation.

I first met him at the Gowanus Artists Open Studio Tour... I have to admit the meeting wasn't exactly accidental. I saw this picture on the Gowanus website and decided I wanted to meet him and maybe interview him for FRINGEunderground. I found a kind, friendly man in a carefully coiffed wig and full make-up. He showed me a jar of his own home-made organic honey, Kay Sera, named after his karaoke alter-ego.

We arranged to meet several weeks later at 440 Gallery, the Park Slope co-op gallery of which he's a member. This time he was wearing neither a wig nor make-up. I actually didn't recognize him at first. But there he was: a down-right fatherly figure sitting there with his dog. (I think the dog's name was Sparky, but don't quote me on that.) We spent a few minutes together at the gallery and then went back to his Park Slope brownstone and chatted for several hours. You can read the interview that resulted at FringeUnderground.

But there was something he said that day that I didn't include in the interview--something that I've been thinking about off and on since. He was speaking about coming out as a cross-dresser and said something along the lines of, "Well, you know you spend your life being terrified of becoming this person [meaning, of course, a cross-dresser]. And when you finally let go and just become who you were always afraid of becoming, you find that... it's actually not bad. It's a beautiful thing. A really beautiful thing. All those years you just didn't know it. You were afraid for no reason."

So there you go. Just let yourself be. No fear. Because you never know--maybe that monster inside isn't really all that horrific after all. Right?