This article comes from Allergic’s 2024 Pride Month series, interviewing queer and trans elders in the arts community throughout June.
Artist, teacher, and activist Ari Moore entered Buffalo’s art scene in the 1970s. Today, she’s focused on sharing her decades of knowledge with the next generation. “The art scene in Buffalo is growing, thriving, and dare I say, booming,” she said over Zoom.
However, Moore’s time in the art world was not all smooth sailing. After teaching at the AKG Art Museum (formerly the Albright-Knox Art Museum) in Buffalo and working in for-profit galleries, Moore worked as a police officer in Buffalo for 25 years.
From showing her work at the Buffalo Juneteenth Arts Festival to spending two decades advocating for transgender rights, Moore dives deep into her personal history in the latest installment of our Pride Month series.
H: How did you get into the art world?
yes: A family friend who was a gay artist recognized my artistic potential when I was a child. He sponsored me to take art classes at the Albright-Knox Art Gallery in Buffalo. Because of this opportunity, I not only gained a sense of artistic self-worth and an art education, but also a background to challenge certain norms in the art world.
H: What are those norms and how do you challenge them?
yes: I had great art teachers at Buffalo East High School, a 99% black school in a city that was still fairly segregated. I went to the University of Buffalo for a few years and then attended Rosary Hill College, which was a majority white suburban college at the time. I saw the old boy network in full operation. I had to code-switch. Then I got a job as an assistant art instructor at Albright Knox and later was hired by a major gallery. I may not have been able to break specific glass ceilings at the time, but I knew where they were, and I climbed the ladder with ease.
I taught at Albright-Knox for 14 years and continued my research. I taught African American art from the 18th century to 1965, and many lecturers and professors knew nothing about it. Even today, when I talk to executive directors of galleries and museums, some of whom have wonderful exhibits, I ask, “Do you have work by Robert Duncanson? Do you have work by Jacob Lawrence? Do you have work by Romare Bearden? Do you have work by Faith Ringgold?” If they look at me blankly, I explain a little bit about why they should have that work in their collection.
H: Who do you consider as your mentor?
yes: I ran my own art studio for several years when I was young, and the artist Bill Cooper was just a few doors down. It was educational to have someone who I could poke my head in and say, “Hey, what are you doing? How did you do it?” When I was teaching at Albright, I would work summer jobs at the Langston Hughes Center in Buffalo as a painting teacher. Seeing black professional artists doing big things and then making space at the center for other young black artists to show, it made me think, “Yeah, I can do that. I can be that.”
I came out to my mother at 16 and she accepted me, which was another big thing for me. As for my trans experience in the 70s and 80s, I met a trans woman named Dixie Gilbert who introduced me to a troupe of female impersonators called the Pearl Box Revue (not the same as the Jewel Box Revue in NYC). They were a group of black performers whose cabaret act toured Western New York, Northern Pennsylvania, Ohio, and even the Pocono Mountains. I met Bobby Lopez, Wanda the Cox, Tanya Nelson, Irma Love, Randy Martini… all these fun names and gorgeous personalities.
I stand on the shoulders of so many giants who came before me. I stand in so many places: one foot in the black community, another foot in the trans community, and another foot in white society. Being black in white society is always stressful. I am active, I am productive, I am happy, and I am lucky because there are so many people like me who have not made it this far. They suffer from stigma and oppression.
H: How does your identity influence your work?
yes: I did an art exhibition called The Queen I Knowwhich includes drawings of drag and trans people in Western New York. I also created another series called Two by two Gay couples who have been together for over 10 years. This is still going on. Many of these were purchased and given as wedding gifts.
H: Do you see yourself as a mentor now?
yes: I noticed there was no space for trans women of color, so I started African American Queens in the early 90s. Then in 1999, a friend of mine, Camille Hopkins, was transitioning and asked me to accompany her to the Capitol to advocate for trans rights. The fight lasted nearly a decade, but I got to know many trans warriors. Camille and I founded the Western New York Spectrum Trans Support Group. We fought hard and kept going for nearly 20 years until COVID shut everything down. It’s important to have love and support, to be able to see people like you who at least give you a pat on the shoulder and say “good job.” In 2019, I got a call from the Governor of New York to come to New York City to sign the Gender Expression Non-Discrimination Act, something we had been working on in our early years. It was an honor. But at my age, I have to slow down.
I have mentored several young people in Buffalo. As my grandmother always said, “Dear, education, education, education.” Education is something they can’t take away from you once you learn it and know it. They may take other things away, but they can’t take it away from you. I have a young woman of color and another young black man who opened their own gallery. A black trans woman is now the director of our Buffalo organization. Another trans man, whom I call my son, has exceeded my expectations and dreams. They are the chosen ones we search for and choose, and when they succeed, I can rest easy. As an elder, if I don’t share the knowledge I have, it will all be for nothing after I’m gone.
H: What led you to join the police force and what were those years like?
yes: For 14 years before that, I was an art and drawing teacher, living my best gay life. But when the gallery ran out of money and funding, and our staff went from 12 to four, I realized I needed a job that would give me longevity. My father worked in a steel mill, but they would lay off workers from time to time. My mother had worked in a hospital. I realized I needed a job that would give me health care, a pension, and job security—one where I couldn’t be fired, furloughed, or laid off. So that job was government. In the 70s, I heard Dick Gregory speak, and he said something that stuck with me: “If government isn’t what you want it to be, get involved, invest in it, and make a difference.”
I had to go back into the closet. I cut my hair off and tried to grow peach fuzz on my lips. For about 20 years, I was able to effectively pass as a man. The first year after I left, I began to transform.
It was difficult and it was dangerous but it was also satisfying because I was able to help people who had no other options. I was able to help people who saw the police as gatekeepers and demons – and then I arrived and showed empathy, understanding and compassion. In some cases, I accompanied people to court to make sure they had protection or to let the judge know that they needed this document now because they had an abusive partner.
I felt fulfilled to be able to contribute to the gay community and the black community. But over the last five years, I had enough of being mistaken for being gay and sometimes being laughed at. Not from the community, but from the people I was working with. It started to wear me down. So, after 25 years, I had enough. I left in 2007.
H: What does Pride Month mean to you?
yes: My sense of self came from my mother. As a teenager, I was given courage and conviction by seeing gay adults become active and productive members of their communities and hearing about the Stonewall Riots. I lived through the Civil Rights Movement, witnessed the Women’s Movement, witnessed the Vietnam War protests, and then the fight for gay liberation and trans rights. Pride parades are a continuation of the fight for human rights.
Colleagues and elders who have been doing this work for a long time complain that “it’s too big and too commercialized.” I have to remind them, “Isn’t that what we’re all looking for? To be included in the larger society and to be welcomed and celebrated for our existence?” Maybe we’re doing it too well, but there are still issues of stigma, sexism, and racism in the queer community. We have an opportunity to move the needle for our young people.
