We recently connected with Analisa Raya-Flores and have shared our conversation below.

Analisa, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. Are you happy as a creative professional? Do you sometimes wonder what it would be like to work for someone else?

The only “regular” job I ever had (by 9-5 standards) was as a receptionist. It lasted about 3 months, and if you subtract the time I spent in the bathroom muffling screams with paper towels, it was probably closer to 2 months. But that’s not to say it was my only day job. From age 15-29, I worked in retail, food service, and childcare. For the last 11 years, I’ve been a yoga instructor, and I feel both fortunate and proud that I’ve been able to make ends meet doing it. It’s challenging, creative, and keeps me sharp on anatomy (one of my special interests!). It also allows a great deal of time for art, which up to this point, I don’t make money doing.

I am so curious how other artists answer the happiness element of this question. Happiness seems completely unquantifiable, even on a great day with good weather, a good book, and nice snacks. I’ve never led a “conventional” life, and I’ve never lived in a conventional brain; to live a more normative life, I’d have to remove so many factors (my mexicanness, my queerness, my autistic-ness), that I’d be a completely different person, and can’t imagine that person being creative, at all. This is not to say that you have to be “different” to be creative– I know plenty of normies who make stunning art– but my creativity is inextricably linked with my experience as, in laymen’s terms, a weirdo.

There are lots of days when making art is frustrating (e.g. “why won’t these silicone ears stay put?”), and in those times, I wish I were running in the mountains or jumping on my trampoline or perhaps delivering mail (my uncle did this, and I’m assured you get great benefits). But I don’t wish away the creative impulse. I’d rather be trying to create and failing than doing almost anything else. It is one of the few activities that both fuels and slows my autistic brain, which makes me content, which is a kind of emotional sibling or cousin of happy.

Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers.

As cliche as it is, I was the type of kid performing plays and directing movies in my backyard. What makes it slightly less cliche and slightly more tragic is that a) I was always alone b) my references were of another generation. By the age of 3, I was doing impressions of Ethel Merman, and my favorite musical number to re-enact was Make ‘Em Laugh from Singin’ in the Rain. When we visited my grandparents, the television was blasting Sabado Gigante marathons, so even though I hadn’t learned about the history of drag or clown, I was witnessing pure camp en español. My dad played me Richard Pryor’s Live on the Sunset Strip on the record player when I was 10; he showed me Andy Kaufman’s wrestling clips around the same time. It was a weird but joyful start, and I entered adulthood with the cultural context of someone born between 1920 and 1950.

My creative inspirations have always been a mix of high and low– from Shakespeare and Gore Vidal’s Lincoln to I Love Lucy and In Living Color. But as a younger person, I wasn’t sure how to combine these. The answer, of course, was live performance– something I came back to in my early 30s.

My onstage work is inspired by drag, clown, and a combo of the two. I often present as a depraved creature or yucky man (I’ve done numbers as Gollum, as an alien, as a smarmy lounge singing Giant Tooth)– I feel most powerful when I’m most off-putting…. feel free to analyze that. When I’m building a show, I like to build, literally, a whole world. I make paper-maché installations (sculpted free-hand, without wires), and love working on costumes and makeup.

The work I’m most proud of are two hour-long live shows:
In 2019, as the Annenberg Beach House writer-in-residence, I wrote and performed The Legend of Gram Cañon, about a gender-bending outlaw in the early days of California. I built paper-maché set pieces (which doubled as supporting characters), and had one of my best friends (John Paul Curtin) do the live soundtrack, including country-fied, twangy covers of FKA Twigs and the Cranberries. If Broadway is looking for a spaghetti western about a butch bank robber, they’re welcome to call.

In 2022, I wrote and performed Santa For Locos, a solo drag and story-telling piece about my family’s emigration from Mexico. Put simply, it’s a show about losing your culture, losing your mind, and even losing your teeth. In more academic terms, it’s about how the trauma of diaspora affects your health–don’t worry, my family laughed the loudest. Again, I made set pieces of paper-maché, including two giant teeth, one of which I drilled through live, onstage, while it was on my person (note to future producers, don’t worry, I’m very responsible!)

I also get a lot of joy out of writing for writing’s sake. It was what I studied in undergrad and graduate school, and something I do almost everyday. I’ve had a few short stories published, and in 2022, my screenplay Farewell Chica was a Semifinalist at the Austin Film Fest Screenwriting Competition. Currently, I’m working on a series of essays about art, autism, and how they so often and so beautifully intersect in the realm of television.

I’m not sure if this sounds cohesive or frenetic, and if it’s the latter, that’s probably accurate. I’m always building something, and when I’m not, I’m staring at my dogs and wondering what I should build next.

Are there any resources you wish you knew about earlier in your creative journey?

One of the most concrete skills I wish I’d learned (and would still love to learn) is how to properly network. I’m the type of autistic person who excels in a classroom or interview, but finds mixers or general meetings confounding. I’m sure lots of neurotypical people would now chime in and say, “Oh, we’re all winging it! No one knows why we do those meetings!” My answer to that would be, “Then why are we having this meeting, at all?” My point being, I always wished the process didn’t include knowing how to sell oneself. Even answering these questions was at times (okay, the whole time) challenging– I can’t tell you what makes my art cool, because I don’t experience it as an audience member.

At this stage, I’m confident that I make funny things and have a unique perspective. But I don’t have a team of reps invested in my success, nor am I sure how to “market” myself. I often question why I have to be marketable, at all. Isn’t that anathema to revolutionary or anti-capitalist practice? Of course in order to be accessible, art has to be produced for the public, and until I learn how to do graffiti or some other form of street art, I have to engage my courage, learn how to self-promote, and get my work seen by people who have the resources (money) to bring it to a larger audience. Seriously, though, I’d love for there to be a class that taught this.

Is there a particular goal or mission driving your creative journey?

I’m going to risk sounding like a NPR soundbite, but here goes: my art, especially now, is a way to engage with justice or the “current political climate.” That doesn’t mean it’s serious, and in fact, I think it’s more effective when it’s silly or bizarre or even willfully stupid, particularly if you’re trying to tackle issues as unwieldy as colonization or xenophobia. It’s also worth noting that for a marginalized person to have fun onstage is revolutionary in and of itself.

In terms of arts demographics, I tick a lot of under-represented boxes. I’m Mexican, queer, and autistic as hell. But I have some key privileges: I’m educated, I’m a US citizen, and I’m what makeup brands call “Desert Beige.” I can’t ignore these privileges. And when people with less privilege, people with my same surname are subject to being profiled or fearing expedited removal, it’s very clear to me: I don’t get to be scared, especially if the riskiest thing I’m doing is making art. I certainly hope that those further up the privilege food chain who consider themselves allies will step up. If you’re not sure where to start, search for mutual aid groups or community art spaces and put your time, money, or both into helping them thrive. The arts (along with… everything?) are getting defunded like crazy, so I understand that folks worry about their livelihoods. But I’d challenge those worried about their future to help those currently in crisis– if you bought groceries today and didn’t empty your bank account, this probably means you.

I used to say that I made things I thought were funny and that white people thought were sad. It was a way of being cheeky but I think it’s particularly true, now. I like to Trojan Horse (as a verb) the audience, show up in a ridiculous costume, share a devastating historical fact, then back to looking ridiculous. In a recent show, I played 1950s news soundbites to illustrate how often the slur “wetback” was used by President Eisenhower… while dressed as an alien. Keeping an audience off balance serves as a sort of delayed emotional release tablet, one that hopefully knocks them out. That sounds insanely grandiose, but please remember, I sometimes perform in a literal diaper.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.anirayflo.com
• Instagram: @homeboi_industries

Image Credits

Bing Putney, Karolina Bryner, Jack Klink, James Mackey