We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Anthony Parrott. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Anthony below.

Anthony, appreciate you joining us today. I’m sure there have been days where the challenges of being an artist or creative force you to think about what it would be like to just have a regular job. When’s the last time you felt that way? Did you have any insights from the experience?

I have this thought every day.. I have recently started going strictly freelance and trust me and believe me when I say it is very hard to get used to. I have had plenty of jobs had a career and I am very good at whatever I do in the job force and I’ve even really thoroughly enjoyed that line of work but a ongoing cycle and pattern I always run into is that I eventually become unhappy and if for myself, it always happens where the money stops flowing. I’ve had the. Yet fortunate luck that every job I’ve had some sort of corporate takeover or changing management has happened where my ongoing success whether it be with numbers financially positions earned in the company is usually taken away or changed, especially income, which leads me always to the thought of where would I be my best and luckily, I know now the answer is pouring all my time and energy into my art and at the end of the day it is more fulfilling for me as a creative and as a person. Having that financial stability and the perks and advantages from having a 9 to 5 is always nice and safe feeling, but at this point in my life, I am more focused on being happy, and I am learning to trust that the universe will provide it has been very evident from the jump that the universe opens doors to me almost on a daily basis for opportunity.

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?

I was in Florida drunk at a bar that had an ongoing drag show. I had never seen a drag queen or a drug show at that point. It’s so happened that I ran into one of the queens and this is funny to think about, but in a drunken stupor, whatever I saw and experienced resonated with me. . Luckily The Kween was very nice and started mentoring me, but not too long afterward I started that experience. I moved back to Utah as I was only on a year contract job in Florida. So coming back to Utah Salt Lake City specifically I had to start learning myself and this was almost 13 years ago so I didn’t have TikTok or high-quality videos on YouTube TV to watch tutorials. My main source of reference was Google images and then I would stare at a picture for a long time and then try to replicate what I saw on me. I am an artist at heart and I’ve been very good with multiple mediums since I was a child. My eye for color and movement has always been something I am natural at however, using myself as the canvas and having to learn to paint on myself in a mirrored or reverse aspect was hard at first. Growing up, I was also into the theater arts, mainly show choir so that experience of knowing the stage and understanding stage presence and not being scared to be in the limelight also benefited me when entering into the world of drag. I was fortunate enough that my mom taught me how to sew when I was younger. So that helped me along my creation process you when it came to anything garments or altering, however learning how to do hair as well with hard, but I am one thing I’m confident in is when I put my mind to it, I will become a master edit and at the end of the day I have a vision of what I want and I know I can achieve it and I learned this when I bought my first styled wig from another drag artist and it was beautiful, but I did not like it as much as I thought I would especially for spending over $300. Ice abs, and countless hours by materials tools, cheap Amazon, synthetic wigs and teaching myself how to style my adopt adopting techniques and thank God I have better technology now in the videos tutorial since that I can follow and brush up on my skills. So now this far into the journey, I know I can create a looked and it’s entirety from head to toe and to me that is fulfilling knowing that everything I’m wearing is created by me.. when I moved back to Utah. I practiced in the mirror twice a week for a year and on that year Mark I decided to go out and drag to my local queer establishments meet The Kween market myself as a self business and then started collecting bookings.. even just 13 years ago dragged was very niche and very small in this city and a lot of successful drags were already established here. One of the biggest struggles I have faced being a drag queen here in the city is not only when I not experienced, but I was also not white.. and I know it sounds cliché always the race into the mix, but in all reality everything systemically favors Caucasians. That being said almost like a parallel in life with anything that ground and Black people have to go through they have to work 10 times harder in order to get a small fraction of representation payback opportunity, and that was my experience in the city. Even to this day, I still faced that but luckily the time on my side and skills being that I’m good at what I do, I am more established and have the network created i’m given an opportunity but at the end of the day, I still realize I have to create my own opportunity if I want to be fully utilized at the capacity, I want to be as a freelance, unfortunate that I have been able to stay in the scene and remain relevant for this long and I guess you can say I can coin myself an icon in this city, and I say that in the most humble way possible because an icon can survive many different errors learn to adapt and evolve still remain in the Spotlight while still bettering their craft and to me, there is no finish line there is though I’ve gotten their moment it’s always changing and it’s always moving so I like to describe my drag as a mixture of old classic drag, found it in its roots from glam head to toe classiness with a high adaptability to mainstream drag, which is very popular now from performance style to aesthetic to also tapping into learning how to navigate social media as my biggest tool as a self business to market myself. My persona and drag is a little bit of grass, a little bit of sexy, a little bit of superwoman and a whole lot of weird. And of course, as an artist that is well branded at this point, I have my go to signature looks but have the ability and I still do it to where I will change up my face, my aesthetic, my hair type of performance I will do to keep the audience on their toes. Range is something that is not easy to obtain and it does take time to find what you can do in that range but it also has an artist keeps me away from being closed in a box not just by society and people, but also my own limitations because I feel like it is important as an artist to remain limitless.

In your view, what can society to do to best support artists, creatives and a thriving creative ecosystem?

In my view, and in my very strong opinion from based off of experience, society can best support artist in creatives by number one booking us and being open to creative entertainment aspects that we can bring into the business into their home into their friends circles, and to be more specific when it comes to venues or businesses book, more brown, and black artist. With that being said once booked fight for equal pay, not just equal pay but something more along the lines of equity. I understand the business aspect of what funds a business has wants to provide the performers with compensation and pay, but when you want to think about it in retrospect, every single dollar poured into drag from the start is very expensive from the rhinestones from the sewing from the fabric to the hair to the hairspray to the every single little expense that it takes for a drag artist to create, let alone the countless hours prior to an opportunity to be booked at the gig spent into creating that it takes years for most drag artists to break, even and as you travel cities will pay more or less, depending on where you’re at, so pay equitable of the business that a drag your establishment will make you money and create longevity when it comes to the flow of patrons coming in and the recognition that I would bring to your own business

For you, what’s the most rewarding aspect of being a creative?

For me, the most rewarding aspect of being an artist were creative. Is the ability to connect with people connect with complete strangers.. art is subjective, but art is also a universal language. The core of drag is a message of vulnerability, a message of strength, a message of fearlessness and basically a big fuck you to the rules that society is placed on anybody especially women, especially marginalized communities, so with that being said being in stage and being in an eye of scrutiny, gives you the sense of self power or this reclamation of power. On a local level being that I have done this for many years it’s like a small sense of being a celebrity so with that being said people also are gravitated towards the spot spot that you have in the community people attach themselves to you based off a personal experiences that they’ve need healing from or something that’s been pivotal in their life, and it has messed completely or resonated with them because of a performance that I have done a message I have set on the Mic or just my brand in general drag is meant to be empowering and meant to connect with With the audience I am unfortunate enough that I performed with a lot of queer spaces so in the queer community in general, we are a population of people that have gone through who knows what in their life but desperately search for healing. And with that being known, those moments of connection with complete strangers or even ongoing fans is sober wording to know that people from all walks of life will see a bit of them in you and vice versa seeing people heal and change because of drag or because of me as an artist is the most rewarding thing I have experienced and experience each day.

Contact Info:

• Instagram: @tonyisdivina_official

Image Credits

Some photos by Instagram: @hello_miss_Elle

Instagram: @zagofilms

Red carpet look from @soiconique