With support from the California Arts Council, Chrysalis Studio will conduct Queer Ancestors Project PRINTS!, a free 18-week series of printmaking and LGBTQ2S+ history workshops taking place in Fall 2024 and Winter 2025 at San Francisco’s SOMArts Cultural Center for 10 Queer and Transgender young artists age 18-26, who will create and disseminate prints exploring the roots of their own individual experience of Queerness. The workshop series will culminate in a Group Exhibition and Artist Panel at STRUT, a health center serving LGBTQ2S+ people in San Francisco’s Castro LGBTQ+ Cultural District. CAC funds will support project costs including project personnel, guest artists, project materials, and the culminating exhibition expenses.
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Chrysalis Studio’s core programs center the Queer Ancestors Project (QAP), a year-round set of free printmaking and literary workshops, exhibitions, public events, and artist development opportunities for LGBTQ2S+ emerging artists. Across all QAP programs, participants move through a shared arc: they study queer and trans ancestors, build artistic skills, create new work, share that work publicly, and become part of an intergenerational creative community that continues beyond the workshop.
Chrysalis offers four QAP programs. QAP PRINTS! is an annual 19-week printmaking workshop in visual storytelling and queer ancestry which culminates in an exhibition and artist panel at STRUT that drew 440+ attendees in 2026.
QAP Kaleidoscope, developed with Still Here San Francisco, is a literary workshop that deepens intergenerational connection through writing, mentorship, and public sharing. In 2025, a showcase at San Francisco Public Library’s Hormel Center featured young writers reflecting on ancestors such as Audre Lorde and Gloria Anzaldúa, welcoming 175+ attendees.
QAP RESISTS! supports emerging artists in creating political posters on issues including prison abolition, transgender rights, climate justice, and immigrant justice. In 2025, our Under Pressure community print party at SOMArts welcomed 225+ attendees, distributing posters and apparel carrying artist-designed messages into the world. Attendees chose art to be printed on their shirts, for free.
QAP Comix expands storytelling through comics and visual narrative. Together, these programs support artistic growth, public presentation, intergenerational learning, leadership development, and community building for emerging LGBTQ2S+ artists. One participant reflected, “This workshop helped me find community when I was struggling, provided me with a space to grow my art skills and connect with my ancestors. This is a space where I feel at peace.”