Anyone who’s survived parochial school knows all about nuns and guilt. Now take that image and turn it upside down and you’ve got the Music City Sisters.
Officially sanctioned as a house of San Francisco’s Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence late last year, the Music City Sisters are all about feeling good about yourself and the world around you. And like any good proselytizing organization, they’re spreading the word.
“I have been a sister for about seven years, and have been waiting for the momentum to grow,” said Sister Right Sarong. “That’s come together with about seven of us, so we started the process, filed our mission status and were accepted.”
The sisters’ chief goal is to spread joy throughout the GLBT and larger communities, and they do that through outreach, education and more. On the more mundane side, they’re also filing as a non-profit organization, so they are committed to multiple annual events to raise funds for their own work and that of other worthy charitable groups.
“We’ve raised more than $2,000 in the [Nashville CARES] AIDS Walk, more than $1,000 in a fundraiser for OutCentral, and about $800 in a show for the Nashville Grizzlies,” Sarong said. “We also gave away 1,000 popsicles at Nashville Pride working with Hope Takes Action and have also done a lot of work with other groups for smaller events as well.”
Next up will be Alphabet Art, a first-time event that the sisters hope grows into an annual affair. Participating artists are asked to consider what is their letter of the alphabet when it comes to making up the community. All entrants will be exhibited and judged with prizes awarded to the winners. The show will be held at OutCentral from Sept. 10 through Oct. 8.
“In looking around at art events, we saw that everybody does silent auctions, and that tends to devalue the artwork,” said Angel Freudianschlip. “We wanted to make sure that we were really supporting the artists, and that’s when we decided to go with a juried exhibition.”
By playing off GLBT or the myriad other alphabetic designations to be found within the community, Witt says he hopes to see a very vibrant, diverse show, and one that will help the sisters meet the twin goals of outreach and entertainment.
“It really ties into our greater mission, that of expiating guilt and promoting whimsy,” he said. “And it will say a lot and do a lot to promote who we are as a queer community.”
In addition to Freudianschlip and Sarong, the rest of the sisters (to date) are: Sister Enya Face; Sister Genie Reverie I, Sister Sissy Allmen DoLike, Sister Constellation; Guard Noah Fence; Guard Mister Meaner. More to come, no doubt, as the order gets better known, Sarong said.
“I like to think of us as ‘sacred clowns,’” she said. “We can go out and be funny and fabulous, but we also do work that is oftentimes difficult to do in our community. When you’re handing out condoms, it’s more fun when you’re a 7-foot-tall nun in go-go boots. We have a sense of purpose, but one of our vows is to never take ourselves too seriously that we forget to have fun.”