Editor's note: As Pride Month comes to a close, this essay from subscriber Carol Fabricatore adds a shimmering grace note to a month of freedom, art, fun and fantasy. Happy Fourth!

After the Mermaid Parade was canceled in June 2020 due to the pandemic, I really felt the loss of the day. So I decided to channel all the swirling bright colors and large personalities into a body of work in hopes of recapturing the happiness and delight of the parade. Coney Island’s culture has always been very welcoming—anyone can register to participate—so it was important to me to portray a diverse group of women and female-presenting individuals in the parade. I wanted to show their different emotions projecting power, strength, vulnerability, joy, Gay Pride and Women Power.

There is a fun competitive spirit with the parade and its spectators and an intensity to the day. It is, after all, a contest for who is the best mermaid, across every imaginable, if unwritten, category. There is a range of people who enter to compete, but mostly the people who sign up just want to do it for fun. Others are there to challenge themselves, to answer a dare, or to do it with friends as a shared experience they will remember forever.

I have been a judge for the past three years and one of the perks is being able to visit the participants while they get ready at the staging area. It is an intimate window into how the participants put the finishing elements together to transform into another persona or creature. That is one of my favorite parts of the day and the anticipation is electric.

At 1:00 pm, the chaos begins. The participants are allowed and encouraged to give bribes to the 50 or so judges assembled at the reviewing stands at Surf Avenue and 19th Street. We are assailed by candy, trinkets, or food, and with many small bottles of alcohol similar to what you would find in a hotel room’s mini-bar. 

The beginning of the parade is when everyone is fresh and full of adrenaline. All before costumes lose pieces and begin to erode, ending up on the road as a trail of magic, sparkling breadcrumbs. I love the people who really get into their character and costumes with attitude and swagger. They are in the moment, posturing, posing, prancing, and showing off their uniqueness. 

I wanted the portrait paintings to strike a balance between ambiguity and certainty, chaos and control, just like the parade itself. The emotional sense of the portrait should hit you when you first see it. Then your eyes can explore the rest of the painting while stopping along the way to take in the rest of the story. But despite what I think the portrait conveys emotionally, I hope the real person that the painting is based on is still coming through in some way, perhaps through their eyes, subtle expression, gesture and/or body language. 

I think you have to be an extrovert to march in this parade, or you have to use it as an excuse to let out your alter ego. I could never see myself doing it, but can live it through my portrait.

Carol Fabricatore's Mermaid portraits are included in a group show opening Saturday, July 10, 1-6 pm at Brooklyn Waterfront Artists Coalition, 481 Van Brunt Street, Red Hook, Brooklyn, NY Info Follow Carol @cfabricatore

Save the date: July 20, 6-8 pm Opening reception for Your) Open Studios @ City Hall. Group show featuring established and emerging artists, including Carol Fabricatore: Mermaid Parade Portraits. Rotunda Gallery at Jersey City Hall, 2nd & 3rd floors. Jersey City Hall280 Grove St, Jersey City, NJ 

Save the date: The 39th Annual Mermaid Parade will take place on Sunday, September 12, starting a 1:00 pm. Info

Carol Fabricatore is an artist in the New York City area who is a great observer of all things, and likes to approach creating narrative imagery beginning with an emotional connection to an idea. She often gravitates towards subject matter that might be seen in one's peripheral vision, or passed by on the way to something in the mainstream. She has produced art for books, magazines, newspapers and projects for design and advertising firms. More