A trip through an unassuming door on the corner of 10th and Union and up a steep flight of wooden stairs grants visitors entry into The Factory. Opened nearly a decade ago, The Factory provides space for local artists to showcase their work through small, short-running exhibits.

Currently on display is Seattle-based artist Morgan Peterson’s glass-blown exhibit “‘God’ Save The Queens.” Large, ornate portraits of Seattle area drag queens line the walls, coating the rustic wood of The Factory with a thick layer of luxury. This opulence takes a dark turn, however, as shiny blood splatters can be spotted on the walls and floor of the gallery. Next to a gold vanity sits a table holding a large razor blade and pills branded with the Chanel logo, some of which have been crushed and fashioned into parallel lines. Despite the variety of textures and shapes, each item is made entirely from glass. 

In 2024, Peterson competed in and won season four of Blown Away, a glass-blowing competition and reality TV show streaming on Netflix. Long before that, however, Peterson had been an active participant in the Seattle art scene. It was a visit to a past gallery that led her to meet Timothy Rysdyke, director and curator of The Factory.

“I’ve actually known Morgan for a while,” Rysdyke said. “I didn’t actually know that she was like a glassblower. I just knew her as a patron coming to the shows. Then I heard about her being on Blown Away, the reality show. I actually ran into her at a concert and was chatting with her, and I was like, I’d love for you to have a show. I was almost shocked that she said yes, because to me, she’s like a little celebrity now.”

According to Rysdyke, Peterson was drawn to The Factory as a home for her Cameo series, a collection of portraits of local drag queens, due to its history of showcasing queer art. The small, intimate space of the gallery lends itself to personal storytelling, a theme that runs through many of The Factory’s past exhibits.

“The Cameo portraits are just stunning. [Peterson] said it takes her like 300 hours to create each of them,” Rysdyke said.

One of the queens featured in Peterson’s work is local performer and artist Jessica Marie Mercy, a longtime friend of the artist. Mercy has been a drag, burlesque, and gogo dance performer in Seattle for over 15 years, as well as working as a printmaking and ceramic artist.

“I was the artist-in-residence at Pratt Fine Arts for printmaking for a full year while working on my Queer Space show, and Morgan was in the printmaking studio doing some work for her upcoming glass show,” Mercy recounted. “She showed me her work, and I was like, are you kidding me? You’re a genius, and she was like, you’re a genius. That’s how we met.”

Peterson proceeded to provide glass blown work for Mecy’s multimedia show “Don’t Fucking Touch Me,” a celebration of queer resilience. Working together provided Peterson the inspiration for “‘God’ Save The Queens.”

“[Peterson] wanted to do a bunch of queens out of glass, and I was like, oh my god, you should see these queens, you should look here, these are my favorite ones. I was like, kind of the inspiration for the original idea of the portraits of the queens, and I felt really honored. I’ve never been immortalized in that way, really, and so it was really sweet,” Mercy said.

Peterson’s craftsmanship shines in the extreme details of her work, an impressive feat when working with fine materials such as glass.

“I was really struck by just how unique all the pieces were. Not necessarily just by their designs but the textures and colors. I couldn’t really tell what the material was, and it felt almost surreal,” Gabriel Johnson, first-year social work major, said after visiting the gallery. “They all felt like they were telling a story. I thought a lot about the beauty that can come from disturbing, dark or just unseemly images. Like, all of the pieces seemed kind of elegant even though they were depicting something gruesome.”

This contrast of elegance and suffering is reflective of modern life as a queer person. As the current political climate becomes more hostile towards the LGBTQ+ community, supporting explicitly queer art becomes all the more important.

“Especially now, it’s one of the most important things to lift up queer art and queer voices: all of it, not just the fun and pretty stuff, but all the different art that we make is so important. It’s vital,” Mercy said. “It’s so healing to see yourself in other people’s art. It’s so healing to see for even people who aren’t queer to see themselves in queer art. It’s so important. It’s something that is a nonverbal language that we use to stay connected, it can span lifetimes and continents. You know, like we have to survive. We only have each other in this.”

Morgan Peterson’s “‘God’ Save The Queens” can be viewed by appointment at The Factory through the end of February. A closing reception will be held on Thursday, March 6 from 6 to 9 p.m. and will be open to the public.