Shoot the Arrow: A Portrait of The World Famous *BOB*
"Shoot the Arrow: A Portrait of The World Famous *BOB*" documents striving, enduring, and dreaming through the lens of an extraordinary woman living in Brooklyn from 2002 to 2007. The World Famous *BOB* is a female burlesque dancer who was a central part of the neo-burlesque movement that began in New York City in the 1990s. Raised on an isolated, 115-acre farm in the California Valley, she renamed herself "Bob" after Robert Smith of The Cure when she was a teenager, and was later crowned "The World Famous *BOB*" (now her legal name) by her drag mother, Jackie Beat, when she performed in her first Wigstock. Born female, she was raised in an emotionally toxic home and was ostracized for being different. Before long, she fell into the loving arms of other social cast-asides—homosexuals and drag queens who became her ultimate female role models. She spent her adolescence and 20s searching for her true gender identity, sustaining on drug abuse and hustling, and forging herself as a nightclub persona. A self-described "female-female spiritual transsexual," this intense, often painful personal journey eventually drew her to burlesque, which allowed her to embrace her femininity for the first time and develop a healthy, productive, and creative life.
Shoot the Arrow: A Portrait of The World Famous *BOB* was published as a 112-plate, 137-page cloth-bound hardcover book by Un-Gyve Press (Boston) in 2013,, with a foreword by The World Famous *BOB*.
Marquee Night Club, Chelsea
With Pete
Circus Sideshow Dressing Room, Coney Island
Mike's Apartment, Bed-Stuy, No. 1
2am, No. 1
Winter Morning
Film Shoot, Chinatown, No. 1
Leaving Home
Dollhaus Gallery Basement, Williamsburg
Backstage at Galapagos Art Space, Williamsburg
Break
Shoot the Arrow