Marie Cartier

Angela Brinskele interviews theologian, poet, and performance artist Dr. Marie Cartier about driving cross country along Route 66 and about the lesbian spaces along Santa Monica Boulevard. Cartier drove Route 66 from Santa Monica to Chicago with her wife Kim, and remembers museums, souvenir shops, a coffee shop, and other attractions they visited. Cartier remarks that during her travels she met interesting people everywhere. For example, she and Kim befriended the mother and daughter who owned a mermaid themed restaurant in Kingman, Arizona.

Cartier went to The Palms throughout the 1990s and tells stories about romantic encounters she had there. She tells multiple stories about getting propositioned by butches at the bar. She was also introduced to other women by the bartender. She also describes watching a very young butch woman get rejected, kissing her, then leaving. She remembers meeting famous lesbians at the Palms as well. Other bars she discusses include Peanuts, where she visited a dungeon to research BDSM sexuality, and Girlbar, where she saw lesbian sexuality on full display.

She also discusses spending time at The French Market, which she understood to be a notable space because it was designed to be open and allow LGBT patrons to be visible to the public. Everyone visited the French Market after events in West Hollywood. She also had a post office box there, and met a girlfriend there.

Cartier came to Los Angeles as a student, earning MFAs in theater and film at UCLA before a PhD at the Claremont Graduate School. She describes LGBT and feminist bookstores as a crucial aspect of her education. She took writing classes with Terry Wolverton. Walking into Sisterhood Bookstore or A Different Light made her feel like there was an entire cultural world dedicated to lesbian experiences. She also discusses her experiences as a student, such as taking Linda Garnets’s lesbian psychology class, and taking a literature class with Lillian Faderman that introduced her to the Mazer Archives as well. She closes the interview by discussing her one-woman show Ballistic Femme, which she performed at Little Frida’s.