Pop music and show tunes blare from a tiny speaker and make-up is sprawled across a kitchen table in a temporary studio suited for a queen.
His eyebrows have been glued down using a glue stick, but this is the beginning of the process to becoming Grande Prairie’s drag queen extraordinaire: Tiffany IBS, the drag persona of Joshua Kaczkielo, a 24-year-old performer who has been waiting for a stage much of his life.
“The two things I know most about in life are chickens and drag, which I love.”
Born and raised on a poultry farm outside of Chetwynd, and the sixth of eight children, Kaczkielo says his success comes from always being himself.
“Chickens were my first audience ever; I would perform to my chickens all the time,” he said.
“I’d be like, ‘You ready, ladies?’”
The chickens would then receive a show.
“I was always myself, I was never like one way at school and one way at home,” said Kaczkielo.
He said school gave him the artistic freedom to explore performing. Heels, corsets, and wigs would be stored in a closet in the art classroom, and when he had time, he would perform.
“I was going through my booger phase, the smoky eye was not smoky, it was giving hodgepodge realness, but I felt I could be myself in that room, and that’s what started Tiffany right there.”
Halloween would act as another stage for Kaczkielo to slap on make-up and perform for his peers in high school.
“I look back at that and I look in the yearbook, and I’m like, oh, my gosh, I can’t believe they put that in.”
“I feel like if you don’t cringe at your past, you haven’t grown.”
Still, he’s happy it was accepted at his school for him to express himself, noting that living in a small town with a majority of conservative values, it could have been different.
“I was so ignorant, and I’m so happy I was, because I feel like if I, for one second, doubted and cared what people thought about me, I think it would have went completely different,” he said.
After high school, Kaczkielo would go to Northwestern Polytechnic in Grande Prairie, entering the Fine Arts program.
“I wanted to do performance art, but they only had like a pen and paper art, but going through that helped me evolve it as well, because I had beautiful mentors, like Tina [Martel].”
He said art school helped him learn the fundamentals of art and then shape it into his craft.
“Those drawing classes push me to my limit, but I did it, I passed, and, I took all that knowledge from those courses, and I’ve kind of applied it to drag.”
He realized that makeup is similar to oil pastels and that the techniques he learned in art school could be applied to his face as well.
While in school, the world was isolated due to the COVID pandemic, but Kaczkielo used the time to begin performing online in drag shows in the United Kingdom.
“I got to doing drag shows online and actually making money from it too, like making tips and paying my rent.
“She [Tiffany] was paying her bills with this money,” he said.
During the day, Kaczkielo attended art school, and at night, he performed for an audience on the other side of the world in front of his computer.
“When I started doing these online drag shows, I became more polished because drag queens are catty and they talk like, ‘Oh, I didn’t like this queen, and how she did this, and that was bad, blah, blah, blah.’”
It allowed Kaczkielo to create Tiffany IBS, practicing more intricate makeup, using body pads and corseting.
For the laughs
“Making people laugh, that’s what I love,” said Kaczkielo.
“I can be sexy, but comedy is my go-to, because even in high school, like, making people laugh, that’s all I wanted to do.”
He would eventually ask if he could perform at a local bar’s Beers for Queers event, which they agreed to.
“I didn’t think Grande Prairie would know how to act at a drag show, and me not doing a lot of drag shows, I didn’t know what the outcome would be, so I took a huge risk.”
The performance was well received, even though Kaczkielo believes much of the audience may not have been familiar with the musical numbers such as Barbara Streisand’s Funny Girl.
“They were clapping, they were having a good time, and I felt so supported in that moment where I was like, this is what I want to do.”
Tiffany IBS continued performing at the bar for about three more performances before hateful comments and threats began appearing on the bar’s social media pages.
The shows stopped.
Drag time storytime
The Grande Prairie Public Library would then ask Tiffany IBS to read for literacy week.
“I think this was probably the first time I was scared for my life.”
Tiffany IBS would scale down her outfit for the library reading, wearing a polka dot dress that went past the knees, long gloves, a purple wig, red eye makeup, and no breasts.
“I thought of it as if Miss Frizzle from the Magic School Bus was reading books to children,” he said.
“It’s a dress that a teacher would wear to an elementary school.
“I wanted to dress appropriately, because I knew I had to be really careful with this one, but it was the fact that the library reached out to me and wanted to do this.
“It was the reason why I did it.”
Kaczkielo said he felt he was representing the community and was representing others in it.
Tiffany would read Green Eggs and Ham and was determined to make it fun and entertaining. “Then the day before I was supposed to do it, [the library] got bomb threats.”
The library decided to continue with the event, with more than 100 people in attendance and a small crowd of about 12 protestors outside.
The fire alarm was pulled during the reading and, at that moment, Kaczkielo said he wanted to jump out the window to escape, but he stayed calm and collected for all the families in attendance.
“It was probably the hardest moment in my life to that point, because I was terrified.”
He says he felt so bad that a few people in the community tried so hard to make it a negative experience for those who wanted to enjoy it.
The loud noises and protestors yelling at families who went to the library just created a problem that didn’t need to exist, he says.
He would leave the building in a car, hiding under a jacket and then go to a rehearsal for Shrek at the local theatre, where that night, Pinocchio was performed in drag. The show goes on
Tiffany IBS would then begin performing for local pride societies across the Peace Region, including in Grande Prairie and Fort St. John.
The show goes on with Tiffany doing shows at bars and will be performing at the upcoming Grande Prairie Pride Society’s Party in White.
“I am an attention whore. All drag queens are attention seekers.
“If you’re a drag queen and not looking for attention, what are you doing? And growing up in a big family, we had to fight for that attention.”
Kaczkielo’s artistic expression flows through Tiffany IBS and allows him to do what he loves.
“I hope they enjoy it, this is my creative outlet.”
“People have paintbrushes, people have pencils, I have my makeup brushes.
“My makeup brushes and music, and Lady Gaga, which, I don’t know if you have Spotify or Apple Music, but they do the wraps or whatever, all of mine was Lady Gaga, all of it.
“I do drag for me, but I want to also do it to share my experience on how I feel with this art form, and it’s all about loving yourself, but also loving to entertain.
“I’m an entertainer at the end of the day.”
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