Since March, volunteers from the Gender Justice Task Force at the WNY Peace Center have worked together to create a parade float honoring the legacy of Eugenia O’Edwards and supporting the newly established Eugenia O’Edwards Drop-In Center, a vital community resource operated by the LGBTQ Homeless Task Force and the WNY Coalition for the Homeless.
This past week, the team received Buffalo Pride’s “WERQ OF ART” recognition for the float, which was featured in the Buffalo Pride Parade earlier this June.
The float was designed and built under the direction of R. Macklin Olszewski, a Buffalo-based organizer and arts administrator whose work brings together public art, community engagement, and social justice. Macklin serves as Department Administrator for UB Art and was recently recognized with the WNY Peace Center’s Emerging Leader Award.
Over three months, the team cut more than 2,000 individual willow leaves to create over 100 translucent and opalescent rainbow fronds, forming an iridescent willow tree with cascading color and light. The build used mostly upcycled and repurposed materials, including discarded lighting gels from local theatre groups, cast-off materials, window clings, scrap vinyl, and anything else the team could source that was light, translucent, and full of color.
The intention was to create a flowing, kinetic symbol of queer resilience, chosen family, and collective care. The willow felt especially meaningful because willows bend without breaking, root deeply, endure through the seasons, and create shelter beneath their branches.
The leaves were designed to catch the sun and scatter rainbow light over marchers and parade-goers — a reminder that Pride itself is radiant, and that our strength, resilience, and joy reflect outward into the world around us. The tree carried messages carved into her bark: love, compassion, pride, peace, and hope. These are the roots of community: the values that ground us, sustain us, and help us grow together.
Reflecting on the project, Macklin shared:
“To me, the rainbow willow project was meant to represent the light and warmth we can cast on the lives we touch every day. Every act of care, every moment of visibility, and every refusal to be anything but who we decide to be becomes a powerful reminder — both to anyone still standing in the shadows and to anyone trying to force us back into them.
Pride is a gift we give to one another and to the world: proof that we are still here, still growing, still holding space for others on this journey, and still reaching forward with joy, light, hope, and love. We are never going back.”
The WNYPC crew could not have created this WERQ OF ART without generous donations of vinyl from the costume shop, cast-off lighting gels from UB Theatre and Dance, and support from faculty and staff in UB Art.
Macklin and the team are grateful to everyone who helped bring this tree into motion, marched in the parade, cheered from the sidelines, and chanted “Good Neighbors, Stand Up!” together.
Congratulations to all the groups involved, and way to go to Macklin and the WNYPC team for their tremendous WERQ OF ART.
Happy Pride!
