Last week I watched myself on “American Ninja Warrior.” No, I wasn’t hanging from my fingertips on the Flying Shelf Grab or scaling the Warped Wall, but if you look closely in the background of the Philadelphia finals, you can see me in the distance wearing a white leather jacket hanging out with the talent coordinator, Angelou Deign. The Philadelphian, my old friend and all-around cool chick was kind enough to make me a VIP on set. Watching the amazing women on the show inspired me to seek out some of the tough gals in this town.
Crys Fitzgerald-Moore is one who soars to great heights both literally and figuratively. Here’s just a sampling of the things Fitzgerald-Moore, a jack of all trades and self-proclaimed MacGyver, excels at: software and programming languages, hardware and fabrication methods, woodworking, metalworking, Laser Cutter, CNC, 3D printing and interactive prototyping. She is an adjunct lecturer at the City College of New York, where she teaches the fundamentals of electronics, micro controllers, sensors, human/computer interaction design and interactive installation, along with sculpture, installation, digital fabrication, digital-media production and web development. Fitzgerald-Moore is also an art director at ITP Camp at New York University, where she also serves as a research fellow. She is the recipient of numerous awards, and oh, in her spare time she’s into rock climbing, plant-based nutrition and short but mighty runs.
PGN: You’re a member of the Philadelphia LGBT rock-climbing group PHLASH and a lead trainer at the Philadelphia Rock Gym. Were you the kid always climbing the stairs on the outside of the banister?
CFM: Totally, though for me it was more outdoors stuff. I was always at the top of some tree.
PGN: Where did you get your adventurous spirit?
CFM: I think it was the nature of where I grew up. We had five acres of land in South Carolina in the middle of nowhere so there wasn’t really anything else to do except climb things.
PGN: What were the good and bad points of growing up in a rural area?
CFM: I knew at a pretty young age that I was queer. I was a latchkey kid and pretty independent. I was always like, I’m a boy, don’t tell me that I’m not. And my mom let me run with that until puberty hit and that’s when she put her foot down and said, “You are a girl and you need to grow your hair out and start wearing typical girl clothes.” So that wasn’t great, but I still always hung out with boys, beating them up, whatever. They didn’t really know what to do with me but they did the best they could. It wasn’t until high school that I started to figure it out and had my first girlfriend. I wasn’t out yet, but still would have people shout, “Hey, Crystal is gay!” — I was Crystal back then — so that was tough to deal with as a teenager. I realized I needed to get out of there as fast as possible. In retrospect, I now appreciate having grown up being able to play outdoors and exploring nature. So it was a mixed bag. It’s very Christian there. I was forced to go to church up until I was about 18. I had to dress up and wear culottes or dresses, which I hated, but I have an older brother, Jason, and an uncle who are both gay, which helped. They definitely paved the way.
PGN: When was the last time you wore a dress?
CFM: [Laughs] Oh boy, my gender expression even in my early 20s was still feminine, with long hair in a bun until … maybe even as late as 27, which was when I began to understand what gender-queer meant. So it’s probably been about 15 years.
PGN: So, how did you get out of South Carolina?
CFM: I left at 18 to study sculpture and design in Chicago at the Art Institute but I wasn’t emotionally ready for it. I didn’t know myself very well and wasn’t equipped to handle the freedom. I got into a lot of trouble and started drinking a lot. I ended up leaving and going back home, which was good for me, but I definitely perceived it as a huge failure at the time. Like, Yay! I made it out! And then, Oh, but I’m coming back. I spent a few years there working odd jobs, partying and drinking. I’m a recovering alcoholic and that was the time when the drinking really took hold. I knew I had to leave again. My brother was living in California and invited me to stay with him so I saved up over the summer and moved out to L.A. I got sober almost as soon as I moved there. I started going to 12-step meetings. I stopped to reflect on how I got to the point where I was not doing anything meaningful; I’d had so many hopes and dreams for myself that I’d let slip away. So L.A. was a big turning point: I went back to school to finish my undergrad and did very well. I got a B.A. in critical-visual studies at Antioch University; they have a small liberal-arts satellite school in L.A.
PGN: What is/are critical-visual studies?
CFM: It’s kind of half fine art, half critical theory. It was a way for me to take critical theory on current philosophy or, say, gender studies or post-colonial studies or post-structural theory and marry it to an artistic practice. After that, I applied to grad school and got accepted into an interesting art/tech master’s program. It was the Interactive Telecommunications Program at NYU. Each year, they selected about 100 people from different studies: from theater artists to UX designers to lawyers — my year we had a doctor — who were interested in using technology to change society and threw us all together to see what happened. There’s always some crazy, inventive stuff that came out of it.
PGN: What’s an example of something that came out of your group?
CFM: Are you familiar with the app Foursquare? That came from us, and a lot of cool interactive art. We’d do things like create fabric that you could touch and change the animation.
PGN: I read about the fish tank.
CFM: Yeah, that was cool. We wanted something where you could physically interact with water but then have a digital effect that blurred the line between what’s real and what’s not. It’s the funniest thing but for some reason people love to poke fishtanks and this effectively turned a bed of water into a capacitive touchscreen, creating a virtual aquarium full of pixelated goldfish.
PGN: How did you go from the classroom to the wall?
CFM: I started climbing in New York with a gay climbing group called Crux. I’d been interested in mountaineering but rock climbing is a little more accessible so I started my journey with that. They had a structured training program so I felt comfortable and quickly became obsessed. The nature of a gym is that there’s often a type of person who tends to dominate that space and in a space where you can feel very vulnerable, it was important to have a queer-dedicated space. I was 50 pounds heavier and hadn’t done anything physical for some time and it can be humiliating to try and fail at something while others are doing it with ease. But I persevered and loved it. Climbing is very creative; a lot of climbers come from a gymnastic or dance background, and climbing can be a vertical version of that. Even though my main practice in art was sculpture, I did have experience with performance, so I really enjoy it. I think anything that challenges the way I relate to my body is something that I’m going to dig into. With my fine art, it’s a dedicated expression that culminates in a dialogue with the public. Climbing is a personal exploration.
PGN: And now you are part of PHLASH and also train people at the Philadelphia Rock Gyms. How have you motivated or inspired your students?
CFM: I train a lot of guys, not so many women, and most of them are naturally stronger than me so when I do something that demonstrates how strong I am, I think it’s surprising and inspirational to them. It shows that no matter who you are or what your gender is, if you push yourself really hard you can accomplish amazing things.
PGN: One of the things I like about “American Ninja Warrior” is that men and women compete as equals. They don’t modify the course for women. Anyone completing it is a badass, no matter what gender, and the men seem to cheer everyone on equally.
CFM: That’s true about climbing too. It’s been traditionally dominated by men, but there are more and more women getting into it. Philly is really good about that. In New York, I could be climbing and I could sense the aggression from guys nearby. Because I was good at what I do, they seemed to feel the need to prove something to me. I’ve never felt that here in Philly.
PGN: What was your most precarious moment as a climber?
CFM: My bachelor party was a climbing trip/bachelor party in Las Vegas. There’s some real amazing climbing at Red Rock, right outside the city. On my last climb, I attempted a 5.10, which is a grade that describes the difficulty and danger of the climbing route. As I got near the first bolt, I fell and ricocheted off three boulders and landed on my wrist. I knew something was wrong and thought, OK, I probably won’t be able to climb again for a while, so I can get back up and finish the climb or walk away and have that be the last thing I did. I didn’t want that mentally, so I taped my wrist and climbed back up. By the time I got to the top, I could not use my left hand. Turns out, I’d climbed to the top of a 5.10 with a broken wrist. It was my most badass moment.
PGN: Ouch. So what do you do on normal days?
CFM: My day job is doing web design/UX user experience for Comcast. When I was in New York, I developed a complicated relationship with my art so I decided to step away for a while. I was doing a lot of adjunct teaching at NYU and City College and, while I love teaching, I was going down a path of academia that I didn’t want. I wanted to focus on the more physical aspects of my life; I’d always been the chubby kid and now I was changing that. My dad was a body builder and in years ahead when I can’t climb anymore I’ll probably pursue it too. It’s a great outlet for me in terms of gender expression. At some point, as soon as I can learn to stop the pressure I put on myself with my art — when it can become more about the practice than a thing I need to do to get to a certain place — I’ll get back to it. Does that make sense?
PGN: It does. Tell me a little more about the folks.
CFM: They were both very working-class. My dad passed away when I was 9, and my mom’s still here. She’s retired now but was a secretary for a lawyer most of my life and my dad worked at the Michelin plant. They had a fraught relationship from the get-go and he got remarried right before he passed away. I don’t remember much about him, except that on weekends we’d pump iron. So I was this little gender-queer kid who could beat all the boys because I lifted weights with my dad.
PGN: As a kid, you climbed trees and lifted weights. Where/when did the chubby part come in?
CFM: Once I hit puberty, I shut down. Being forced to grow my hair out and wear makeup and feminine clothes took me away from who I was. Even my name changed; I was Crys as a kid, but as a young woman I had to become Crystal. It wasn’t until I found rock climbing that I began to find that physical part of myself again.
PGN: You mentioned a bachelor party. Who’s the wife?
CFM: Her name is Stacey Brit. We met over four years ago online in New York. It’s funny, I thought I’d sign up and go out for several dates and on the second date we met and we’ve been inseparable ever since. She works in marketing — one of those people who always thinks of things from a different perspective. Right now, she’s with Urban Outfitters, that’s how we got to Philly. She’s the funniest person I know. All we do is sit around and laugh. Her dad died when she was younger too, so we connected on that as well. We call ourselves members of the DDC, the Dead Dad Club.
PGN: Morbid. I like it. OK, it’s 90-plus degrees out, what do you miss most about winter?
CFM: Running outside. I’d much rather run in negative-10 degrees than in this heat.
PGN: Name three things on your bucket list.
CFM: Climb Mt. Whitney, take a beach/climbing vacation in Thailand and have kids.
PGN: Best moment as a camp counselor?
CFM: Helping people make their tech projects come to life. This one guy made a program that had a hot dog floating on the screen. You could see yourself too and when you opened your mouth the dog would go in. It was silly but it was great to watch the joy on his face when he watched people use it.
PGN: Biggest regret?
CFM: Hmm, I think it’s a cop out not to have any, but I really appreciate my path in life. I regret dropping out of undergrad but it ultimately led me down a path that made my life amazing. But I do wish I had that BFA.
PGN: If someone wanted to start rock climbing, what should they do?
CFM: I’d suggest they check out the PHLASH Facebook page and FB group. You can learn a lot and then come out to the newbie nights. It’s for people who’ve never been into climbing or people who are returning after a long hiatus. We’ll help you get your shoes, etc., and teach you boulder safely.
PGN: Say something to reassure a couch potato like me.
CFM: If you can climb a ladder, you can rock climb.
PHLASH will host a New Climber Night 7 p.m.-10 p.m. Sept. 1 at Philadelphia Rock Gyms, 3500 Scotts Lane. The cost is $22. For more information, visit ow.ly/9AFn303xYKe or www.phlashclimbing.org.
To suggest a community member for Family Portrait, email [email protected].