Bold & Beautiful: Salina Marina

Only debuting months ago, Cael Crosby (better known as Salina Marina) is already making waves in the drag scene. A personification of the Great Salt Lake, Marina obviously pulls inspiration from the leading lady in conservationist drag, Pattie Gonia. But on a local level, she says she deeply respects Sequoia. Another local artist who has made a huge impact on  Marina’s work is Sarah May. “She takes plants and water from the Great Salt Lake to create stunning cyanotype waves. She taught me how to cyanotype, which has been key in the arts movement to save the Great Salt Lake,” Marina says.

Marina’s first-ever official performance was last October at the Madam Pattrini pageant, where she won fan favorite and jury favorite, sweeping the pageant. She reflects on this moment as one of her proudest. Another of Marina’s proudest moments was speaking at the Rally to Save the Great Salt Lake on Jan. 31. “I got to lead a thousand-person audience in a song about the Great Salt Lake. It was amazing to be surrounded by so many mentors and to bring the interest forward,” she says. On her train ride up to the rally, in full drag and painted blue, she had a conversation with someone asking what the occasion was for her to be so dressed up. Later that day, she saw them at the rally. “I usually think about it in a broader sense, but in that moment, my drag was bringing someone out,” she says. 

There were many factors pushing Marina toward Great Salt Lake activism, but the deciding factor was a collection of poems called Lake Words. Now, she leads an art vigil at the Capitol every Friday with the Making Waves Artist Collaborative called “Save the Species.” They make giant, wearable puppets of animals affected by the Great Salt Lake, then dance around wearing them. “In a sense, we are doing drag because we are paying homage to something with a larger-than-life version of it,” Marina explains.

Marina’s goal is to marry “conservationists who don’t know how to have fun and drag artists who only know how to have fun.” By bringing joy and beauty to an issue, it becomes more accessible. “How can we solve a problem if we don’t want to look at it?” she asks. “Bringing celebration to the serious work makes people feel like their emotional home is by the lake,” she explains. 

Salina Marina wants to speak out against the negative rhetoric involving the lake, lovingly referring to it as a woman. “The lake isn’t the antagonist; it’s not her fault. She’d actually keep our air clean if we stopped diverting from her.” Although Marina understands the fear that tends to come with activism, she says, “The alarmism is real, but what has kept me in the movement is the joy of art. I want to build a resilient community that is doing activist work out of joy, not fear.” 

One of Marina’s biggest goals is to produce a drag show called “Werk the Watershed.” Inspired by Gonia’s “SAVE HER!” tour, this would be a benefit show for the Wuda Ogwa project, in which the Northwestern Band of the Shoshone Nation is removing invasive plants from the Bear River, bringing more water to the Great Salt Lake. Salina Marina has gone to help with the Bear River project several times.

Marina advocates for supporting local drag artists, not just Drag Race queens. “That’s how they can become big-name stars,” Marina explains. “I’ve gotten support from local drag artists that I would have never been able to get if I didn’t support them first by going to their shows.” She also believes that watching other drag queens is vital to building one’s own skills. “You can’t be good at your craft unless you watch it.”

Read about other drag queens in the Salt Lake scene:
Bold & Beautiful: Daddy the Clown
Bold & Beautiful: Violet Ends