Shake and bake

Glen Lewis has been shaking and baking queer Sydney up for more than 25 years. There's no avoiding this colourful identity, and why would you want to? He's nothing short of queer royalty.

Most inner-city locals recognise Lewis as the artistic genius behind Paddington's famous cake shop, Sweet Art, while others celebrate him as the irrepressible drag legend Miss 3D. Whether he's sporting a flour- stained apron or adorned in one of his spectacular hand-made drag costumes, Lewis is unmissable and unstoppable.

Seduced by Sydney's wild side during a short visit in 1976, this Ballarat-born boy made the permanent move to Sydney the following year. "Sydney offered me a place where I could be myself. That was an offer I couldn't refuse," says Lewis in the basement of his Oxford Street bakery. While the gay bars and clubs of Kings Cross instantly caught Lewis's attention it wasn't quite undivided as the young creative had one eye firmly fixed on New York City. "I landed there in 1980 and started working as a go-go boy at the underground bar the Anvil. However, it wasn't long before I literally kicked up my heels and started doing drag," Lewis recalls.

Paul Hogan was yet to dazzle the Americans with offers of shrimps on barbies, so an Australian drag queen to locals who preferred their drag straight-up Judy Garland with the occasional dash of Patsy Cline was nothing short of alien. "What we were doing back home was groundbreaking and experimental compared to the New York scene, so I really knocked them dead with my shows." Despite earning the best tips in New York's gay bars, itchy feet made Lewis return to Sydney in the later half of 1981. With his heels now firmly planted in the local traps, Lewis debuted his newly refined alter ego Miss 3D at Sydney's infamous drag bar The Albury Hotel. Within months Miss 3D was working Oxford Street's most popular bars and clubs and performing at the city's first Sleaze Ball and underground gay dance parties alongside drag icons such as Cindy Pastel.

Off stage, Lewis yearned to express his creative talents in a full-time job, so in the summer of 1983, the offer to work as a cake decorator at an up-and-coming cake shop ticked all the boxes. "We were one of the first stores in Sydney to take cake decorating to this level," says Lewis. By "level" Lewis means creating fully edible and semi-edible cakes that can only be described as beautifully sculptured works of art. Over his 26-year career with Sweet Art, Lewis has birthed anything from a three-tiered wedding cake lined with bones and skulls through to a bum cake with a finger planted firmly inside it that was custom-made for a local proctologist's birthday. Paddington locals will recall seeing multicoloured Marge Simpson figures sharing a bath tub in the window - an incredible edible that's over ten years old and still stops traffic. His unique creations fetch in excess of $6,000 when auctioned at Bobby Goldsmith Foundations' annual Bake Off charity event, and Lewis's cakes have taken out first place eight times.

So after a 26-year history in the kitchen and on the stage, how long can we expect to see Glen Lewis bake and Miss 3D shake?

"As long as they can still get up and move," Lewis assures us. That's good news for Sydney's dessert and drag scenes. Andrew Georgiou

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