Saturday, June 26, 2004
Illusions
Tonight, C and I attended a fun Latino arts event called Illusion 2. Mari had emailed me the info about it, saying “I peeked in on the first Illusion last year, and it was like a scene from a movie or a very hip dream. [There will be] 20 artists / 20 dreams / 3 hours of music, performance, live painting, video, body painting, dance, poetry, food, installations, rituals, graphics, and objects. [The] audience must come dressed in black.” What drew me in was the idea that we would get to see Mari paint live in front of an audience. This concept alone intrigued me and I was hooked. We thought the clothing requirement was very New York. Though we love any excuse to dress up in costume or theme, I felt a smidgen stifled having to slide past the abundant hangers of brightly colored clothing in favor of my blacks.
Watching Mari paint was a treat, you can check out her work (and photos of her in action) on her website Mari Naomi. She has a very unique style. I can definitely appreciate the subject matter that seems to show up most frequently in her art – cats and naked women. Two of my favorite things! C admires the strong line-drawing quality to her work and the suggestion of narrative inspired by the comics that influence Mari’s art.
The event was an experience. First envision a large room papered from floor to ceiling in stark white and a crowd of people all dressed in black moving around. (Ah, yes, the black clothing now makes sense – the audience was an art installation in and of itself). There was a half-naked woman performer painted in shocking purple and orange who danced up against the walls and the floors creating large-format finger painting with her body as the bands played out an assortment of rhythms. Some musicians were more strongly influenced by their Latin-American roots than others.
There were serious painters like Mari, working on various sizes of canvas. There was an installation with four cooked chickens hanging from the ceiling, as you might see in a butcher shop. Below the chickens were two tall white stands with white bowls sitting on top. Against one bowl, a sign read “Hair donations here.” There was a pair of scissors next to the bowl. On the second stand, the sign read, “Nail donations here.” There was a pair of fingernail clippers sitting next to the bowl. And yes, this is San Francisco and the crowd was very participatory thus there were a substantial number of donations in each bowl.
Many pieces were interactive. One installation instructed you to select a piece of fabric that most closely matched your skin tone, sew it into a shape and stuff it with newspaper then hang it on the wall. You were then to write a comment about how your skin color made you feel. Some comments were in English, some Spanish. One read “Chocolate Love.” Another read “Latino Incognito,” the fabric was a pale flesh tone. Some people had made stronger political comments about being white or Latino.
One artist had chopped up stuffed animals as part of a performance and then made a diagram pointing from text such as “US invasion of Iraq” and “Pollution” to the slaughtered softies. Then the artist put himself on display with large text reading “White Man.” Apparently, last year he’d made robots and set them up to stomp on fast food items. His work seemed to be the most provocative – I overheard a few conversations that varied from loving his work to hating it.
An older, handsome gentleman stood next to a wall with the beginnings of a Pablo Neruda poem written in large letters, “Tonight I am able to write…” He had index cards and pens nearby and asked members of the audience to write poems inspired by the show using the first lines of that poem. As C and I stood reading the poems already written, he approached me, “Don’t I know you from somewhere?” He didn’t look familiar to me, but I worried perhaps he’d been a family member of one of my patients, so I looked at him slightly baffled and said nothing. He then slipped into Spanish, which I was unable to understand with his thick accent and the background noise of the crowd and music in the room. (Not that I would have understood him anyway – my listening comprehension is not even as good as my poor, broken spoken Spanish.) He quickly assessed my inability to speak Spanish nor my ability to recall having met him before. He then flipped back into English and we finished a polite conversation.
I carried the card around with me most of the night before I finally gave in and forced myself to write something down. I was embarrassed and self-conscious by what I came up with and tried to drop it into his pile without his noticing, but he grabbed my arm and stopped me, insisting I write my name on the poem, though he’d earlier assured me I could keep it anonymous.
Tonight I am able to write... the metaphors
For the words that cannot be unleashed
The angst and jubilation overlap and blend together
Like dry, crusty mud on a welcome mat
Dirt = dirty. Earth = life.
The event finished with a closing circle. We all held hands, artists and audience joined together. Then a band played a recessional. Initially a few people were dancing, but slowly the entire room was moved. I jiggled my feet and body a little and observed the people who were standing still along the fringes. I finally gave into the rhythm of the music and lost sight of the people around me. When I paused to take another look around, I couldn’t find one still body in the crowd.
On our way to the bus stop to go home, we came across a large crowd of lesbians hanging out on the sidewalk outside a bar. The bar’s event calendar was prominently displayed by the door, so we decided to check it out and were delighted to discover it was In Bed with Fairy Butch. Though C insisted she had to get home and go to sleep, I talked her into a short delay en route home. The crowd was tightly packed, so after viewing just three performances, we headed out. I was tickled that C and I had been so impulsive. Our lives are so planned out these days, there has been too little room for spontaneity.
During the bus ride home, we saw a fifty-something man with the fringe surrounding his shiny bald crown dyed a bright electric blue. At first glance, my mind adjusted the unexpected nature of this sight and I saw a doughnut-like blue hat atop the shiny bald head. Then at second glance, I wondered if I was having visions and the glowing blue was instead an angelic nimbus signally a message I was unable to interpret, identifying this man’s aura. But then I remembered that it’s Pride weekend in San Francisco and the entire city has been altered - mostly into a state of celebratory excess.
At the next stop, a man of similar age boarded. His gray hair, however, was left au natural. Instead, what drew my attention to him was the subject of his self-banter. Talking to oneself is not enough to draw any attention in San Francisco. This city is well-populated with under-treated schizophrenics. However, what is interesting to me is the phenomena of homophobia in this population. I have struggled through multiple episodes of hateful, anti-gay monologues with schizophrenics on several public transit rides. Once or twice I have lost my patience and engaged these preachers in an attempt to shut them up, though I try my best to simply ignore their chatter. The struggle I feel internally fascinates me as I find working with people who are mentally ill very rewarding professionally. Fortunately, homophobia hasn’t come up in any of my clinical settings. I probably should have contemplated how I would handle that scenario at work as it might have taught me a thing or two about these public transit encounters. Tonight, my thinking finally shifted. Societal problems are frequently magnified in the psychiatric populations. This city that I love, despite its reputation as a gay mecca, has a decent sized population of homophobes. The tension between the two likely builds during events such as Gay Pride. The man on this bus was like a pressure valve for our community, releasing the tension between gay and homophobe. Tonight, I no longer felt the agitation of past such episodes and instead continued my bus ride in the same peace I’d felt when I boarded.
Again, that juxtaposition of angst and jubilation.
Earth = life.
Watching Mari paint was a treat, you can check out her work (and photos of her in action) on her website Mari Naomi. She has a very unique style. I can definitely appreciate the subject matter that seems to show up most frequently in her art – cats and naked women. Two of my favorite things! C admires the strong line-drawing quality to her work and the suggestion of narrative inspired by the comics that influence Mari’s art.
The event was an experience. First envision a large room papered from floor to ceiling in stark white and a crowd of people all dressed in black moving around. (Ah, yes, the black clothing now makes sense – the audience was an art installation in and of itself). There was a half-naked woman performer painted in shocking purple and orange who danced up against the walls and the floors creating large-format finger painting with her body as the bands played out an assortment of rhythms. Some musicians were more strongly influenced by their Latin-American roots than others.
There were serious painters like Mari, working on various sizes of canvas. There was an installation with four cooked chickens hanging from the ceiling, as you might see in a butcher shop. Below the chickens were two tall white stands with white bowls sitting on top. Against one bowl, a sign read “Hair donations here.” There was a pair of scissors next to the bowl. On the second stand, the sign read, “Nail donations here.” There was a pair of fingernail clippers sitting next to the bowl. And yes, this is San Francisco and the crowd was very participatory thus there were a substantial number of donations in each bowl.
Many pieces were interactive. One installation instructed you to select a piece of fabric that most closely matched your skin tone, sew it into a shape and stuff it with newspaper then hang it on the wall. You were then to write a comment about how your skin color made you feel. Some comments were in English, some Spanish. One read “Chocolate Love.” Another read “Latino Incognito,” the fabric was a pale flesh tone. Some people had made stronger political comments about being white or Latino.
One artist had chopped up stuffed animals as part of a performance and then made a diagram pointing from text such as “US invasion of Iraq” and “Pollution” to the slaughtered softies. Then the artist put himself on display with large text reading “White Man.” Apparently, last year he’d made robots and set them up to stomp on fast food items. His work seemed to be the most provocative – I overheard a few conversations that varied from loving his work to hating it.
An older, handsome gentleman stood next to a wall with the beginnings of a Pablo Neruda poem written in large letters, “Tonight I am able to write…” He had index cards and pens nearby and asked members of the audience to write poems inspired by the show using the first lines of that poem. As C and I stood reading the poems already written, he approached me, “Don’t I know you from somewhere?” He didn’t look familiar to me, but I worried perhaps he’d been a family member of one of my patients, so I looked at him slightly baffled and said nothing. He then slipped into Spanish, which I was unable to understand with his thick accent and the background noise of the crowd and music in the room. (Not that I would have understood him anyway – my listening comprehension is not even as good as my poor, broken spoken Spanish.) He quickly assessed my inability to speak Spanish nor my ability to recall having met him before. He then flipped back into English and we finished a polite conversation.
I carried the card around with me most of the night before I finally gave in and forced myself to write something down. I was embarrassed and self-conscious by what I came up with and tried to drop it into his pile without his noticing, but he grabbed my arm and stopped me, insisting I write my name on the poem, though he’d earlier assured me I could keep it anonymous.
Tonight I am able to write... the metaphors
For the words that cannot be unleashed
The angst and jubilation overlap and blend together
Like dry, crusty mud on a welcome mat
Dirt = dirty. Earth = life.
The event finished with a closing circle. We all held hands, artists and audience joined together. Then a band played a recessional. Initially a few people were dancing, but slowly the entire room was moved. I jiggled my feet and body a little and observed the people who were standing still along the fringes. I finally gave into the rhythm of the music and lost sight of the people around me. When I paused to take another look around, I couldn’t find one still body in the crowd.
On our way to the bus stop to go home, we came across a large crowd of lesbians hanging out on the sidewalk outside a bar. The bar’s event calendar was prominently displayed by the door, so we decided to check it out and were delighted to discover it was In Bed with Fairy Butch. Though C insisted she had to get home and go to sleep, I talked her into a short delay en route home. The crowd was tightly packed, so after viewing just three performances, we headed out. I was tickled that C and I had been so impulsive. Our lives are so planned out these days, there has been too little room for spontaneity.
During the bus ride home, we saw a fifty-something man with the fringe surrounding his shiny bald crown dyed a bright electric blue. At first glance, my mind adjusted the unexpected nature of this sight and I saw a doughnut-like blue hat atop the shiny bald head. Then at second glance, I wondered if I was having visions and the glowing blue was instead an angelic nimbus signally a message I was unable to interpret, identifying this man’s aura. But then I remembered that it’s Pride weekend in San Francisco and the entire city has been altered - mostly into a state of celebratory excess.
At the next stop, a man of similar age boarded. His gray hair, however, was left au natural. Instead, what drew my attention to him was the subject of his self-banter. Talking to oneself is not enough to draw any attention in San Francisco. This city is well-populated with under-treated schizophrenics. However, what is interesting to me is the phenomena of homophobia in this population. I have struggled through multiple episodes of hateful, anti-gay monologues with schizophrenics on several public transit rides. Once or twice I have lost my patience and engaged these preachers in an attempt to shut them up, though I try my best to simply ignore their chatter. The struggle I feel internally fascinates me as I find working with people who are mentally ill very rewarding professionally. Fortunately, homophobia hasn’t come up in any of my clinical settings. I probably should have contemplated how I would handle that scenario at work as it might have taught me a thing or two about these public transit encounters. Tonight, my thinking finally shifted. Societal problems are frequently magnified in the psychiatric populations. This city that I love, despite its reputation as a gay mecca, has a decent sized population of homophobes. The tension between the two likely builds during events such as Gay Pride. The man on this bus was like a pressure valve for our community, releasing the tension between gay and homophobe. Tonight, I no longer felt the agitation of past such episodes and instead continued my bus ride in the same peace I’d felt when I boarded.
Again, that juxtaposition of angst and jubilation.
Earth = life.
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