I spent a good portion of the month of April 2001, working with a group known as the Flush Puppies. Because they had accepted my work into their show, I made myself available for all but one of their performances during the three weekends that they held their multimedia event called 'Night Visions.' The event took place in a rough but clean space called 'Heaven Gallery', one long and dingy flight of stairs up from the busy and only partially gentrified stretch of Milwaukee Avenue just south of North Avenue, the Wicker Park Business District. Bars, art galleries, panhandlers and yuppies, all milling around together in the way common to such areas, where wealth rubs elbows with homeless, and patrons rub elbows with the arts; not those nice, sanitized arts that one encounters on Michigan Avenue, or in River North, but something newer, rougher, still with dirt under its fingernails... still hungry.
This is the way it always begins again, art renewing itself. This is the kind of place it needs to begin in, just a few yards away from the passing trains of the Blue Line El, roaring past right outside the rear door, shaking the building during the performances, and while the patrons view the paintings, photography, sculpture, and listen to the live music after the performances. These are the kind of people required, ones with no discernable pretensions, and a willingness to take chances, and work for nothing. This is art without a capital 'A.'
I had never been involved in an event like this before, and so wanted to check it out as much as possible, to see what could be learned. I do not see a show, festival or other event as strictly a place where one goes to sell ones work, although it is always well appreciated when someone makes a purchase. For myself at least, this is a rare enough event so that I have learned how to accomplish something at such events whether I make a sale or not, so I do not risk becoming bored, and seeing such experiences as a waste of time. I always bring a sketch and note pad, and my camera with me. I was intrigued by the appearance of the empty stage and seating area, captured here in photo, and also in a painting, viewable by clicking here.
The stage set was simplicity itself; a single being the central prop, in keeping with the dream theme, and each of the one act plays proceeding almost without additional props, depending instead on the actors to provide interest, with some minimal input from a dream-movie scape, projected at times on the walls behind the bed. This is no mean feat, considering that the principle players were, during much of the action, asleep. Still, I did not notice anyone getting up and going to the bathroom during the performances.
While I was busy photographing the empty and darkened room, the cast members were lounging around out on the roof behind the gallery, which featured the 'L' train tracks, about 20 feet away, with trains roaring past regularly, and the Wicker Park under-the-'L'-tracks-alley social life taking place down below, including its own rare cast of characters, 20 feet below.
Looking at the motley crew, it's a little hard to believe that they are serious actors, and yet within a few minutes, the highly disciplined character of this fledgling company became apparent.
In a company this small, and youthful, the divisions of labour are nonexistent. The stage manager is a player, sound and lights people double in other capacities, and everyone does grunt work, greeting, and takes care of cosumes and props, which are minimal.
Just prior to the arrival of the audience, the room comes alive with a flurry of well-rehearsed activity. I did not realise how much organisation it takes to get everything prepared for an hour on-stage, especially in a very brief amount of time. I did not observe any bickering or over-inflated egos; if such exists among the group, they have the good sense to put the performance ahead of any personal differences, things proceed swiftly, with a relaxed atmosphere. This is essentially a group of peers, and yet some of the players are in positions of at least relative authority to the body of the group. If someone doesn't manage, there will be anarchy. Sometimes it is easy to see who is in charge just by the body language.
people have begun to arrive, and peruse the still artwork, offerings from Kelly Pelka (painting), Laila Evensen (video), Emma Potter (cloth sculpture), John Paul Doquin (photography), Ricardo Martinez (photography), Angela Burkhardt (box assemblage), myself (self-portraits), Lisa Grams (painting, image immediately below), Maritza Cervantes (photography, image left), and Emily Grubb (painting, image extreme bottom).
I could go on at great length about the individual artists, but will avoid doing so. I want this article to be more about the group effort than about the individuals. I was impressed with this group, that is long on potential and enthusiasm, and short on experience, for just exactly those reasons... and because they are doing what they are doing out of the simple desire (and perhaps driving need) to do so, but have not yet become corrupted with the pretentious bullshit that afflicts so many of their slightly older and more experienced contemporaries. (Excuse my common usage, which does, however, when used very sparingly, have an impact unmatched by other forms of expression.) This is especially refreshing in the still visual arts, which seem for some reason to be the most seriously afflicted with this peculiar social anomaly. Why this seems to be so is a mystery to me.
the gallery begins to empty out, and people head into the performance space to find their seats. I remain alone in the now deserted gallery, to take a few final photos of the walls, and wonder where the people who painted these pictures will be in two, five, ten and twenty years. Those who favour a 'normal' life will surely be among the first to desert the arts; as far as I have seen, there is little about the practice that could be considered 'normal.'
Heh. I am speaking here my own perspective; that of one who lives and works essentially alone, with one foot just over the edge at the fringe of society, and the other foot firmly planted somewhere else... in the place outside the confines of society, which is the only place one can stand, and see what must be seen of society, in order to paint. (act, make music, poetry, etc.) I can't know that this is how it is for all of those, who practice in the fine arts. But there is nothing to stop me from speculating, that this is often the case.
and there is nothing left to do but break down the stage, and pack up the equipment, paintings, photography, etc., and sweep up the debris. The show is over, for the time being.
As I broke down my own paintings, I took a final quiet moment to look at the one painting at this show that had caught my attention more than all the others; a double portrait by Emily Grubb. I do a lot of portraiture myself, and am particularly attentive to the genre, and I don't 'do' pretty myself, when I paint portraits. Apparently, neither does Emily, at least not in this example. This is what I meant, when I said that the fine arts attempts to see society from outside itself. This is definitely a postcard from the 'other' side.
As I stared at this strange painting, and thought about the past month, spent in the company of actors, I remembered a poem written by Al Stewart, which is well suited for closing this tale of my month, among the Flush Puppies.
One Stage Before
It seems to me as though I've been upon this stage before
And juggled away the night for the same old crowd
These harlequins you see with me, they too have held the floor
As here once again they strut and they fret their hour
I see those half-familiar faces in the second row
Ghost-like with the footlights in their eyes
But where or when we met like this last time I just don't know
It's like a chord that rings and never dies
For infinity
And now these figures in the wings with all their restless tunes
Are waiting around for someone to call their names
They walk the backstage corridors and prowl the dressing-rooms
And vanish to specks of light in the picture-frames
But did they move upon the stage a thousand years ago
In some play in Paris or Madrid?
And was I there among them then, in some travelling show
And is it all still locked inside my head
For infinity
And some of you are harmonies to all the notes I play
Although we may not meet still you know me well
While others talk in secret keys and transpose all I say
And nothing I do or try can get through the spell
So one more time we'll dim the lights and ring the curtain up
And play again like all the times before
But far behind the music you can almost hear the sounds
Of laughter like the waves upon the shores
Of infinity
- Al Stewart