by Alex Neal / Cosmik Jay
Every single one of us is reading a different book, even if it’s the same book. Thus coming together often to share what we know, feel, and see, feels essential. I want the days to feel brighter and the nights to feel darker, the clothes to be fascinating and the music to be surprising. I want for us to have, make, or find spaces which honor all of our stories to every end of their depths, and together. I must believe that there is room for all of it to change, even as it is happening.v
The freedom to be fully immersed in my experience. That’s what I need–not just for and from my community. I need for all of us to have that. And not just some days, but most days. I need, I need, I need – peace. A lot of y’all told me on Friday night that you do, too. Thanks for coming to the show, this is your host, Cosmik Jay!
The artists on the walls of Contrast/Convergence – the first group art show at The Government Center (free, and running through January 26th), are also speaking of similar things. On Friday, December 1st, we kicked off the show with an opening night I called The Occasion. If you read the artists’ stories and what they’ve titled their pieces; if you look at the pieces themselves, they’re somehow echoing each other. Maybe that was my point all along and maybe I got to savor in it being made as each piece came into my temporary possession. So, maybe, I knew a little bit of what was in store for y’alls experience on Friday night.
What I didn’t foresee is how well it would all come together with the presence of performance artists and community bringing such vibrant energy into the room. On one hand, I prompted people to write a dream they have for the future as if it were already true, and I got so many responses about rest. On the other hand, every room was full of its own vibrant energy all night.
The art that adorns the walls of The Government Center is the art of my community. It’s a collection of people I know well, people I barely know, and people I’ve come to know through creating this show. They work in glass, fiber, metal, but we’re really all the same in that we have a fervor to create with absolutely anything that you put in front of us. The night’s performances consisted of yet-another-ethereal-set from Thousandzz of Beez in a room that I covered in pillows; my dear friend and cloud-maker, pvkvsv, just – didn’t stop playing all night; Jose Queervo debuted her newest witchy music video live; the spirit of Zinnia’s Gardeen swirled through the air; and we indulged in forty-five minutes of V.V. Itch building a dungeon synth set, live; the contrast of all of it worked insanely well. It showed me that we can be honest with one another about the more difficult things, while still enjoying ourselves. Joy and pain can exist in the same room, work off of one another, and spark curiosity for something new.
As someone whose body demands it from them, I get the bit about rest. It’s been really difficult to navigate developing a regular and essential practice of rest versus being productive in This Society, which is crushing. Not just feels crushing, but is crushing. In my small way, I hope we were able to craft a moment of rest for people in the room on Friday night. I have to believe that we can access it in community as well as in isolation. I need a nightlife that recharges me and I haven’t found it yet. So, I’ve tried to throw a party that I’d want to go to, and ultimately I convinced myself that the best parties are the ones with no rules. I don’t think I brought anything spectacular to the scene through Contrast/Convergence and The Occasion, but give me a space where we can safely be complete freaks in, and I would come with different ideas.
Ideas of openly meshing music with art with mutual aid with storytelling with harm reduction with burlesque with kink with visuals with, with, with! Why are all of these parties struggling to happen in separate spaces? Why aren’t we being dressed to go out, exclusively by our friends who make clothes? Where can we come together to strengthen the integrity of our little city scene so that it can grow real teeth? Vulnerability is bursting at the seams of this world, too; begging to become completely free. Tell me something that isn’t begging for that at this moment. To honor that, we should try to be completely present with each others’ stories when they are being told. Especially in the containers that we are creating together, to hold those stories.
I don’t think that there is any more room for disingenuity – I don’t think anyone has time for it. We are all seething. I think we need safe places to get real about our moment in time. Sometimes it feels like we – deeply capable people; every single one of us – are standing in a room, staring at each other, wondering, “Who’s going to make the first move towards something shocking?” Myself included. And to start what? I’m not sure. I, on so many levels, want to feel safe being completely emotional in public. I want to be in rooms full of crazy people being their good crazy selves; for they are my closest friends. I know we can take each other places that no one expects us to go nor thinks we belong; whoever the “we” and whatever the place.
This entire art show venture has been a reminder of how valuable the ability to “shift” is. (That’s show biz, baybee!) Everything about it changed up to the day of, and is still changing. I’m really looking forward to seeing how the show’s walls themselves will change over the course of these next few weeks. The art is currently on display in the café of The Government Center and is available for immediate purchase. If pieces sell, I’ve offered the artist a chance to submit another piece. If enough art sells and there becomes room, then the show becomes a sort of living art gallery for these two months and I’ll invite more artists in, in January.
Maybe (probably), I am just trying to convince myself of it – that we can change in the moment, together. That things will still turn out well; and that there is, actually, a lot of room to be had for good things to happen. Yes, even when it looks grim. Maybe, especially so.
It’s just that no one feels safe to operate outside of their worlds of structure and rules they don’t necessarily believe in or know that they have. All of the artists I know are stuck choosing between passion and survival. I don’t think it’s because they find that breaking out of it is impossible, but rather, because they just don’t know where to begin; or how to think about what is possible; or how to be curious in a completely unrestricted way. So, we know that the world will never stop changing and neither will we. How do we simply – allow for it?
Even the stories that I am influenced by change as I change. I pick things up and put them down all the time. They, plus many other things, make me, but there also have come times where I’ve discarded the things I thought I’d always need in order to exist. (Again, show biz, baybee!) Someone wise told me once that it’s important to know when the party is over and when it’s time to move on. Who actually wants to leave, though? So, I stay curious about what goes on in the in-betweens. Where do we wander to, then? How do we make the place that we go to for rest, also be the place we go to, to be together?
How do we build containers for that, that don’t eventually feel restrictive? How do we continue to change with the moment not just as individuals but as communities, as organizations, and as physical spaces? With an intrinsically diverse spirit – how do we agree on simple needs? That’s all that I’m asking. How do we come together as different things as human beings? Contrast/Converge. It didn’t start with current politics; it started with me asking how I, myself, can fit into the world in front of me. How do we let the current of the party, the show, the experiment, actually take all of us places? Where will we end up?
What if we look at events and shows as micro mutual aid opportunities? How do we return to art as “the peoples’ form”–something accessible to all. How do we disseminate it? Like government, how do we decentralize it? How do we build a space for one night that is accessible to all people. How do we let it get crazy without letting it get out of control. How do we take our power back as artists, as writers, as documenters of this life – getting to deliver human truths, candidly, and without punishment? In my observations, having a voice means that at some point you will be punished. How do we accept that reality and protect each other from it at the same time?
I hope you’ll check out the show, read the stories, and click through the art of these people who are also your friends. For, if you are reading this, they are also a part of your community.
Anne Chen
Art by Armani
Brazen Bull Glass
Chloe Baierl
Cosmik Jest
Inner City Cryptid
Isaac Beachy + Laura Phillips
Jose Queervo
Justin Tyner
Megalons
Melissa Rogers
Mikayla Cortese – Knot Finished
Nell Hendricks
Oreen Cohen
Paige Braida – Archives
PVKVSV
Sam Lightner
Sam Whitney
Subsanctuary
Thousandzz of Beez
Trieste Devlin
V.V. Itch
Wesley Bull
Zinnia’s Garden
PETRICHOR 
Leave a comment