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Opening night
March 30, 2006
I spent twelve hours at the LGBT Community Center yesterday. I still have a fuck of a lot to process about the event, and my illness has come back with a vengeance, but a sort of general recap… I’m sure I’m leaving lots of stuff out…
I have arrived at a point in my life where I get 9 a.m. phone calls from Veronica Vera, calmly field questions from the NY Times and get thanked for my work by Lily Burana. This is awesome, but also a little stunning, since whatever you want to say about my work, I do almost all of it in my pajamas (not naked, as Jossip would have you believe), which would make me an extremely boring subject for a documentary.
On Monday, the $preadsters and I had installed about half of the show, partly because we ran out of time to install the rest of it, but mostly because the other half of the artwork had not yet arrived in New York. In a leisurely paella marinara lunch on Tuesday, my lunch companion marveled that I wasn’t screaming into my cell phone and freaking out about the missing pieces. I had adopted a kind of zen attitude about the whole thing - really, what the hell could I do?
Pretty much everything arrived by Wednesday, and I set about the task of hanging it: pencils, tape measures, levels and annoying-to-hang hooks and such. Everything was well under control, and even as the hours ticked by, things stayed pretty low stress. This is the awesome thing about being in charge - though its true that when shit goes wrong it is my problem, its also true that I set the pace and the level of stress in the air, and I made sure that everything was easy-breezy. As huge of a project as this was, there weren’t really moments of horror and thinking that it couldn’t possibly get done.
Around 4.30 pm, the lovely Bella Vendetta was being my eyes on the ground and helping me hang art, Carol Leigh aka Scarlot Harlot was setting up her little space, and I just felt this wave of dizziness, and realized I needed to get the fuck off of that ladder, eat a ham sandwich and take a damn break. Once that was done, the wall text arrived, and we were entering the final moments before the show. The room looked great in those calm moments - and then the madness began.
People started to meander in just before six, and by 6.30 the gallery was packed. And when I say packed, I mean it was seriously insane, like at some points in the evening it was completely impossible to move around. I’ll be posting pictures as soon as I get them (and if you were there and you took pictures, please let me know), but for now just imagine a space too small for lots of sexy people.
Melissa Gira arrived directly from the airport, a little flustered but ready to rock, and started her cam show, with Ana Voogand Echo Transgression running their shows alongside hers. The archived show will be up on boa real soon (and the site is worth checking out, cam archives or not). Jane (did I mention she’s in town? yep, and its awesome) assisted her with set up and keeping sace between her and the crowd. I didn’t get to see any of the cam shows since I was so busy with talking to people, but it was really fascinating to have the whole live/online thing all tangled together, in an art exhibit taking place in a computer room, based on hype largely created online. I’m going to write more about this soon, as I’ve got a lot percolating in my head about it.
A lot of the artists came to the opening and it was good to see them all there. Paul Sarkis was one of the first to arrive and stayed quite a while, and later I said brief hellos to Cristy Road and George Pitts, talked quite a bit with the always perfectly attired Molly Crabapple, Joe Gallant appeared early in the evening and told me he’s proud of me (which warmed my heart, as he’s known me since i was a wee tart), Charise Isis was there and I was able to introduce her to Les Barany (who is interested in her work and is agent to HR Giger and Spider Webb), Val Dejardins and Tobaron Wacman made appearances, Shane Luitjens was there early but didn’t stick around for my shout out, Bella Vendetta showed up early but then I lost her in the crowd, and Catherine McGregor was there but I didn’t get to meet her til today. There were also awesome non-artists there: Tristan Taormino, Rachel Kramer Bussel, Lily Burana, Lux Nightmare, Veronica Vera, Tracy Quan and a cohort of NYC sex bloggers - Chelsea Girl, Lex and Les, Jefferson, Emma, Mitzi, and Viviane …I could go on because I’m sure I’ve missed people, but shit. It was quite the room full of people.
Around 8 o’clock I climbed up on the table we were using for the bar to give a speech, but first Veronica Vera and Melissa Ditmore presented Carol Leigh with a superwhore award for service to the community, which thrilled her to death. I kept my speech as short and sweet as I could and just introduced and gave love to the $pread folks, all of whom were wearing tiaras for easy identification. I also got a big cheer from the crowd when I introduced myself, which was kinda cool and flattering.
Shit is happening, and its so energizing to be a part of it, to feel connected with people who are working hard on their own and collective projects, to swap ideas and support and all this stuff. Lately people have been asking me about how to get involved, how to make things happen, and I think back to a conversation I had with Lux Nightmare the last time we had brunch, about not feeling a part of a community or a part of a scene - and working to create the thing you want to be a part of. Making things happen starts with thinking and talking, and then doing it your goddamn self if need be. That’s what I’ve been doing, and by golly its working.
And tomorrow, I’ll write about the roundtable that Melissa and I did at Sex Work Matters. SO much to say about all of it. Whew.
Posted by Dacia at March 30, 2006 06:06 PM
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Comments
It was the first time I was out in public as ‘Viviane.’It was great to go up and introduce myself to Rachel Kramer Bussel and tell her how much I’ve enjoyed and learned from her writing. You looked fabulous and happy. Wish my pictures had showed that.
Posted by: Viviane at March 31, 2006 07:58 AM
Packed indeed! It was great to see what you put together. Congratulations!
Posted by: Mitzi at March 31, 2006 10:48 AM
You rock!
Posted by: ember at March 31, 2006 11:48 AM
can you send for me xxx pictuer
Posted by: ashk at April 5, 2006 03:36 AM
