Dreamscapes of Disability,
(with BASE Collective)
Allez Public Art Space
This project by BASE Collective (Michael Beers, Heidi Junkersfeld, Charlotte Macorn, Jenny Montgomery, Gavin Workman) was on display July-October, 2022 in the Allez public mural space off Higgins Ave. in Missoula, Montana. The artist statement is below, and interpretive text for each panel can be found by hovering over the images below.
Disability (visible and invisible) is normal, natural, and according to some it is an art. Sooner or later, its mysteries touch nearly everyone. BASE Collective is a group of artists who travel side-by-side in the lively caravan of disability, giving and receiving support. Together, we dove deep in search of symbolic images that were recognizable and important to each of us. The resulting scenes invite viewers to explore disability culture from the inside. In mythic images, we encounter disability as part of nature and history; the light and dark magic of medical care; the unique challenges and triumphs of life in our ingenious community; and the stark choices we will face in a destabilized future.
“As the mind explores a symbol,” Carl Jung wrote, “it is led to ideas that lie beyond the grasp of reason.” Unlike a political slogan, a symbol can never be fully explained or precisely defined. It arises from the hugeness of inner life and shared experience.
While creating the mural scenes, our collective drew upon the rules of improv, which are central to BASE (Missoula’s all-abilities community center located in the Warehouse Mall and largely funded by Summit, our local disability empowerment center). Improv arises from split-second responses to unpredictable and evolving conditions which may stump the conscious mind. A good-natured attitude of receptivity and a commitment to saying “Yes, and…” to whatever arises defines a thriving improv community–and any life lived well.
“Dreamscapes of Disability” seeks to be accessible, with Braille titles and captioned audio/video for each image available via QR codes. While on display, the mural will be the site for improv, performance, and celebration as the project evolves. We hope to draw in community members to explore disability experience in new ways during the exhibition. Follow us @summitilc and FB/base725 for updates and to share your comments.
BASE Collective: Michael Beers, Heidi Junkersfeld, Charlotte Macorn, Jenny Montgomery, Gavin Workman
BASE improv actors: Jason Billehusbase, Maddy Halland, Lindee Lee Keller, Robert Scott Kirwan, Devin McLane, Madison Quantock Morgan, Sherene Ricci, Sellars Lynn Kelly
Essential support: Matthew Hamon, Solveig, Jacob Mucha, Lesley Washburn, and Missoula Community Theatre, Travis Hoffman, John Howard, Summit Independent Living
Interpretive text for each panel can be found by hovering over the images below.
Disability (visible and invisible) is normal, natural, and according to some it is an art. Sooner or later, its mysteries touch nearly everyone. BASE Collective is a group of artists who travel side-by-side in the lively caravan of disability, giving and receiving support. Together, we dove deep in search of symbolic images that were recognizable and important to each of us. The resulting scenes invite viewers to explore disability culture from the inside. In mythic images, we encounter disability as part of nature and history; the light and dark magic of medical care; the unique challenges and triumphs of life in our ingenious community; and the stark choices we will face in a destabilized future.
“As the mind explores a symbol,” Carl Jung wrote, “it is led to ideas that lie beyond the grasp of reason.” Unlike a political slogan, a symbol can never be fully explained or precisely defined. It arises from the hugeness of inner life and shared experience.
While creating the mural scenes, our collective drew upon the rules of improv, which are central to BASE (Missoula’s all-abilities community center located in the Warehouse Mall and largely funded by Summit, our local disability empowerment center). Improv arises from split-second responses to unpredictable and evolving conditions which may stump the conscious mind. A good-natured attitude of receptivity and a commitment to saying “Yes, and…” to whatever arises defines a thriving improv community–and any life lived well.
“Dreamscapes of Disability” seeks to be accessible, with Braille titles and captioned audio/video for each image available via QR codes. While on display, the mural will be the site for improv, performance, and celebration as the project evolves. We hope to draw in community members to explore disability experience in new ways during the exhibition. Follow us @summitilc and FB/base725 for updates and to share your comments.
BASE Collective: Michael Beers, Heidi Junkersfeld, Charlotte Macorn, Jenny Montgomery, Gavin Workman
BASE improv actors: Jason Billehusbase, Maddy Halland, Lindee Lee Keller, Robert Scott Kirwan, Devin McLane, Madison Quantock Morgan, Sherene Ricci, Sellars Lynn Kelly
Essential support: Matthew Hamon, Solveig, Jacob Mucha, Lesley Washburn, and Missoula Community Theatre, Travis Hoffman, John Howard, Summit Independent Living
Interpretive text for each panel can be found by hovering over the images below.
The Star Card: ZACC
Pull-a-Card Collective
Tarot Show
In order of appearance: Kirsten Kearse, Jo @liminalmoon, Shelley Marlow, Rhea Troutman, Eight, Taylor Stein White, Sasha Bell
This is an audio piece about my diviner friends' experiences pulling The Star card, a hopeful image which follows immediately after the difficult Tower card in the major arcana Tarot series. It represents the first dawning of light and orientation following the "crash" and disorder of the Tower card. The Star was randomly assigned to me for the Pull-A-Card Tarot show at ZACC. The Star had just come up for me in a reading I had done about our housing situation, as we had to leave our rental of 11 years. Shortly after pulling the Star, we found a house that met our needs via word of mouth and the months-long dysregulation of our displacement began to abate. I chose pen and ink as the best medium to depict the dark and the light contained in the Star. |
-
"By embracing the beauties and brutalities of parenthood, these finely crafted poems transcend their milieu and become poems about co-existing here on earth. " —Chris Dombrowski The chapbook Hatch was published by Salon Refu in Olympia, Washington in conjunction with a gallery show of my poetry and installations. It was designed and printed by the Sherwood Press. The letterpress cover features a hand lettered title by Jami Heinricher and a mesmerizing illustration by Theo Ellsworth. |
Poetry Publications"Ballet with Boy and Wheelchair," The Remembered Arts
"The Gods," Sensitive Skin "Hatch," "Marrying In," Bright Bones: Contemporary Montana Writing (Open Country Press) "Delivery," CALYX "Elegy for the Total Amount of Happiness," Barrow Street "Lament," Tar River "Proofed," Finalist, Gas Station Prize judged by Sarah Minor, Thin Air "Your Layers," Hamilton Arts & Letters "In Passing," Ink & Letters "The Privative Alpha," Finalist, Kay Murphy Poetry Prize judged by Myung Mi Kim, Bayou "The Returns," Cleaver "16 Rooms," Unsplendid "The Mountain's Child," Spectrum "A Few Pointers," Switched-on Gutenberg Hatch, Chapbook, Salon Refu, 2016 On "Truth," Reflections West, Montana Public Radio "Poem," Godine "XI," Peau Sensible/Sensitive Skin |
Hatch Installation
“ Hatch” was an experiment in poetry, memoir, and installation. It began as a chapbook of poems exploring an unexpected birth experience and the eventual delights of parenting an uncommon child. At the invitation of Susan Christian, owner of Salon Refu gallery, it became a collection of large-scale text and installation pieces shown in May 2016. It was presented again at Radius Gallery's Sidecar during the Montana Book Festival in September 2016.
Though "Hatch" contained images of grief, it was delivered in the spirit of praise and play.
Our son, Heath, had no signs of life at birth. Skilled nurses revived him, and he has since thrived while encountering life with a physical disability. This show was my attempt to re-document our experience in ways that stretch beyond the medical. Images related to the poems were extended into the gallery space, using materials which reach back to touch prehistoric ritual traditions surrounding death and rebirth (red ochre, stone mounds, shroud wrappings, etc.), as well as objects from an idealized nursery, religious trinkets, medical flotsam, and pharmaceuticals. Visual jokes sought to lighten up about death and disability, even as we confront their mysteries.
While creating the poems and installations, I tried to share the deep pleasures of being invited into the world of childhood play, a primal theater where archetypal forces are met. As kids work to find their place in a mysterious world, themes of struggle, mortality, safety, rescue, absurdity, magic, and the limits of our agency are acted out with pleasure again and again. Heath has taught me that art is similar to deep play—a highly charged field of action in which our relationship to forces beyond our control can shift and re-form wonderfully. I loved collaborating with him on some of the pieces and incorporating his responses.
Heath’s brush with death has shaped his observant and exuberant outlook and our family’s happy sense of itself. His developing identity—as a survivor, a comedian, an adaptive athlete, and a member of the disability rights movement—mingles with his ordinary, 21st century American childhood to form a perspective grounded in pride, resilience and humor. In other eras, such a life would not have been possible.