Editor:
In her June 10 coverage of Refraction, Jan DeGrass wrote: “Despite the superior quality of the work, it would have been good to view other aspects of LGBTQ lives rendered in art. Queer artists have children, run businesses and go on vacations together – surely other aspects of their lives could be celebrated as well as their sexuality.”
The problem with being just like everybody else (children, businesses, vacations) is that it leaves you invisible. We did that when police raided the only queer space we had to ourselves: the bars of the 1950s and 1960s. We’d run, hide, make ourselves invisible. We didn’t want to get arrested or be hospitalized because we were supposedly “sick.” Seen for who we were, we were in danger of losing our jobs, our friends and family. We’d be shamed, bullied, harassed. Some of that still happens, here and around the world.
These days it’s a relief to be seen and not be forced to live a double life. Refraction has turned the gallery – for one month – into a safe queer space. Somewhere we can be ourselves, representing our lives the way we choose, including images of sexuality – because where else are we going to see them if we don’t put them up for ourselves, and for all, to see? How do we break down the label of “other” if we don’t examine our differences, especially since, as DeGrass seems to suggest, we have already discovered our common ground?
I sincerely thank Jan DeGrass for her coverage of Refraction. It’s my hope that the show, and her comments, become part of an ongoing dialogue on sexual and gender identity, in art and outside of it, not just in these pages, but in classrooms and pubs, on our streets and around dinner tables, up and down the Coast.
Anna Nobile, Refraction curator, Sechelt
