Every once in awhile something happens in Spokane that makes it seem hipper than it actually is. And every once in a while, by some chance I get invited to said events. I have been the +1 for artists to art shows, been in music videos or movies filmed here, and groupied it with the best of them. So, believe it or not, when my cousin invited me to a two night touring art experience, I thought, "Sure! I can do this without making a fool of myself!" Boy was I wrong.
It was a balmy early summer evening as I walked the streets of downtown Spokane to meet my cousin Ticia. I was in a fairly good mood, excited to see my busy cousin, and do something new and cool, not just suffer through another night of Jeopardy reruns in my sister's non air conditioned house. I was just getting over a cold, and was happy to be getting out of the house, period. My cousin hadn't really given me any idea as to what we were doing other than it was an art show. The ad had read, "A Two night, Two Location Art Event. An INTERACTIVE Experience for All." Sounded ominous enough....
We arrived at the first location together, right on time. There was no line. So much for fashionably late.... NERD ALERT.
"If this is like too weird or lame, we can totally bail," Ticia offered before we entered.
"We're here, lets give it a shot.... I thought there'd be more people? At least it will be quick!" I countered, holding the door for her.
The temporary studio was in a vacant store front on a main drag down town, nestled among bars and antique shops. It was a small room, big enough for about 30 people tops. It was hard to gauge tho since it was just me, Ticia and a lone hipster who greeted us as we entered but didn't get up. We awkwardly stood there for a minute, wondering if we were in the right place. Finally, after several moments of awkward silence the hipster coughed, stood up and pointed at a poster hanging on the wall.
"The artist will be right out," he assured us, then went back to texting.
Ticia and I exchanged looks and cautiously approached one of the posters on the wall closest to us. I noted there were three identical posters on the walls to the left, right, and behind us, hung under welcome signs, as if they were expecting several groups at once. Optimistic...... We started to read the poster, barely two sentences in when the artist joined us. She was gorgeous. Her blinding white smile was a walking ad for Orbit gum, and she smelled of coconut tanning oil. She introduced herself and gave us a spiel that I only caught every other word of. She was a Brazilian bombshell and between her accent and my inner dialogue wondering if her highlights were natural, I wasn't catching much of what she was saying. By the glazed look in Ticia's eyes she wasn't either. She started pointing at the poster so I tuned in.
Apparently what we were about to experience symbolized our life path, from conception through after life. The poster was broken down in to three clear stages: birth, life, death. It appeared as if we would enter three different rooms representing each stage of our life. The obstacles we would face ahead were parallel to what the obstacles in our lives would be The artist talked and explained for several minutes and Ticia and I both did our best to keep up. Clearly, we were in over our heads though, because when the artist handed us each a pair of ear plugs, saying "This will help you focus on your own life path," she had to start the explanation all over again. God bless her, she was so patient.
After another round of explanations, I still reluctantly held the ear plugs, and asked "What if I get lost, or need help? I will need to hear!" The panic of the unknown was setting in. What had we gotten ourselves in to?
The artist laughed (and baby angels everywhere gained their wings, it was that perfect) and reassured me she would be in the room the whole time. We were supposed to do it individually, but because we were the first victims- i mean patrons- through, she said Ticia and I could start at the same time, but that we would end up having to split up. Great, something to look forward to. We put our ear plugs in and let her lead us through the black curtain at the back of the room.
The room behind the curtain was completely black, the only light coming from a 3D geometric shape in the center of the room. It was constructed out of glow in the dark strings anchored from the floor and ceiling, constructing a kind of dome, with several paths to make your way through it. Ticia and I stood, clutching each other, wondering what to do next. The artist was telling us to do something, but i couldn't hear because of the ear plugs.
"WHAT?" We both shouted at the artist. She gestured for one of us to approach the string building thingy. I went first, leaving Ticia against the dark wall. As I approached the strings I noticed there were three clear door shaped entrances and paths. I picked the path on the left. I drew close to the entrance and the strings and path into the dome lit up. It was like something our of Tron. I looked over and could see the artist's white teeth in the dark smiling at me. I couldn't hear her but it looked encouraging so i took a step in to the string maze. I was able to walk straight a few paces, the path lighting up in front of me. I followed that path, but it came to a dead end, at which point I shuffled sideways and was then as far right in the string construction as I could go. I thought I hit another dead end, because nothing was happening. so I stood there awkwardly. The artist came up and gestured for me to keep going. Go where??? There was a space in front of me big enough for me only if I turned sideways. I mean it was just string but I didn't want to force myself through a space I wasn't supposed to and have all the strings come crashing down on top of me and ruin the artists exhibit. But she was still smiling and nodding so I pressed on. I turned sideways glancing back, towards where I left Ticia. My eyes had adjusted to the dark so I could faintly make out her hysterical laughter as I pressed my obscenely large breasts flat and shimmied through the space in front of me. After that disaster it was a couple more steps out and I was free of the string pyramid. The whole thing was maybe 15 feet long at best, but I felt like I had been through quite the ordeal. Mind you, it only lasted like 30 seconds. Grinning from ear to ear, the artist greeted me at the end and waved me through another black curtain, then ran back, I assumed, to start my cousin on her journey through the strings.
I was now in a closet sized room, also dark, facing a blank wall. I stood there for about 30 seconds, nothing happened, so I assumed I was supposed to move on. I figured this room represented the boring part of my life, maybe years 11-13 when I only wore a WWJD tye-dye Tshirt.. There was another curtain to my left and a door to my right. I lifted the curtain, but it led to a piece of plywood, So I went to the door and exited. I was now in a well lit hall that looked to be under construction. There was an exit to the outside, I didn't know what I was supposed to do, and according to the poster at the beginning there was SUPPOSED to be 3 rooms. I had only been in 2. So instead of exiting like a sane person, I veered left and began a journey into the rest of the building.
In case you haven't caught on yet, I WAS SUPPOSED TO EXIT. However, like I said, I thought I was still on my journey. I'd only been in 2 of the 3 rooms, after all. Maybe this construction represented how I was a work in progress. I walked down this hall, ear plugs still in and came to the foot of some stairs. Again, at this point, most people would have turned back, but I'm not most people. I forged on, up the stairs. It was a long set of stairs with 3 landings. I climbed the stairs and stopped at each landing, trying each door as I went. I reached the top, ear plugs still in, my labored congested breathing echoing in my ears, amplified thanks to the ear plugs. I made a mental note to bring my inhaler to all future art exhibits. At this point I figured I wasn't supposed to be here. I pulled out my earplugs and could hear voices behind the door I was next to that I had just wiggled the handle. Time to get out of here! It wasn't until after that I realized this was also an apartment building and I had just attempted to enter several peoples homes. When I reached the bottom of the stairs I put my ear plugs back in, still thinking I had to find this elusive third room representing my after life. At the bottom of the stairs I could go back the way I came from OR I could head down a different set of stairs. Guess which option I picked?
Again, I WAS SUPPOSED TO EXIT. At the bottom of these stairs I found myself in another empty store front, this one under construction and being painted. Finally, it hit me. I wasn't supposed to be here. Blame it on the cold medicines, or the fact my parents did drugs, or that I was dropped on my head as a baby, but it actually took me that long to figure out I wasn't supposed to be there. Suddenly trying to recall if I saw any no trespassing signs I high tailed it back to door I came out of at the art exhibit. There on the floor was taped the tiniest black arrow pointing towards the door leading outside. How was I supposed to see that? It could have been graffiti for all I knew! I was probably standing on that arrow when I decided to take off in to the building.
Ten shades of red, I headed outside like I was supposed to have done the first time. I was in a parking lot next to the building and Ticia, with a panicked look on her face, ran up to me as I took my ear plugs out one last time.
"Where have you been?" She seemed really worried... How long had I been in there?
I was about to give her the full disclosure when the artists also came running up to us in a tizzy. "What happened?" Maybe I'd been gone longer than I thought. It had been quite the adventure. Ticia started to ask again but I gave her a look saying BE QUIET I DON'T WANT TO EMBARRASS MYSELF ANY MORE so she zipped it.
"I was just in there, ya know, inside the door, waiting!" My voice was so high pitched and squeaky it sounded like I had finally hit puberty. "I don't know how you missed me!" GUILTY GUILTY GUILTY. They both knew something was up, but thankfully my cousin was catching on. Smoothly deflecting, Ticia started asking questions about the art experience and the artist herself as we walked back to the entrance.
Back at the beginning we collected our things, said our thank yous, and left the artist and hipster to help the next group of people who would hopefully not be as confused as we were. We got half way down the block at which point Ticia stopped me and I burst in to hysterical laughter.
"Tell me.....what was SUPPOSED to happen back there?" I knew what I did was wrong, but I also still was confused on what was right.
According to Ticia, our original understanding that there would be multiple rooms was completely wrong. The three stages were more fluid then that. The "Birth/Conception stage was where we started.... AT THE POSTER. Such a glorious parallel to my mother's uterus.Then the actual life path part was the string room. The afterlife was the little room where noting happened. Apparently in that room I was supposed to look at the wall and there was a light show. The lights on the wall represented what path you took through the string dome., so depending on your journey, the show would be different. Ticia clarified that calling it a light show was generous since it barely lit up and was very abstract, but apparently that weak lit experience was supposed to represent the moment when you die and reflect on your journey. The actual afterlife was the walk through the parking lot and around to the beginning so you come full circle. Ashes to ashes, dust to dust. A bit of a stretch when you are surrounded by parked cars and dumpsters, but hey, its art.
As I confessed my version to Ticia on the way to the second event it wasn't lost on me that it really had represented my life path. Take something simple and cool, think you can handle it, find out you can't and wind up doing something completely wrong because your level of awkwardness was something they couldn't even plan for, followed by a walk of shame. That pretty much sums up my life.
