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Return To: "About This Exhibit" "10 YEARS OF MAGICAL THINKING" Selections From The Exhibit [click on each image to enlarge in a new window or play video; please note the enlargements of several pieces and the video will be updated by Friday after they are completed!] 1. Every Last Thing In Your Wallet black leather wallet Made in China; personal effects, 1998 
What constitutes identity: A driver's license? Corporate ID badge? Health care card, credit cards, sandwich shop discount cards? Family photo? Cash on hand? Of course it's all of this and none of this. Stashed with your things in a bedside table when you entered the hospital, taken home six weeks later the day you died: the contents of a wallet are banal on the surface. But dig a little deeper and magical thinking erupts: A receipt for the $15 co-pay at a walk-in clinic, where they failed to detect the signs of leukemia. (Should we have asked for a refund?) A medical plan card, which authorized more than $1.7 million in hospital charges. (What do people do without this?) One punch remains on a day pass to the local pool, where you swam 50 laps twice a week. (What is it about the one swim remaining that makes this impossible to throw away?) Every item has a story to tell, of a life that was or might have been.2a. Sympathy Garden sympathy cards, 1998, photocopied and remade into installation, 2008 
Ever notice how almost universally, sympathy cards feature a plant, a flower, a tree? Or maybe it was odd coincidence that the 30 or so cards I saved from the first year of magical thinking feature these motifs. For this exhibit, photocopies of the cards were reborn into a new installation garden, in a collaboration with Chicago artist Gretel Garcia. (Click image at left to view the installation). We move forward!2b. Long Live ... Art! photography from the Ringling College of Art and Design Campus, Sarasota, Ron Reason, 2008 
The memorial is held, flowers and cards come to the door, they trickle to a stop. Then what?
After Gray's death, people came together to honor him in ways that would live on. His employer, the St. Petersburg Times newspaper, endowed an internship / scholarship for many years, sponsoring a college student to work in the company's advertising art department where he was a manager. In addition, friends, family and co-workers raised more than $25,000 to endow a scholarship at the Ringling College of Art and Design, where he graduated. Here, art lives on, as more than $1,100 in scholarship money is given out yearly. These photos, taken earlier this year, show the creative expression in and around Ringling's eclectic, arty campus in Sarasota. Whenever I visit Ringling or any art environment, really, I feel his spirit is living on.
[Several framed prints of these images will be sold at the gallery opening July 11, with any proceeds going back into the Ringling scholarship fund.]3. Dream House/House Dream: You Win. video by Alice Redona, 1999 "You win." Thus concluded a Miami acquaintance upon touring our house during a dinner invitation in early '98. What she meant was: of all the couples she knew our age (mid-30s), our home apparently struck her as among the most impressive. Dramatic staircase! Gourmet kitchen! Wraparound balcony over a New Orleans courtyard! (We didn't show off the wood rot, sticking windows, leaky roof.) Over time I came to be struck by how modern professionals, and perhaps the gays in particular, measure success, stability and security by the homes we keep. Maybe it's the domestic disconnect some of us were raised in, or the lack of reinforcement of the institution of marriage, that causes us to value physical comforts as we do? A few months later, Gray came down with leukemia, and in six weeks was dead. Soon after, as I prepared for a move to Chicago, another friend was invited to dinner at the "dream house," and happened to have a video camera with her. She felt compelled to record a video tour of the house and offer me the VHS tape as a record of, I don't know what, my tenure there, my ownership, my accomplishment? The illusion of security? Since this was pre-YouTube, I have no other video record of life with my partner (with one weird exception: an embarrassing but funny lip-sync duet, in really bad drag, to the k.d. lang song "Miss Chatelaine," which for reasons of propriety will not be shown here).4. Where the Ashes Went: An Infographic Photo with embellishment by Ron Reason, 2007 
As with most folks our age, we had expressed no plans for what should happen in the "unlikely" event of our deaths. The issue was forced in the hospital over a difficult bedside discussion about "what if ..." We decided on cremation. For both of us. And the dogs. (Somehow it was all a bit easier to discuss as a package deal.)What starts off as one of life's heaviest discussions ends up a bit of a folly (as with much of American ceremony relating to death, its prelude and its aftermath). First, the "cremains" are delivered - discretely, through the garage, as family gathers for a memorial service. (With an invoice carrying this fine print: "Due to the complexities of the cremation process, we cannot guarantee that the enclosed remains will be solely of your loved one." Nice, huh?) Under duress, small portions of ash are divvied up. The bulk is held onto for a year, for formal dispersal, as discussed, in the Gulf of Mexico. A few other portions are sent off to now-amusing destinations depicted in the "infographic" (click at left to enlarge). After all this, I adhere to the Buddhists (or was it Bono?), who say we're all One as a planet, and always will be, and the only thing that matters is love in the here and now.
5. Reversal of Fortune series of four photographs on inkjet canvas, by Ron Reason, 2008 
For better or worse, fate serves up both life and death, good and bad. Let us embrace it all, learn from it, deal with it, share it, keep moving forward.6. Self-Portrait Reconsidered self-portrait, oil on canvas by Gray McGhee, 1989, with found frame 
A self-portrait, painted in your art school days, found folded, a crumpled unframed canvas among the very few things you left behind.
Like most art students, you may have found the assignment to be torture.
In any case, you'd probably be really annoyed that I was sharing it here, so many years later. (Perhaps only because, as most everyone agreed, you looked so much more distinguished after you completely lost your hair, around age 22 or 24 - long before the chemo ever had its chance!)
What can I say ... all art has its day.
7. On the Issue of Gay Marriage (I've Changed My Mind) photo/collage by Ron Reason, 2008 
In the late '90s, gay marriage wasn't quite the possibility it seems today (or reality, depending on the state you reside in). Having gone through the ultimate "till death do us part," I felt smug in my rejection of the need for gay marriage to truly unite two people together - where love exists, the person will be there for you. Till death do us part.
Years later, though, I've changed my mind, in a big way. Though we did have an estate plan, we were tripped up by a few of our arrangements. No will or power of attorney gave me the right to say what happened to his body, as I wrongly assumed. (His mom had to decide, and though she came around to the notion of cremation, but it could have been ugly.) His retirement funds were taxed, disbursed and sent to his mother automatically, since he had failed to change his beneficiary after we became committed. (In the end, it helped her more than it would have helped me, so though unplanned, I think this was his way of taking care of things.) This piece was one of the last conceptualized for this show, and sort of veers off into new territory for me. A little bit of a "fuck you" to an Uncle Sam that was more than happy to take in years of taxes, and administer a death certificate to an never married decedent with no surviving spouse.
8. Those Who Watched Over Your Final Hours ink and acrylic on masonite by Justin Santora, concept by Ron Reason, 2008 
The scene: intensive care unit, Moffitt Cancer Center, Tampa.
The final days of my partner in his battle with leukemia.
Desperation, silence, uncommunicative doctors playing God, no answers.
The quiet beeps of various monitors, the hum of the horrific air-conditioning that keeps Florida going year-round.
And the view out of two opposing windows: to one side, a pair of doves, making a nest. To the other side, wasps building a hive. True story. One scene, of a vision of comfort and loveliness; the other, a scene of fright and pain. What would you focus on? Is one right, one wrong? In a way this became my metaphor for death: you can look away, try to avoid it, but it's still a reality. In one respect it's natural, healthy, right - but society certainly doesn't teach us to think that way. It's approached mainly with fear, trepidation and ignorance. Out of this room (and some grazing of Nora's library of books on Buddhism) arose for me a healthier way of thinking about, and moving beyond, death.
9. What In The World Will The World Bring Today? family photo, circa 1961; lyrics by Jane Siberry 
This photo was taken of Gray at the beach (in North Carolina?) I suppose not too long after he was born in 1961. When I began conceptualizing this unusual show earlier this year, the image was a bit of a starting point. I wasn't quite sure how I might use it, maybe just in the promotions or something (it's sort of askew here, photographed hastily while still in a frame). Who isn't drawn to a photo of a smiling kid?
As with much of the show, serendipity brought words and visuals together. With this image rattling around my head, I happened to discover a new (old) song as it was performed live by k.d. lang in concert, in Clearwater. The song is "The Valley," by Jane Siberry. The performance was a knockout, and I couldn't stop thinking of the lyrics in reference to my processing of the last 10 years. At various points, I borrowed a line here, a line there, for the title of this piece or even of the whole show. Like life, depending on how you look at it, the song is a little piece of heaven, or a big bag of downers. Probably better to hear it, but as written, what lines jump out at you? "The Valley" by Jane Siberry I live in the hills,Thus I wrap up "10 years of magical thinking." I have walked in good company, Gray did and I hope you are, too. Thanks to Gray for remaining a source of strength and inspiration, and Jane Siberry, Justin and Gretel, Alice Redona, and pretty much everyone who has been along for the journey ... Return to top. Return to gallery home page. |
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The gallery showing of "10 Years of Magical Thinking" debuts July 11, 2008, marking, to the weekend, the 10th anniversary of the death of my partner, Gray McGhee, from acute leukemia. It's worth noting that I consider this a memoir about, and commentary on, life, not death. Against expectations, life has offered up much to celebrate since then, including recently, the creation of this experimental art space, in Chicago and online. What in the world will the world bring today? Who knows? You just gotta show up to find out. within(Reason) is at 1932 S Halsted, Fountainhead Lofts Building #408. For a map, visit this page. The exhibit can be viewed on this page, or in person by appointment through Aug. 1 by emailing ron@ArtWithinReason.com or phoning 773.562.7474. |
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