Behind Closed Doors of What's Love 5

WHAT'S LOVE GOT TO DO WITH IT?
Well, I guess we never get tired of exploring love and sex.
This year's What's Love 5; Behind Closed Doors had its fits and starts but I'd have to say turned out to be the best yet from my view.
What started out as a whim a few years ago with a couple of artist friends has now turned into an incredible event of exploring and celebrating love and sex on Valentines.

Finding and involving new artists every year is the fun part.
Putting it all together is the challenge.
When you have a team of passionate, creative and freakin crazy people it makes for an interesting experience.
Working with over 20 artists....It is a fine and sacred dance to pull this off.
We wanted to raise the level of art exhibited this year so we hand picked artists from a list that many people contributed to.
Lyon Hill first came to mind as well as Micheala Pillar Brown and Dre and Sammy Lopez
Billy Guest was a definite returning talent along with Molly Harrell and Shannon Purvis

This year I met Dre and Sammy Lopez of Piensa Art Company, researched their work and knew they would be awesome in the show.
We asked Dre to come up with the art for the public relations and although his work pushes the comfort edge for me sometimes - that's what we wanted. His work seems to always display a certain amount of violence that I find disturbing yet intriguing.
His design for the event plays off of a Norman Rockwell type scenario with a twist.

We asked him to remove the blood from the man's lip to pull back a little....which he did.
I never heard a negative comment about the illustration but I'm sure it provoked some viewers in a way What's Love never had previously. Regardless - we thought it was pretty cool.

Over several months we worked with the artists on new ideas, logistics and process.

The installations again this year proved to be real crowd pleasers.

Body Rites created a beautiful installation in which a previous favorite, What's Love artist Shannon Purvis received a lovely new pin up on her thigh from Sketch.

I actually purchased one of Franklin McKenzies drawings - one of my favorites - Deviled Eggs.

Billy Guess came up with the idea of creating silhouettes to cover the windows and several people including Sammy Lopez, Lyon and Nicoli jumped in to create designs and cut them out.

I became really excited when Micheala Pillar Brown began discussing her installation that would include some nudes of not your conventional "sexy' types. A woman in her eighties, a woman that was pretty large and some photos that make statements about gay black men and the church and either white women that go for black men or black men that go after white women....

My favorite "Troopers Marching Towards Johnson" was sort of a personal whack up the side my head. The blond barbie clenched in the teeth of the nude supine black man with toy soldiers battling south was a reality check of perhaps how some black women feel towards white women with black men....

Course that is just my reaction and interpretation of the image. It could be more of a statement of black men somehow succumbing to or maybe even conquering, manipulating... white women, a practice that I suppose has only been accepted in the past few decades? Regardless - I think her work is amazing and appreciate the bold statements she made.
In the past I've experienced first hand black women's disdain of me being with a black guy. It does not however prevent me from making natural and normal connections with men of any color, race or ethnicity. If loving you is wrong - I don't wanna be right kind of thing.

Behind Closed Doors.
Billy Guess returned with his doors and collaborated with Molly Harrell to create an installation that proved to be a popular photo op.


Amanda Ladymon and crew created a VERY LARGE vagina......

Christian Thee painted erotic and provocative male nudes.
Jenna Sach had beautiful black and white photos AND we proclaimed her MVP of the event. She totally jumped in and worked tirelessly to help with set up.

Eye Candy, an animated film by returning artist Betsy Newman welcomed guests into the space while Claude Buckley brought his humor and lovely drawings enriching a wall from toe to ceiling. (no apologies Claude!)

Bohumila created stunning dresses of copper wiring and other materials worn by equally stunning models.

Whitney Lejune brought in a last minute piece that we all adored and wanted to take home with us and Nikolai presented a colorful palette of paintings that finished out the big wall.

Incredible cut outs created by Lyon Hill became the backdrop for the stage.
Mathew John's images filled the back wall with a sexy twosome.
Sammy Lopez collaborated with R. Chambers LeHeup to create a painting duo that made you go - awwwwe when you read the prose and gazed at the images. It brought a real sweet yet melancholy presence to the show.
I met with Dre Lopez about his piece over a drink one night and when he described it as a woman that was abused - I thought - ok - this should be interesting. He is a tremendous and talented illustrator and I was awed by his drawing. His work gave me chills not always in a good way but the message struck a chord while the details in his drawing were elegant and perfect.

Patrick and Sarah showed their film Merry Go Round upstairs and Shane Silman's one act plays Men Seeking Women had standing room only audiences.
Sherade Duvall presented a film and although I shot and edited a piece as well I didn't have time to finish it and it did not show.

Unbound returned this year with a big burlesque number and TribeSk knocked it out of the park with their acrobatic and crowd pleasing moves.

Perfect music was spun by Chris Wenner that had the night ending in a dance party where everyone was smiling.

This years event's proceeds went to The Nickelodeon Theatre's capitol campaign and we were THRILLED to partner with them. They were fun to work with and were very appreciative of the work our team did on their behalf.

I don't know what love has to do with it except that I truly loved working with all these peeps...all the volunteers and especially:
Whitney, Rachel, Molly, Billy and thanks to Tom Chinn at 701 for all his support!

LA in NY and the City

Main Street - Mamaroneck, NY

Went to visit sister Lori and Pete at their new home in Mamaroneck, NY. They moved up a few months ago for Pete's work at Hitachi Metals. They bought a "butt ugly" home in this little harbor town and we were all kind of scratching our heads at their descriptions of how awful the house was.
The Butt Ugly House.... and look at their nasty expressions.
They are working on making it not so butt ugly and making good progress with some big bumps though - gas leaks and such....but once you are there and see the location and quality of life it becomes very clear why they made this choice. They've fixed up several rooms and made it a very comfortable, cool and cozy home. Course they haven't been through a winter yet!

Pete works in a beautiful building in White Plains and has a mack daddy office!
Lori just got a killer job at Sotheby's Institute of Art with an office right smack in the middle of midtown Manhattan. She works with great people and for a stellar organization.
The original RCA building is herald as one of the most beautiful art deco buildings in the city.

More on the Building

Lori's attitude about life has changed greatly as you can imagine...(notice the smile on her face)
She commutes each morning by taking a short walk to the train station and then a 30 minute very pleasant ride into Grand Central where she walks a few blocks to her office.
The park with the train station just ahead.
Mamaroneck is quintessential Americana with a lively Main Street complete with a fresh Italian pasta store, meat market, cookie bakery, restaurants, barber and other ethnic specialty stores.



It is topped off by the most lovely harbor and park. All within about a 15 minute walk from their butt ugly house.


On our first walk to the house from the train station I was a little worried that we appeared to be in the hood with the ethnicity looking entirely Hispanic and several gatherings of young men wearing hoodys....
but then it quickly felt like just another neighborhood with families and elders, churches and markets with their doors open, people shopping, smiling and living.
On our walk into town we ran into their next door neighbors, a sweet Italian couple.


One of the highlights was going into the city Saturday night to see the Broadway show Fela!,
a musical about Nigerian, Fela Kuti. It won several Tony awards and is a very hot show these days. Blew me away. West African meets pop meets Jazz meets funk! LOVED IT! The drumming and dancing felt authentic and it caught me up for sure.


Just before we left to go to the show Lori and I were looking at the cast info and I saw the name Ismeal Kouyate which is a common West African name and the name of my dance teacher that I took lessons from in Conakry, Guinea as well as a featured artist in my doc
Boloba. He is the one singing in the open of this excerpt.
We called him Bonfise when I was in Africa.
Sure enough his picture was in there and I was very excited to see that he had a pretty major dance role in the show!
The show was awesome and even though we were up in the mezzanine I could spot him right away. Loved the show, the drumming, music and dancing - the visuals of scenes being projected. I was determined to say hello to Bonfise after the show not knowing if he'd remember me.
I asked an usher what was the best way to say hello to a cast member and she told me where the stage door exit was and that I should tell the doorman there and he would tell him. Went to the stage door - nobody was there then a guy came out and I told him I wanted to say hello to Ismeal and he said "What's your name?" and I told him "Fanta Dumbiya", my African name. When you go to Africa - the Africans will usually give you an African name. He said to wait there and he would go see. After a couple of minutes two men walked in the stage door and I thought - what the hell and just followed them in and climbed a few stairs where some cast members with chatting. I asked about Ismeal and they said he was probably on the 6th floor. They did not share my enthusiasm of the moment and looked annoyed that I was there.
I was an intruder.
I was about to climb the stairs and the door manager along with a security guard came through the door and said "mam, you are not suppose to be here you need to come with me!" and the door manager said "I told you to wait outside" they were pissed. I said "I'm really sorry - so sorry - of course - I'm leaving" and he escorted me out and said "now you are gonna have to wait behind the barricade." So I slink out and Lori, Peter, Ted and Deborah are standing there laughing at me and I'm telling em what happened and I'm feeling pretty stupid then somebody said " Is that him?" I turned and saw his smiling face and ran up and gave him a big hug and said "Bonfise! How are you! do you remember me?" He said "Yes! Fanta! Fanta Dumbiya!" and we chatted about old times and friends, exchanged numbers...It was sweet. He's called me a couple of times and wants to come to SC - do some dance classes.
I knew when I met him in 2002ish that he was phenomenal and could really go places with the right opportunities. He left Guinea at the right time I guess. So glad to see he is working and in one of the hottest shows on Broadway!

Hootie Tribute

Great time at the Hootie tribute in 5 Points.
Oh Look the mayor IS talking to the media!

The artist and the boys in the band.

Darryl Izzard, Benedict's choir director and Les Hall rehearse before presentation.

Harriott and Tommy in the VIP reception.




Travis after a hard day's work.

I had a blast working for Merritt and the 5-Points Merchants for this event. Having an all access pass got me in the right spots for a behind the scenes and a front row look at this very entertaining evening!