Street Gallery Gives Homeless Place To Create
He lifts one bare ring finger skyward, lofting it for the lush lady passing by. Will she notice?
Evidently not. In the sketch, her head is turned away, just as happens so often in Troy Curless’ homeless life. Asked his first choice in downtown shelter options, Troy, 27, is quick with his answer.
“Go to the market, buy a fish, go up to some lady’s house, pursue something romantic. That would be my favorite. Short of that I’m indifferent.”
Lately, one of the city parks is his flop of choice. “A tent would be great,” he sighs.
But at Seattle’s Street Life Gallery, opened in 1991, Curless gets a break from all that. He settles at a work table and surrounds himself with his stuff: a first aid kit, backpack, books on anatomy, probability and statistics.
In a folder is a wad of pictures carefully clipped from magazines. His sketchbook is crowded with pictures in colored pencil and poems. Curless knits verse together in tight urgent script that surges forward for one line, washes backward the next.
He spends most days here, making watercolors and drawings with colored pencil. “The future is bright. But it’s slow.”
The space is provided by Catholic Charities, the art supplies are donated. Anyone can come here and spend the day creating.
Anything goes except suggestive nudes.
On this Monday morning about a half dozen homeless people are carving, painting, and drawing. They talk to themselves, joke with each other.
A radio plays rock ‘n’ roll, the coffee pot’s on, and someone brought hot dog buns and strawberry jam for snacks.
The art, all for sale, riots on the walls. There are landscapes, animals, abstract washes of color painted on plywood. Every inch is covered, floor to ceiling.
Poetry dug with a ballpoint pen into used Styrofoam coffee cups is strung from the ceiling, the cups trailing nearly to the floor.
Readers stand, twirling them in their palms like beach stones to follow the text around the curve of the cup:
I am just another one,
I am a dirty coat,
flapping …
Down the street, Real Change has donated some of its wall space to display some of the overflow of art from the gallery.
Real Change is the city’s only newspaper sold entirely and written in part by homeless people. Any day of the week finds someone hawking the paper on a street corner for a dollar, with 75 cents of every purchase going directly to the vendor.
Started just a year ago, sales of Real Change has put about $300,000 into homeless’ people’s pockets, said Tim Harris, director of the paper.
On good days, John Musser, 44, says he can raise the $22 a night he needs for his room at a nearby hotel. Selling on a street corner near Pike Place Market, Musser finds that Jose, his Chihuahua, is an important sales tool.
A piece of rope tied around Musser’s hips blouses out his jacket to make a nest for Jose right over his belly.
“Without Jose I wouldn’t sell half the papers I do. Tell you the truth it hurts my feelings that they stop for him, then notice me. People are tired of the homeless. Sick of us.”
Lofty goal
Bored with politics as usual? Try Ellen Craswell.
Craswell, the former GOP state senator from Poulsbo, is running for governor. And she’s relying on a higher power to get there.
Craswell’s campaign goal is to get 10,000 people throughout the state praying for her election. If she wins, Craswell’s goal is to make state government reflect God’s plan.
“We need to bring man’s laws back into line with God’s laws,” Craswell told Spokane’s Christian News.
She has a devoted following among Christian conservatives statewide. But even more important than winning is glorifying God, even through the conduct of the campaign, Craswell says.
Guaranteed: That’s a stump speech and a promise you won’t hear anywhere else on the campaign trail.
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