SOUNDWAVES; THANK GAWD I'M A COUNTRY BOY.
Byline: ROB DEWALT
In February 2008, photographer and former Santa Fe resident Scott Pasfield began a 50,000-plus-mile journey by sea and air, interviewing and photographing gay men throughout the United States
for a book project he dubbed Gay America (www.scottpasfield.com).
On the Santa Fe leg of his tour, Pasfield shared stories with me about the men he had encountered along the way. I was inspired by his tales of small-town America -- places where, despite a
lingering cultural blind eye toward
discrimination and outright hate,
some gay folks seemed to be settling
in just fine.
I could relate to many of Pasfield's interview subjects who, because of their strong relationships with nature, had opted for a small-town or country gay life that is so rarely observed, portrayed, or even acknowledged by the mainstream media or other producers of pop culture who often feign acceptance and understanding of gays and lesbians. And I began to ponder the many ways in which one's identity is formed differently depending on one's environment. I wasn't thinking about concepts like religion or "tolerance" when defining environment. I was thinking more literally about trees, rivers, and mountains -- you know, wide-open spaces with very few faces, friendly or otherwise.
Performance and conceptual artist Karl Cronin examines these natural environments meticulously, using movement to create "an embodied archive of the natural world." Through field research, performances, and exhibitions, Cronin's Somatic Natural History Archive (http://naturalhistory.us) series "will document the unique properties of 10,000 U.S. plants and animals," with each species represented by a short performance piece
and, in some cases, other media. Cronin began the research for his project as an artist
in residence at the Santa Fe Art Institute in 2009. A gay man with strong roots in the
rural American West, Cronin returns to Santa Fe this weekend to perform as his alter ego: queer-identified Americana singer Sven Thompson. At 6 p.m. Friday, Aug. 27, Thompson presents a new set of melancholy, dressed-down songs about growin' up gay in the sticks at Jay Etkin Gallery in the Railyard (703 Camino de la Familia, Suite 3103, behind Warehouse 21, 983-8511). There is a reception with Cronin after the performance. At 7 p.m. Wednesday,