Gabe Flores in the Arts: A Five Year Project
August 2009 - August 2014
August 2009 - August 2014
In September 2004, I had a psychotic break where I could hear voices, feel involuntary electrical pulses throughout my body, see transparent figures in the distance, and blue light figures when I closed my eyes. I counted 110 distinct voices, all of whom I had met except for three. The voices were family, friends, professors, co-workers, and a lot of folks who I knew growing-up in McMinnville, Oregon as a Jehovah’s Witness. The onset was fairly gradual beginning with two characters. Over the course of a year they slowly became more of a faint whisper. The narrative began fairly congratulatory showing me what my life was like in the future, but after a couple of months they turned negative and began to focus on flaws.
The feeling I began to have at that time was my life was in virtual reality. I thought my body was somewhere in the future hooked up to a machine participating in some sort of experience that was common for the time. I felt that in about 40 or more years it would be possible for a person to relive a part of their life and could play a game with oneself while doing it. The narrative of the experience focused on my older self playing a “Wouldn’t it be funny” on my current self, but through a virtual experience. Throughout, it always had the feeling of a game, with various rules, limitations, and plays.
When I had this experience, my life felt like I was starting to find a direction that fit. I was a student at Portland State University majoring in Sociology, History, Political Science, and Psychology. I was planning on applying to graduate programs in Sociology the next year. Outside of school, I was active in volunteering, gardening, working on my house and just enjoying being 29.
The feeling I began to have at that time was my life was in virtual reality. I thought my body was somewhere in the future hooked up to a machine participating in some sort of experience that was common for the time. I felt that in about 40 or more years it would be possible for a person to relive a part of their life and could play a game with oneself while doing it. The narrative of the experience focused on my older self playing a “Wouldn’t it be funny” on my current self, but through a virtual experience. Throughout, it always had the feeling of a game, with various rules, limitations, and plays.
When I had this experience, my life felt like I was starting to find a direction that fit. I was a student at Portland State University majoring in Sociology, History, Political Science, and Psychology. I was planning on applying to graduate programs in Sociology the next year. Outside of school, I was active in volunteering, gardening, working on my house and just enjoying being 29.
Gabe Flores in the Arts: A Five Year Project
In June 2009, I was invited to be an artist at the Manor of Art, curated by Chris Haberman and John Graeter, where artists were utilizing a former 100 plus room elder care facility. The curators were willing to let me take a couple weeks to think it over. During my decision making time I developed the structure for Gabe Flores in the Arts: A Five Year Project.
After five years of trying and failing, I needed to find a new way to convince myself to pursue a direction. Gabe Flores in the Arts: A Five Year Project was a way of acknowledging the previous five years full of struggle, personal disappointments, and a lack of drive.
I constructed a couple of overarching rules for the project:
I had to treat the arts like a 40-hour a week job either attending or making.
I wasn’t allowed to read anything academic or art history related for the first four years.
I had been struggling with reading since the onset of hearing voices and felt by taking it off my plate I could resolve the guilt I'd been feeling from avoiding reading. Additionally, limiting my reading would give me the opportunity to test a couple of basic ideas about how I define art.
Art Definitions:
1. Art is the balance of aesthetic and concept.
2. Anything a person makes is the product of a unique narrative, so anything a person makes is the first time it’s ever been made.
These basic definitions gave me permission to explore any type of expression without the apprehension of not knowing enough.
Some of my initial goals were:
To say yes to any opportunities that came my way for the first year.
To show regularly.
To build new relationships over the course of the project.
Additionally, I wanted to test a three-part methodology broken into three month sections in how to jumpstart participation in the arts and how to build relationships with galleries and community members within a nine-month period.
The overarching rules for attending were as follows:
I couldn’t bring up any of my own upcoming projects unless asked.
I needed to offer a thoughtful question concerning the work when in attendance.
While in conversation with other attendees, I needed to ask extensive questions about their projects.
For the first three months, I would need to attend as many openings and other art related events as possible.
For the second three months, I could reduce the number of spaces I attended in order to focus on where similar artists to myself might be showing.
For the final three months, I could reduce the number of spaces I attended to include only where I felt the most welcome.
Gabe Flores in the Arts was a way to hopefully get my confidence back. I needed to prove to myself that even if I had a tremendously difficult prior five years that I could give myself another five to mirror it. I imagined my older self comparing with his friends their virtual experiences and how happy he would be to tell them a story where he was crushed in the virtual world for five years and then being able to tell his friends how amazing the next five years were, full of new people, places, and experiences. I was trying to respond to the type of story I would have liked to give myself if I had willingly played a trick on myself in a virtual world.
Framing it as a five year project or a job gave me the permission to fail, but also required me to get back up because now I was on the clock. Gabe Flores in the Arts lasted from August 2009 to August 2014 and all participation within that period was a part of the project.
In June 2009, I was invited to be an artist at the Manor of Art, curated by Chris Haberman and John Graeter, where artists were utilizing a former 100 plus room elder care facility. The curators were willing to let me take a couple weeks to think it over. During my decision making time I developed the structure for Gabe Flores in the Arts: A Five Year Project.
After five years of trying and failing, I needed to find a new way to convince myself to pursue a direction. Gabe Flores in the Arts: A Five Year Project was a way of acknowledging the previous five years full of struggle, personal disappointments, and a lack of drive.
I constructed a couple of overarching rules for the project:
I had to treat the arts like a 40-hour a week job either attending or making.
I wasn’t allowed to read anything academic or art history related for the first four years.
I had been struggling with reading since the onset of hearing voices and felt by taking it off my plate I could resolve the guilt I'd been feeling from avoiding reading. Additionally, limiting my reading would give me the opportunity to test a couple of basic ideas about how I define art.
Art Definitions:
1. Art is the balance of aesthetic and concept.
2. Anything a person makes is the product of a unique narrative, so anything a person makes is the first time it’s ever been made.
These basic definitions gave me permission to explore any type of expression without the apprehension of not knowing enough.
Some of my initial goals were:
To say yes to any opportunities that came my way for the first year.
To show regularly.
To build new relationships over the course of the project.
Additionally, I wanted to test a three-part methodology broken into three month sections in how to jumpstart participation in the arts and how to build relationships with galleries and community members within a nine-month period.
The overarching rules for attending were as follows:
I couldn’t bring up any of my own upcoming projects unless asked.
I needed to offer a thoughtful question concerning the work when in attendance.
While in conversation with other attendees, I needed to ask extensive questions about their projects.
For the first three months, I would need to attend as many openings and other art related events as possible.
For the second three months, I could reduce the number of spaces I attended in order to focus on where similar artists to myself might be showing.
For the final three months, I could reduce the number of spaces I attended to include only where I felt the most welcome.
Gabe Flores in the Arts was a way to hopefully get my confidence back. I needed to prove to myself that even if I had a tremendously difficult prior five years that I could give myself another five to mirror it. I imagined my older self comparing with his friends their virtual experiences and how happy he would be to tell them a story where he was crushed in the virtual world for five years and then being able to tell his friends how amazing the next five years were, full of new people, places, and experiences. I was trying to respond to the type of story I would have liked to give myself if I had willingly played a trick on myself in a virtual world.
Framing it as a five year project or a job gave me the permission to fail, but also required me to get back up because now I was on the clock. Gabe Flores in the Arts lasted from August 2009 to August 2014 and all participation within that period was a part of the project.
Michael Reinsch’s A High Improbability of Death: A Celebration of Suicide
Before Place ended in March of 2014, I witnessed Michael Reinsch’s, A High Improbability of Death: A Celebration of Suicide. The work had a performative component for the February opening where Michael read a poem culled from notes left from those who used suicide and succeeded. At the end of the performance he jumped from a chair with a noose held up by colorful balloons. Hearing him read the notes got me to wonder how long I would be able to handle believing I’m in a virtual experience and feeling like no one shares in my story. If I didn’t want to commit suicide, then I would need to find another way to believe. What he gave me was a tool to start doubting. Works like Michael’s are why I’m drawn to the arts. I loved how he made the piece a celebration with colorful balloons and vibrant collages, which were hanging behind him. Since it’s one of the most difficult internal conversations, he made it safe for us to enter. I love how artists are willing to go deep inside themselves to find a piece of their struggle, allowing others to not feel so alone.
In order to test my belief in a virtual word, I had to remember back to when I could still hear voices and wonder why I believed it was more than just a hallucination. Going back I found the voices never gave me accurate information and they could only give me a flat version of the people I knew. Also, I began to wonder the range of interaction I had with the various characters and found that those I knew when I was still a Jehovah’s Witness were the most unkind. When I was 20 I was disfellowshipped, which is the Jehovah’s Witnesses version of excommunication. I was seeing a fellow Witness and because homosexuality is viewed as highly immoral, we were both kicked out. With the help of considerable therapy, I began to view my psychotic break as a reliving of that traumatic time. In my twenties, I didn’t want to face what it meant to be disowned by a community.
No longer a virtual experience
Gabe Flores in the Arts was very much a relational project, but it was with my older self in that virtual state to give him a story he would enjoy telling. Since I didn’t believe my current existence was real, the audience for the project was myself in the future. It wasn’t a trick on the community I’ve been a part of for the last 6 plus years. I’ve been surrounded by such thoughtful, curious, engaged, and challenging artists who have helped me create the new experience I wanted to give to my older self. Now that I don’t believe I’m in a virtual experience, I’m extremely thankful for my community’s patience and kindness, especially when I wasn’t doing as well. The most precious gift I received from Gabe Flores in the Arts is knowing other people get to carry my story with them.
I often wonder about the relatability of Gabe Flores in the Arts because it’s such a surreal narrative, but we all want to tell a really good story about the people we’ve met, our unexpected experiences, and moments where we surprised ourselves. The nice thing about our stories is that they’re continually moving, which gives us the permission to venture in a new direction whenever we need to, in order to get back to a story we’d much rather be telling.