by Eva Dameron
Daily Lobo
Homeless artists are telling their stories and secrets in a new exhibit at the South Broadway Cultural Center.
Artists used photographs as a muse to create their own works of art. They breathed liveliness into stark black and white images from the past with bright collage works and paintings.
The exhibit is a response to the photographs of Allen Madans, who took pictures of homeless people in Albuquerque in the '70s. When he died a few years ago, his friends and family donated his photographs to ArtStreet, a program that provides care and space to the homeless.
Dimitri Kadiev made especially busy and colorful collages. Before finding ArtStreet's free art studio days, he made his art in diners and fast food restaurants.
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"I've done collages at McDonald's all the way across the country, both coasts, all the way down to Florida, up to Oregon," he said. "I'd buy a cup of coffee and sit there for hours. The people who work there would ignore me, which I appreciate very much."
Program manager and artist Brenda Bunker said ArtStreet started working on the project around January, but decided on the theme a year ago when she found out it was Albuquerque's 300-year anniversary. She said the organization wanted to put on a show relating to the city's history.
"The idea of the show was using these images of homelessness from the '70s and creating a contemporary response to it," she said.
About 60 pieces are in the show. About half of the artists in the exhibit were either homeless or had been at one time.
The artists didn't know much about Madans' personal life. He moved to Albuquerque in the '70s and starting photographing homeless people in the area. Many were his drinking buddies.
ArtStreet hosted workshops on how to use beeswax and oil paint in collages. Eighty-five percent of its participants producing art are homeless.
"I have a large number of negatives that were never sorted through or catalogued," Bunker said. "We had one of the artists go through them and choose some of the images that he thought might translate well with this project."
Artist Gail Donnelly was without a home for a while.
"I used to think the homeless were all dirty drug addicts too," she said. "I was just like you."
Her husband had left, and there was no money for her and her child.
"Some of us are a paycheck away from standing in line for a hotdog," she said.
She said some people think they're above the possibility.
"If you're so perfect, you shouldn't be here," she said.
Her photograph, titled "D.O.M.," is of two homeless brothers.
"I love these guys," she said. "They're my beautiful people."
One of the men in the photograph attended the show. He called himself Leprechaun.
"I live where I want to," he said. "I was a military brat. I've been all over the world."
Artist Paul Mischuk, homeless for the past 30 years, had one of the largest pieces in the exhibit. In the mixed-media image, he used text to talk about Sodom and Gomorrah, cities referenced in the Bible as being destroyed by God for their wickedness. These cities left no place for the poor, Mischuk said.
"It's a man recovering from a cold night," he said. "I tried to make it pretty. I trimmed him in gold."
He said his mind state is reflected in his work.
"When you are uncomfortable all the time, it is easier to understand this work," he said.
Coming attraction
"Secrets revelaled
South Broadway cultural center
1025 Broadway
Weekdays 8am-6pm
Free
