A Stroll at the Denver Art Museum, by Phillip Hoyle

Artists sometimes open our eyes to realities and injustices the society tolerates. Friday at the art museum my granddaughters Rose and Ulzii took off on their own. I walked with my daughter-in-law Heather, one of the most intelligent and creative persons I have ever known, also one of the most open personalities I have ever spent time with. She and I have been good friends ever since the day my son Michael brought her and her three-year-old son to our house. She’s highly educated, teaches writing at college and secondary levels, and with my son has reared a quartet of unusually bright and talented youngsters: two boys, two girls.

Heather and I sat in chairs in the ‘Matisse and Friends’ gallery on the first floor of the Hamilton Building of the museum while the girls went their own way. They had become tired of Mom and Grandpa talking so intensely over the previous two days! Sitting there Heather and I discussed the art and our two days of visits and interviews at culinary schools, of bus and light rail trips around metro Denver, of meals and walks, and of her children, the boys as well as the girls whom we had accompanied the past two days.

Then I suggested we take my favorite stroll through the museum accessed by riding the elevator to the fourth floor. There we saw mostly empty walls since most of the area was being re-hung. We walked down the huge staircase beneath the impressive Calder mobile. At the foot of the stairs we turned to the installation with grey foxes cavorting in a red café. Heather was especially thrilled with this work. We walked on through the narrow north hallway and entered a gallery that usually offers some kind of audio-video experience. Although I had seen the current installation several times, Heather had not. She caught the title “Lot’s Wife” and with her deep curiosity took in the tall mannequin with white skin, white clothing, and long white hair, a figure that from her meadow-like setting gazed at a projected lakeshore. Heather read it as a depiction of Lot’s wife after she had glanced back toward Sodom, the hometown she and Lot were leaving, a glance against Yahweh’s command. In the ancient story from Genesis due to her disobedience, the wife turned into a pillar of salt, thus the white the artist selected. Then Heather noted the thick, muscular neck of the figure, then the very male profile of the face. The artist wants to push us! Oh my God! Was Lot’s wife a man? Was Lot homosexual? Was his wife transgendered or a cross-dresser? The questions piled up. The rationalizations multiplied. The objections flourished. And finally the truth of it settled on both of us. Gay folk cannot turn away from who they are even in the face of nearly universal opposition!

I know from a careful study of the ancient text and its ensuing interpretation that the story’s meaning is not anti-homosexual. It’s a story about lacking hospitality, but of course these days that sounds too wimpy. The Hebrew God demanded hospitality to strangers not rejection. That demand is at the heart of biblical story after biblical story in the Hebrew and Greek bibles. But our artist, Canadian Kent Monkman, wasn’t worried about historical interpretations. He, a Cree Indian, is concerned about the deeply embedded prejudice inherent in our culture and society that fears anything Native and homosexual, anything queer, or as Wikipedia defines it in its article on homophobia, anything LGBT! Whoa! LGB and T. Yes.

Heather ‘got it’ as my artist friend Sue would say.

Gods can often seem unfair, especially ancient Gods evaluated by post modern humans. It just doesn’t seem right that when Apollo couldn’t resist looking back at Eurydice that she then disappeared and couldn’t make the trip from Hades to be reunited with her husband. It doesn’t seem right that when Lot’s wife (of course they left out her name—which in this interpretative context seems like double trouble!) glanced backward at her hometown she was leaving to avoid its destruction that she was destroyed anyway.

The artist now seems to be telling LGBs and Ts to watch out. Don’t look back at your fears; don’t doubt the truth of your own reality; don’t get scared at what you are becoming—or you may become a pillar of salt or melt into nothing. DON’T BE AFRAID.

So my little stroll through the museum challenged me to leave my own homo fears and embrace this new life, one of possibility, challenge, and hope.

Watching Heather process the installation gave me hope for our family of young adults establishing themselves in creative work, of the ability of the supporting generations to help them, of myself to keep getting over the deeply hidden fears generated by being so truly queer.

* * * * *

Here’s my testimony!

In addition to being deeply loved by a number of men I have never been so assisted in this fearless task so much as I have by coming week after week to this SAGE storytelling group—telling my stories and hearing yours.

The process of community, sharing, paying attention, working to express exactly what I have experienced and mean conspire to keep away the fearsome temptations and to clarify just what I need to pay attention to as I continue to grow as a truly Queer, truly LGBT person.

Thanks to you.

Thanks to artists like Kent Monkman.

Thanks to a changing social scene that supports even more changes in the lives of LGBTs as Qs, and more.

© Denver, Dec 2014 

About the Author 

Phillip Hoyle lives in Denver and spends his time writing, painting, and socializing. In general he keeps busy with groups of writers and artists. Following thirty-two years in church work and fifteen in a therapeutic massage practice, he now focuses on creating beauty. He volunteers at The Center leading the SAGE program “Telling Your Story.”

He also blogs at artandmorebyphilhoyle.blogspot.com