Thursday morning I had to get up bright and early to run my “Fly Your Freak Flag High” (FYFFH) workshop, which started at 9am. (I almost never have to set an alarm on playa, but this was one of those times.) Mom had agreed to help me run the workshop, so she and I grabbed my box of flags and the box of newspapers and sharpies and made it out to the Pink Lounge right before 9. There was actually one eager soul already waiting there for us, but otherwise all was sleepy and early morning-vibe. I roped in a few more people who were hanging around the lounge, and got everyone started coloring. Then I took some blank flags and wandered around trying to convince other people to come play with us. I gave a few flags to the Pinkies working the water bar so they could recruit people who came for water (and do their own flags if they wanted). I realized this year it worked best to invite people to “come color with us” as opposed to “would you like to make a flag/make some art with us”. I think that’s because with the new popularity of adult coloring books and coloring as a meditative/relaxing activity, people were more interested in coming to chill out and color on something while chatting with others than perhaps they were interested in a specific workshop/art-making experience about figuring out what kind of freak they were and displaying that publically. Which is not to say that we didn’t do both (in fact I think the “come color” concept was a good Trojan horse way to ease people in to the fuller experience of thinking about their identities), but the “chill and color” concept seemed to be especially attractive in the early morning (probably would be during the hot afternoon siesta hours as well).
Another thing I noticed about the FYFFH workshop this year was that we had many fewer people participating this year (probably only about 20 folks over the course of the two hours), but they were all really into the activity. Many who did participate took it really seriously and spent quite a bit of time making their flags. I had one woman tell me how making her flag really helped her clarify and bring into focus some of the big epiphanies about her burn, and she really appreciated having a way to create a physical memento to remind her of them. Cool! With so relatively few people to manage, I had more time to connect and hear people’s stories about their flags and what they put on them, and really give people the gift of being seen and heard. (I especially enjoyed chatting with a young man from Boston who gave me enthusiastic recommendations about “livetronica” bands from Philly to listen to after I asked him about the logo he’d put on his flag.) My friend Ron came by during the workshop and made a flag and we got to catch up a bit, which was great, and my new artist friend and camp-mate Deron came and made a flag too.
Around 11am people were starting to gather for Halcyon’s Hug Nation talk and the Pink Ride (which meant our Pink Lounge was getting crowded), so I gathered up the coloring supplies and the box of flags and put them away and went to go get all pinked up for the Pink Ride. There were a bunch of Pinkies hanging around in the back of camp while Halcyon was talking, waiting for the Pink Ride to start. It turned into a mini-Meats and Cheeses farewell party over at Rod and Sarah’s shade patio, since they were going to be leaving the burn later that day. Eventually Josh and I went out front to get our bikes ready to roll and check in on what was happening with Halcyon’s talk, and I discovered Anjanette out past the Dream Swing flying a kite in the increasingly windy (and dusty) weather. She was having a happy time with her kite and decided not to come on the Pink Ride. Eventually the pink masses gathered and rolled out on the Pink Ride, following Halcyon and yelling “I love you!” and various compliments to people we passed as we cycled by. (People almost always yelled “I love you!” back.) The Pink Ride went a different route this year (I think because we were closer to Center Camp this year and Halcyon wanted to extend the ride a little). We rode out to the Man plaza and then down the 6:00 spoke to Center Camp, and circled the “Inside the Mind of Da Vinci” sculpture on the way. While we were all standing around in the big circle outside Center Camp waiting to go inside, I gave away the rest of the 40 or 50 pink heart bubble-wand necklaces I’d made (I’d given some to campmates earlier). Then we all held hands and spiraled in to Center Camp in a massive pink swirl and had a big “love you!” hug-fest with everyone.
After the hug-fest broke up, Josh and I decided to linger a while at Center Camp. I wanted to check out the stage there where I would be performing later that evening, plus I’d been promising myself a cup of iced coffee. (I’d been mostly off caffeine since my chemo treatments started back in January, and this was my ritual welcoming it back.) It was, as hoped, just as delicious as always and I talked really fast for a little while but otherwise didn’t feel particularly jittery or anything. We sipped and scoped out the scene for a little while and then decided to go on a mini-art adventure on the way back to camp. So we headed back up the 6:00 spoke towards the Man again, with the intention of spending some time at the interactive workshop area around it. On the way we detoured to check out two amazing giant gorilla sculptures (official name was apparently “Seeing Humanity for What It Really Is”) made of cardboard over wooden frames, and met the artist there who was making some repairs to one of the gorillas. We also got a chance to stop and appreciate more fully the “Inside the Mind of Da Vinci” sculpture and meet the artist Mischell, whom I had recently friended on Facebook after seeing an interview Halcyon did with her when he was at the Generator in Reno. I really admired that particular art piece and how beautifully it was sculpted. Josh and I did the typical Burning Man thing of climbing on it, and took a few pictures, and then we biked out to the Man plaza to see what was going on there.
Josh had been really eager to check out the blacksmith/metal-working workshops in the plaza, but they were either closed or way too crowded while we were there so we kept looking around instead. We got sucked in to a brief activity where people put on togas and arranged themselves around a backdrop that looked like the Last Supper and took pictures, and we stood in line (and chatted with people) for a bit to make leather-stamped pendants. There were other things to make but Josh didn’t want to get too deeply involved in anything so we mostly just looked around at what was there. It was also getting pretty dust-stormy (which is typical for midafternoon) so we eventually just gave up and decided to bike home. We stopped on the way at the porta-potties because Josh had to use them, but I didn’t so I went over to the nearest big art sculpture, the giant Medusa head. While I was sitting there waiting for him a big whiteout dust storm blew through—I could barely see the giant sculpture in front of me and for sure couldn’t see the porta-potties beyond that. I had a brief anxiety that Josh wouldn’t be able to find me after he came out of the potties, but as it turned out the whiteout eased pretty quickly and it wasn’t a problem. Still, we were pretty dusty when we got back to camp, so I decided to change before going back to Center Camp for my handpan jam.
I had to go over to Center Camp a little early and check in before my scheduled stage time, and Josh and a few other Pinkies came with me (Ali and Keith, Anthony and Kathy, Mom, I’m probably forgetting others). I was pretty nervous, having never played handpan on a stage with microphones and an actual audience, but everyone at the backstage was very nice and helpful and made me feel respected as a performer. Josh was with me backstage for a while but then he went back out front to get a good spot to watch and take video from. No other players showed up to jam with me (which I had mostly expected), so it was just me up on stage, at least for the first few songs. I hadn’t really prepared any specific songs or set list, so it was really just me improvising and playing whatever came into my head. (The only problem with the spontaneous improv method was that I felt like I was being too repetitive/not diverse enough in my rhythms so that everything I was playing sounded similar and by the end of the half hour I started to run out of new ideas/things to play—next time I do this I’ll prepare a bit better and at least make sure to have some variation in my seed rhythms or something.) After the first few improv pieces I did alone, Ali came up on stage to sing with me, and we improvised several pieces together. That was really fun—she mostly sang wordless hums and trills but for the last piece she started to put some words in to what she was singing and I really liked the way that we sounded together. (It reminded me of some of the jams in the Integratron at Pantasia.) There was just enough audience that I felt appreciated but not overwhelmed, and I did hear some nice comments like “beautiful!” or “so pretty” from the audience (even the ones that were not my campmates). So overall it was a very positive experience and I’m proud and glad that I did it. (And I want to do it again!)
After my official stage time was over, Josh and I were wandering slowly out of Center Camp and chatting with one of the people who’d been at the concert. He wanted to try the handpan, so we stopped at one of the benches and I let him play, and we had a nice little interaction there for a bit. We told him we were heading back over to Pink Heart and he told us a story about a negative experience he’d had there with our campmate Deron, who had apparently mocked his headpiece (he was wearing a goofy, colorful, little mini-hat/fascinator thing). We were surprised to hear about that and tried to make him feel better about it, without much success. (We heard another side of the story later on from Deron, and I think the whole thing just proves that we often hear what we want to hear and that some people are very sensitive to and have a hard time letting go of perceived offense or ridicule).
Thursday evening Josh and I went out with some other Pinkies for more playa art adventures. Highlights of that particular journey were Helios (which Josh climbed on and helped activate), the Black Rock City Lighthouse Service (which we did not climb on because it was too crowded and we were too flittery and now I’m sorry we didn’t), and the Sonic Tunnel (which we did walk through and it was awesome.) We also saw a several-stories-tall sculpture with red sails that I never learned the name of that flapped and fluttered beautifully in the wind. I really was intrigued by the concept of wind art this burn. I really love the movement of fabric and wind and the playa is a perfect place to play with that (there was another very simple but pretty sculpture not far from Pink Heart which was just three large triangular flags in a row made from something white (silk?) that caught the wind really easily and rippled and snapped, and a camp near us that had a whole lot of brightly neon-colored flags and streamers all over their camp). I feel really inspired to do another big freak flag art installation either next year or the year after using fabric (as opposed to the rebar ones I made a few years ago)...stay tuned!