It was a summer night in 2006. I was walking down Milwaukee Avenue looking for something but not knowing what, wishing I could be a part of something. I saw a sign that read “Drawing Party” in the window of lifestyle/clothing boutique. The store was super modern. Whites and greys combined with wood accents and all clean lines. The kind of store where they only have a few clothes hanging on racks. The crowd inside the store, which I surveyed from outside through the large plate glass window, consisted of art school hipsters, very fashionable people mostly in their 20's. There was a DJ and a keg of beer. My desire to go inside was stoked by the fact that I long for acceptance from Artists. I see them as creative and successful and I want to be one of them, to be included. I want to earn my living by my creativity and go to cool parties and dress well.
I was too shy to go in so I went to a bar nearby and had a beer. This was the easy way out since the bar offered the appearance of social activity without any risk. I had only to sit and drink a beer and I was included. The bar was a safe place where I could feel at ease and not worry about the critical gaze of others. And since I was planning to go to a party after I had my beer, I was a person with something to do, places to go, unlike the other losers nursing beers at the bar. After about an hour I came back to the store ready to try to socialize with people who I found deeply intimidating, people who from my point of view had everything I wanted. The first thing I did was have a beer from the keg. The beer was served in plastic picnic cups by a guy wearing a trucker cap. Beer in hand I milled around the store looking at the clothes, the objects for sale, the people but not talking with anyone and not really “joining in”. I wanted to give off a vibe of belonging without actually engaging directly with anyone who might reject me or call into question the being there. The items on display... I pretended to be interested in by running my fingers over them and looking closely at them but I was acting interested in order to maintain an anonymous distance. I stood outside smoking a cigarette looking in the big plate glass window at the people inside wanting to be an insider with the group. After I finished my cigarette I went back inside and everyone was sitting around small tables making drawings/art. I sat at an empty table with a sheet of paper and a ball point pen trying to draw. But I cannot draw, so I ended up writing “Drawing is drawing inferences” in cursive, thinking that this would be a conceptual meta-engagement with the idea of “The Drawing Party”. At the farthest point back in the store there was a large blank white wall. Some artists had already pinned their drawings to the wall. Each drawing so pinned had a number pinned next to it. I asked a woman who seemed to be in charge of handing out the pins and numbers if I could get a number and pin my drawing to the wall. She said that I should have gotten my number by enail and asked me what my number was. I told her that I never got any email. She said “Then you were NOT invited?” I said that no I was not invited but that I had come into the store because I saw the sign. She said that if I wasn't invited then I could not hang my picture on the wall. I left and threw my picture in the trash in a dumpster near the store. https://spreadsheets.google.com/viewform?hl=en&formkey=cFFxLXY2Z202RXNVSzNtWXU1ZDlkUVE6MA..
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