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William Way LGBT Community Center feat. Jake Foster · philly has heART

0:15
This is Robert Marsh, and you're listening to
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Philly Has Heart Podcast. In this podcast, we
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sit down with artists, gallerists, educators,
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curators, and other creatives who comprise the
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Philadelphia art world to discuss upcoming performances,
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exhibits, and other events and initiatives that
0:30
are not to be missed. The art scene in Philadelphia
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is so rich that it can seem daunting. Consider
0:35
this your weekend cultural recommendation. With
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me always is my producer, Lucinda Daggerland.
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Hey. And today we have Jake Foster of William
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Way LGBT Community Center, the art gallery manager.
0:48
Welcome. Hi, thank you so much for having me.
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Yes, yes. Please take us through your journey
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that brought you to the visual arts. What moments,
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both big and small, directed you to where you
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are today? I think my journey to the visual arts
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is very similar to most. You know, I think I
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was a visual person very early on. As a kid,
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I was always drawing. I was always doodling.
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I think, you know, when math and science became
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less visual as I grew up, I became a little less
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engaged with it or kind of understood it less
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and really gravitated towards the visual. By
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the time I was in high school, I had four art
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classes and it was kind of my life. I kind of
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built things around it. Was there a certain medium
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you were drawn to while you were growing up?
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Actually, no, I don't think so. I often tell
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people painting, drawing, which is true. But
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I think as a child and as a kid, I had a little
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less boundaries of what fine art was. Plato.
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Yeah, yeah. And I built my own cities with these
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kind of little blocks. And I was very into decorative
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arts a lot more than I think I was taught to
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be into it in undergrad, kind of studying art.
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I would like... redesigned my whole bedroom with
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kind of like trash materials and things from
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a mother's sewing room. Have you met Madison
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Polidoro? No. She's one of the artists at Ministry
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of All, but when you mentioned trash and discarded,
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that's what I remembered. But back to Jake Foster.
2:28
You went to Rutgers Camden for undergrad. When
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young Jake arrived on campus, did you know that
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you were going to pursue art academically? Yes.
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Yes, I did. But there's kind of lots of interesting
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things preceding that. I transferred to Rutgers
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Camden. But before that, when I graduated high
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school, I first went to college to be a pastor,
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which is really interesting. And that didn't
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work out. I don't think I've been in a church
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in decades. Over a decade since. Do you want
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to name the denomination? Yeah, I was Presbyterian
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for a while. I went to Philadelphia Biblical
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University, which is renamed to Karn University.
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It's up in Einghorn. And I don't know, I think
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I had a strong kind of calling and feeling to
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help the community. I think I was very in touch
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with like a spiritual side of myself. And I think
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that church... at that time was a way for me
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to, well, first of all, it was a way for me to
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escape a kind of toxic home life. It was also
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a way for me to find community. I was very involved
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in all the volunteer activities and all the social
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aspect of it. And after I did that one semester
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at Bible College and lost my faith and accepted
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my sexuality, I found all that in so many different
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ways. And lots of it through the queer community.
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It definitely, it took a long time to realize
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that. And yeah, so after I did Bible college,
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then I went to community college. And I went
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for art pretty much only because I had a lot
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of student loans from that one semester. And
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I couldn't pay them off right away. And I needed
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to explain to my mom and my church and everyone
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what I was doing with my life. And I fell in
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love with studying art. And it was kind of like
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accidental because, yeah, I just needed something
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to do, somewhere to go. I felt a little lost.
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So I went to Camden County Community College
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before I went to Rutgers. And they were fantastic.
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Craig Brelox runs that program, still does. Just
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runs it really well, you know, for the limited
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kind of resources that community colleges have,
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unfortunately. Such a great program and really
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set me up for all the skills that I needed to
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know. visual arts. I think I really built all
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of my foundational like technical art skills
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there. So I took a little longer to study there
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just because I had to take English comp three
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times before I passed and I was working 30 hours
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a week and also again just had discovered my
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sexuality and was like dating for the first time
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and living at home with my mother and we were
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all sharing a car, me, my sister and my mom.
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Then I ended up transferring to Rutgers. And
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by the time I transferred to Rutgers, I was very
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sure I wanted to study art and be an artist.
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And they were also a fabulous place to go for
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me and really nurtured my growth. Specifically,
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some faculty there, like Bruce Garrity. And actually,
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Bruce, he's the one that taught me how to install
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art and hang art. And, you know, I think having
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an art practice is so important for me, being
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an artist. Being an arts administrator, being
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a curator, has become more important for myself.
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And I think being a curator is just as a creative
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practice. But what I love about it is it puts
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the spotlight on other people. But yeah, Bruce
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taught me all I needed to know about hanging
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artwork and curating things and running a gallery.
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When I was a student in 2015, leading a really...
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scrappy kind of space that they called the Student
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Works Gallery back then. It had cinder block
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walls on part of it and all these windows that
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interrupted it. There was a bank that ran in
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the space and people would go to eat lunch and
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just like warm up their lasagna and it was like
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really, it always smelled like someone's leftovers.
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Who microwaved the fish? I know, yes. Exactly.
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You also study at the University of Illinois,
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Champaign, where you got your MFA in 2021. Your
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thesis is called Webcam Aesthetics. Can you tell
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us about your thesis and a hunch? Was it influenced
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by our pandemic life? Oh, absolutely. Yeah, that
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thesis project has a whole interesting story
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behind it. Basically, after I left Rutgers, I
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worked for about a year managing a gallery, and
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I had a BA in art, so I didn't have a BFA, which
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meant that it was a little less intensive in
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my art practice, but it was very good because
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I was able to do a museum studies minor and a
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business administration minor. Both of those
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really helped me. Your website does not share
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that. Yeah, that's true. Okay, that's good to
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know. I'll have someone fix that. Yeah, so I
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Kind of built my work over the course of that
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next year. I had a solo exhibition at Stockton
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University. And that work I applied to schools
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with. And I ended up applying to University of
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Illinois because it's in the Big Ten. And I was
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able to apply for free, having come from Rutgers.
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And I got in. And not only did I get in, I got
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a full ride, a scholarship, a tuition waiver.
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Yes. And of course, I think that's like something
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so important for people. without you know certain
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like economic privileges to like know about because
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going to school for art is so it is risky there's
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not a promise of making a living afterwards it
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took me years to find a full -time job and it
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was very difficult but there are places that
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will you know pay for you to go and they're fabulous
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places it's not Yale but it's really just as
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good because um I don't know, it's a little bit
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more real or down to earth to me. But yeah, I
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went to Illinois and it was quite a journey there
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too. And I discovered lots more about myself.
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I think I got plugged in more with more of a
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queer community. When I was at Rutgers and kind
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of living at home, I was just dating lots of
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gay men up until that point. And my LGBT community
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wasn't that expansive. So that was a huge learning
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experience and wonderful. And I started out as
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a painter, mostly there too. And I was doing
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lots of figurative painting of, especially erotic
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gay figurative painting. And there's a market
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for that, for sure. Like there are. It paid the
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bills. Yeah. You know, I can, well, no, it didn't.
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But, you know, some people make a living with
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it. You know, I'm thinking like. uh, Jerome Langberg.
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And, uh, I was just thinking about Mapplethorpe.
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Go on. Yeah. And yes, I was making that kind
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of work and I was trying to get traction with
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it, but it didn't feel, didn't feel very personal.
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And I started thinking in that first year of
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grad school about experiences that I had with.
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kind of digital sex work and, like, online sites
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like Chatterbait. What's Chatterbait? Yeah. Do
9:54
we need to talk about this offline? Maybe. Yeah.
9:58
Yes. I mean, you know, I don't know what your
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rating is on that, if it's PG or... No, basically
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Chatterbait is, you know, online platform where
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people... For mice. Yeah, where people... For
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mice? Oh, no, no, no. For mice. Chatter. Oh,
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my gosh. Chatter and chat. Chatter. Oh, chatterbait.
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Chatterbait. Yeah. I heard chatter. Are you hungry?
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No. I might cut this part out. Okay. You don't
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have to tell us what chatterbait is. You know,
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I was really looking into, you know, digital
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sex work and kind of ways in which people are
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making money off of webcamming erotically. And
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I was making artwork about that. But what I didn't
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know is that the COVID pandemic would happen
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and that digital sex work and also erotic webcamming
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would become a lot more important, but also be
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a way of having sexual intimacy that was COVID
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safe, that was kind of safer within the global
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pandemic. Yeah, so I started making webcam aesthetics
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throughout the pandemic, starting before, but
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using screenshots as a way to document. And at
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first I was making paintings of the figures within
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the screenshots. But then I realized that, you
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know, doing that without permission, kind of
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like using their image, didn't feel good about
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that. And what I started realizing was that I
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was really interested in how people were setting
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up their backgrounds, how people were designing
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them. It made me think of how I was designing
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my... bedroom growing up and kind of a queer
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sensibility of aesthetics and design. So I started
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watching these webcams but waiting until the
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model left so that I could capture the room as
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a document. And I think they have traces of that
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desire, traces of, you know, what makes a material
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erotic? What makes it sexual? Usually it's like
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touch, it's feel, like the soft velvet, a soft
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fur. Color can be sensual. And I started realizing
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that all of these rooms were coded in such a
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way that I really wanted to document and capture
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and celebrate. But what it ended up being was
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an archive of over a thousand photos of these
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webcam studios from around the world, places
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such as Romania, Colombia, but that had the figure
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absent in all of it. And the absence of the figure
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kind of did have a melancholy. feeling to it,
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especially during COVID. But it ended up being
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a very strong and powerful body of work, but
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one that was, because of its subject matter,
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very difficult to show and talk about with people.
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I would apply for entry -level faculty jobs and
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adjunct jobs, and they would ask me about it.
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And on one occasion, they asked me if what I
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was doing was legal. And it certainly is, but
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there's so much stigma. around these subjects.
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And I think that's why we do need to talk about
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them and understand them. And I kind of realized
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the way in which queer artwork that kind of pushes
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boundaries, not all the time faces direct censorship,
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but censorship in lots of different ways of communities
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not wanting to talk about, engage or understand
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or being afraid of engaging with the work. I
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made a photo book of this project and It took
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about three years, and I made about a couple
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dozen books. They were beautifully bound, hand
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-bound, hand -printed, hand -designed. I wrote
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the huge essay that went with it. And I only
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honestly sold about five, six books. You know,
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I strongly think that it was a project that I
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needed to do for myself because I wanted to understand
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my own history of engaging with that work when
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I was young, which was so interesting right after.
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going to Bible college and then doing this type
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of work. I wanted to understand my own history,
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but also my own implications in it and my own
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understandings and thinking through what, you
14:17
know, was the future of erotic webcamming, but
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also just technology because technology was rapidly
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changing too. Well, what I found was that actually
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lots of these spaces were designed in order to
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webcam through. They weren't someone's home.
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they weren't someone's personal space. And, you
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know, this is the same way with people that Zoom
14:36
a lot in their office. It might, you know, academics,
14:39
like, kind of positioning their bookcase right
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behind them. And, you know, it's really the same.
14:44
And it's theater. And it was the beginning of
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what ended up being an explosion of online, not
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just webcamming, but creating relationships with
14:55
online personalities through erotic spaces that,
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OnlyFans came out of and now is becoming ways
15:06
people are making a career on this. It's a plot
15:10
point in Euphoria this season, I think. Check
15:14
it out on HBO to hear you. This is not sponsored.
15:19
This could be sponsored. Looking at you, HBO.
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Pivoting to William Way LGBT Community Center,
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how would you describe it to those who are new
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to the center? I mean, before that, I don't know,
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maybe my journey to get to the center real quick,
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which I feel like was very long and also kind
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of explains a bit about the center too, because,
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you know, I wasn't just hired directly. Like
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I had experience entering that space, kind of
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meeting people and growing as a community member
15:52
there before I actually started working there.
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Yeah. When I moved back, it was 2021. COVID was
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kind of still. literally in the air still is,
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but we were still kind of really feeling the
16:04
pandemic in a certain way. And it was very hard
16:08
for me to figure out what to do next and where
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to find work. And I ended up moving back home
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with my mother. which is actually fabulous because
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very close with her. And it's such a privilege
16:19
for people to be able to live with family that
16:22
they have the opportunity to, and also that they're
16:25
in good enough relationships with their family
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too, because there are so many people that don't
16:29
have that. ability. You know, perhaps they're
16:32
no longer around or can't support them in some
16:34
way. But yeah, I moved back to South Jersey and
16:37
ended up working at Camden County College for
16:39
a little bit, managing their gallery. Then I
16:41
got a job at Rutgers and Camden managing their
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gallery. So kind of going back to these spaces
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I used to be a part of. And while I was at the
16:49
gallery at Rutgers Camden, I started exhibiting
16:51
my artwork with the William Way a little bit
16:54
in 2021. And realizing that it was such a unique
16:58
kind of space that I could show some of my artwork
17:01
that I made during grad school there and I think
17:04
it was one of the only places I did but then
17:06
I started wanting to get involved more I came
17:09
to their exhibitions openings I tried to like
17:11
network with people and I realized that they
17:14
had a call out for volunteers in their arts committee
17:16
and I was like what the heck, this sounds like
17:20
something I would love to dedicate my time towards.
17:23
And I did. And I volunteered for a year. And
17:26
then the exhibition coordinator had left. They
17:30
were working part -time. It was actually the
17:32
first staff that they had hired to manage their
17:34
exhibitions, even though they've been doing exhibitions
17:37
for about 50 years, since 1976. So when Alyssa
17:42
had left, they decided to hire a full -time exhibition
17:45
manager and really try to expand what they did.
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And I had already volunteered helping curate
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some exhibitions volunteer -wise. Happened to
17:56
be the right level of caffeinated, I think, for
17:58
my interview. Really kind of, I think, nailed
18:02
it, even though I don't sometimes. And I was
18:04
very fortunate enough to get the job. And I just,
18:07
I'm still thankful, even though there's been
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lots of up and downs, mostly with like just working
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in the arts nonprofit, LGBTQ nonprofit, all the
18:14
kinds of difficulties with that. But I still
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think. I'm thankful all the time because I think
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I may perhaps be the only full -time exhibition
18:25
manager for a queer -focused institution in Philadelphia.
18:30
And there's probably only a handful or two. It's
18:33
a really exciting place to be. But the William
18:35
Way, how would I explain it to people? We've
18:38
had our doors open for 50 years. Almost 50 years
18:41
exactly. It was April 23rd that we first opened
18:44
our doors in 1976. And we first opened with an
18:47
art exhibition. But we provide arts and culture,
18:50
which includes our library, which is the oldest
18:53
LGBTQ lending library in the country. Our art
18:56
exhibitions and also our archives, which is the
18:59
biggest collection of LGBTQ. materials in Philadelphia.
19:04
That's the John J. Wilcox Jr. Archives? Yes.
19:07
Yes, exactly. And then we also do a lot of other
19:09
things. We have our empowerment program, which
19:11
includes trans programming, women's programming,
19:14
and elder programming. And then we also have
19:17
our community connections where we try to lend
19:20
space and do collaborations with other LGBTQ
19:23
nonprofits in the area. You are the art gallery
19:27
manager at William Way. What does a typical day
19:29
look like for you? Oh my gosh, I don't have a
19:32
typical day, and I wish I did. There's so many
19:37
things that go into putting together exhibitions.
19:40
Because we're a very small team, I end up wearing
19:43
lots of different hats. And of course, this includes
19:45
contacting artists and arranging to hang their
19:48
work, hanging it myself lots of times, making
19:51
the labels, putting it on our website. I also
19:54
do the Instagram and our newsletter, our arts
19:57
newsletter. So I do lots of promotions, social
20:00
media content. I'll be painting walls one day
20:02
and writing grants to support our exhibitions
20:05
another day. I do a lot of writing and sometimes
20:08
I do research to kind of inform our exhibitions.
20:12
And I also have a fabulous team of volunteers.
20:15
We have about two dozen volunteers in our arts
20:17
committee. And they're a fabulous help, and I
20:20
wouldn't be able to do lots of what I do without
20:23
them. Sometimes they write content for our newsletter.
20:26
They do interviews with artists, or sometimes
20:29
they'll help me hang work. I had a committee
20:32
member spend an entire day with me going and
20:34
renting a U -Haul truck, driving to an artist's
20:38
house, picking up, you know, six -foot paintings,
20:41
bringing it back to the gallery. Gang fast food
20:44
in between. I mean, it's just so wonderful. It
20:48
also does take a lot of work to manage volunteers,
20:50
too. Trying to think about how to keep them engaged,
20:53
what's kind of too little or small of a project,
20:57
and what might be too big and they not have enough
20:59
context for. Yeah, I don't have a typical day.
21:02
And I kind of like that, too, sometimes. Because
21:05
I get experience doing a lot of things. This
21:07
is the first job I've had where I've written
21:10
grants. really great experience. And I've actually
21:16
gotten a number of grants to support our exhibitions.
21:19
It's really exciting when we get those. And I
21:22
would say lots of my job too is networking. And
21:25
meeting folks and talking to them, going to exhibition
21:28
openings, seeing what's out there in the community.
21:31
That's so important. You want people to go to
21:33
your exhibitions, so you need to go to other
21:35
people's. It's part of what being in the network,
21:37
being in the community is about, I think. And
21:39
I think it's become really big for me because
21:42
actually several times during my two years at
21:47
William Way, we've been closed several times,
21:49
including now. The building's closed. During
21:52
those times, I think it's a lot more important
21:54
to be out there in the community. So we've done
21:57
kind of group visits to LGBTQ -related exhibitions
22:01
in the city. We've visited, for instance, like
22:03
Mickalene Thomas' exhibition at the Barnes, exhibitions
22:06
at Magic Gardens and Fox Populi. And we've also
22:10
really increased and built our arts newsletter,
22:13
which has become a resource for LGBTQ artists
22:17
in the area. So it has long features, interviews.
22:20
It also has... like exhibition listings. And
22:23
in order to know about those, I really need to
22:26
be following lots of people, social media, and
22:30
hearing about what people do to kind of build
22:33
that list. Your next curated show, this is not
22:37
a celebration, Queer Resistance, 1976 -2026,
22:42
opens Thursday, June 11th at Huddle at 338 Brown
22:48
Street. You curated the show. Who are the participating
22:52
artists? So excited to talk about this project.
22:54
Our three artists that we're working with are
22:57
Scarlett DeLorme, Justin Jane, and Amy Cousins.
23:01
This exhibition is part of the Radical Americana
23:04
Partnership, which is organized by the Clay Studio.
23:07
And it includes, I believe, about two dozen different
23:11
organizations throughout Philadelphia. The whole
23:13
goal of it is for artists to use area archives
23:17
in research. to make craft -based works, thinking
23:22
about the nation's 250th, and specifically 1776
23:27
and the subsequent celebrations, which in our
23:31
case really focuses on the bicentennial, 1976.
23:35
There's so many fabulous materials in the archives.
23:37
So the Clay Studio originally came to us wanting
23:41
us to be a partner in this because they know
23:43
about our archives and how... We engage with
23:47
artists to make work from within our archives
23:49
inspired by those materials. And those materials
23:52
often include things like photographs of drag
23:55
queens. It could be LGBTQ publications in newspapers,
23:59
zines, documents of organizations, personal photographs
24:04
and papers. It's really a treasure trove. There
24:06
is so much in our archives that no one has ever
24:11
written about in histories. completely not on
24:15
the internet. And I just want to tell people,
24:17
kind of use those resources, get in your archives,
24:20
look for things that aren't out there and published
24:23
and written about, because those stories are
24:26
so interesting. And there's so much history,
24:29
you know, that isn't being engaged with. And
24:31
I think there's so much potential in their archives.
24:33
So when Jennifer from the Clay Studio reached
24:36
out to us, I talked with my boss, John, and we
24:39
were like, yeah, we think we have some bicentennial
24:42
stuff and some. We could probably do this. And
24:46
I didn't know just how much stuff that we had
24:49
that was relevant to this exhibition. And it
24:51
was a fabulous opportunity, and we would have
24:54
never done it if the Clay Studio hadn't organized
24:56
it. It was a fabulous opportunity to look back
25:00
and be like, wow, 1976 was really a time in which
25:04
the queer community was leveraging that moment,
25:08
the bicentennial, thinking about what it means
25:11
for the country to be 200 years old. and using
25:15
creative forms of resistance and really disrupting
25:19
things majorly in order to change things systemically
25:24
and change narratives, change perceptions, change
25:28
legislation. So some of the stories that we found
25:31
while looking through this, there was a gay rights
25:35
bill going before City Hall in 1975. It was bill...
25:41
And there was different groups of activists that
25:45
were rallying at City Hall while City Council
25:48
was meeting to support the bill. City Hall ended
25:51
up refusing to hear it and vote on it. And there
25:54
was an uproar of queer folks. And there were
25:57
two main groups that I know of offhand that were
26:00
a part of that, the Gay Activist Alliance, figures
26:03
like Mark Siegel, and also Dyke Tactics, which
26:06
is this newly formed group that... I'm just in
26:10
love with and have this amazing history that
26:13
kind of had newly formed to support of that bill.
26:17
And when they ended up not hearing the bill,
26:20
there was kind of an uproar and police ended
26:22
up throwing out all the protesters. And what
26:25
happened was several members of Dyke Tactics
26:28
were really harmed. They were... thrown down
26:31
steps, and they ended up suing City Hall for
26:34
basically police brutality. And that would be
26:37
the first time in U .S. history in which LGBTQ
26:40
folks sued a city in the U .S. So we have materials
26:44
in our archives about dike tactics, about that
26:46
whole protest, which was about 50 years ago.
26:50
And I've also been looking at other archives,
26:52
too. You know, because this is an art exhibition,
26:55
I'm not a historian. I am really interested in
26:57
visuals and images. One of the Really amazing
27:00
things that I found not in our archives, but
27:03
in the archives at Temple University, were photographs
27:06
from the Philadelphia Evening Bulletin of protesters
27:10
actually being thrown out of City Hall after
27:12
that uproar around Bill 1275. And protesters
27:17
were literally being caught in the door. There's
27:22
arms coming out of the door. And to me, that
27:31
image is so strong, you know? And I think that
27:38
queer folks, especially younger queer folks,
27:41
need to see these images. You know, that at one
27:47
point, we were literally putting our bodies in
27:53
the door of City Hall. Can I have a tissue too?
28:01
Yes. I post on. And I think there right now is
28:11
a lot of resistance and there's lots of anger.
28:17
But I don't know. I think for people of my generation,
28:21
I'm 33 and especially younger. Sometimes we don't
28:26
realize the stakes and. What it actually took
28:31
to make change. And what I really want to do
28:37
with this exhibition, which lofty goal for an
28:40
exhibition. And, you know, sometimes I think
28:43
about the limits of exhibitions and arts and
28:45
what they can do. But I really want to empower
28:48
people and I want for them to see what it really
28:51
takes. And it really is a strong fight that we
28:55
need to put up. And it's not all about following
28:57
the rules. And that's scary. Also interested
29:00
in showing more radical histories too, specifically
29:03
that of Susan Sachs as well. Susan Sachs, still
29:07
alive, is a lesbian who was studying at Brandeis
29:11
University and ended up forming with a group
29:14
of folks, this group that included ex -cons,
29:17
and they robbed banks during the Vietnam era
29:20
in order to divert funds from the U .S. They
29:23
had anti -imperial politics, and she was in the
29:28
FBI's most wanted list for about five years before
29:31
her capture in Philadelphia. I'm not saying people
29:34
should rob banks, but I want to be clear. But
29:38
I want people to know that history and that at
29:42
one point, you know, in the 70s and still folks
29:46
now, you know, people envisioning radically different
29:49
futures and making radical change happen, playing
29:53
radical actions. When she was arrested in Philadelphia,
29:58
going under the name of Val Wolf, which is very
30:00
funny, Virginia Wolf. There was a huge police
30:03
crackdown on the lesbian community and lesbian
30:06
bars. And it was really, really quite an important
30:09
moment in Philadelphia's LGBTQ history that I
30:12
don't think is talked about 50 years later much.
30:14
So the three artists that we have in this exhibition,
30:17
Justin Jane, Scarlett DeLorme and Amy Cousins.
30:20
So these three artists have made incredible work
30:23
over the last year, inspired by the materials
30:26
of these stories in the archives. Justin Jane
30:29
works in ceramics. Scarlett DeLorme has been
30:31
doing this fabulous project using wet plate collodion
30:34
photography, Victorian techniques, to photograph
30:38
queer elders. All of these queer elders are folks
30:42
that were involved in these organizations 50
30:44
years ago doing these actions. We have people
30:47
that were protesting during Bill 1275 in City
30:51
Hall. We have people that helped found the dissenter
30:54
and put our first exhibition together. We have
30:56
people that hopefully will have someone that
31:00
was a part of Dyke Tactics and someone that led
31:04
the Fourth of July Coalition, which was this.
31:07
very large protest of about 30 ,000 to 40 ,000
31:10
people that had anti -imperial politics, and
31:14
it was really coalitional. It was led mostly
31:17
by the American Indian movement and Puerto Rican
31:21
activists that were calling for Fourth of July
31:23
without colonies. And it was the first time in
31:27
U .S. history, we believe, according to Mark
31:30
Stein's new book, that LGBTQ folks were invited.
31:36
to a coalitional big protest as a part of kind
31:40
of progressive left. Anyway, I was talking about
31:43
Scarlett work and got a little derailed. But
31:46
yeah, so Scarlett's photographing some of those
31:48
people, which has been a fantastic opportunity
31:50
to meet them. And Amy Cousins, her work in the
31:53
exhibition is actually work made a decade ago,
31:55
mostly on diktatik's history. And also she has
32:00
this fabulous housing for the Lesbian Feminist
32:03
Declaration. that Dyke Tactics wrote in 1976.
32:08
It's something that you need to see. There is
32:10
leather involved. There's purple fur involved.
32:13
It's really campy and wonderful. I think we'll
32:16
make people look at the archival material, like
32:19
this actual document, in a different way. Everyone
32:22
should check out This Is Not a Celebration, Queer
32:25
Resistance, 1976 -2026. Opening Thursday, June
32:31
11th at Huddle at... 338 Brown Street. Jake,
32:36
thank you so much for your time today. This is
32:38
absolutely incredible. Where can our audience
32:40
find William Way online? So you can find us at
32:44
waygay .org. You can also find us at waygayphilly
32:48
on Instagram. And specifically, our archives,
32:51
which includes art materials and all that stuff,
32:55
is posted at waygayarchives at Instagram. Excellent.
32:59
And we'll be right back with Rapid Fire Questions.
33:03
And we're back with rapid fire questions. Favorite
33:06
restaurant or bar in the gayborhood? Oh, geez,
33:09
that's political. Okay, rapid fire. You know
33:13
what? I love Downstairs Tavern. Favorite art
33:15
fair? Favorite art fair? I don't like art fairs.
33:18
Okay. I like it, I like it. If you could collaborate
33:22
with any artist, dead or alive, who would it
33:25
be? Well, I ought to pick a dead one. Because
33:28
if I pick a live one, maybe, I don't know. Maybe
33:33
it would happen. Collaborate with an artist.
33:37
That's a good one. Okay, I'm going to pick a
33:39
living artist. I am in love with Jacoby Satterwhite's
33:43
work. I first saw his exhibition in 2020 right
33:46
before the pandemic at Fabric Workshop Museum
33:48
and stunning. Cheesesteaks with or without? With.
33:54
Without. What are you most excited about for
33:57
this Pride? Besides my exhibition, I can't say
34:00
that. You know what? I think just hanging with
34:03
my friends. I don't know where we'll end up.
34:06
You know, there's lots of things happening during
34:08
Pride. Just hanging with them and being with
34:10
community. Well, thank you, Jake, for your time
34:13
today. And everyone check out William. Thanks
34:37
for tuning in to Philly Has Art, your weekly
34:40
cultural update. Subscribe and join us next time
34:43
as we keep amplifying the artist -shaping Philadelphia
34:47
culture. Philly has art. And art.