“River of Gold” Calligraphy by Gordon Barnett
Artist Don Paulson was Mr. Gay History Seattle, but he was more than that. His curiosity was insatiable, and he recorded his life and others’ in paintings, drawings, books, letters and archives now housed at the University of Washington and the Museum of History and Industry.
Paulson penned the Seattle Gay History Column for Seattle Gay News for many years, chronicling gay life mostly through interviews with people who frequented such queer locales as the Garden of Allah (1947-1957), South End Steam Baths (1892-1998), and the Double Header bar in Pioneer Square.
A contributor to the Northwest Lesbian & Gay History Museum Project, he interviewed iconic drag queens and helped assemble maps and resources so LGBTQ people would not forget their roots. He had his own gay feelings at 9 or 10, and devoted his life to social justice and equality, as a participant in such organizations as the revolutionary feminist Freedom Socialists and Black & White Men Together.
Born in Seattle and schooled in Auburn, Don Paulson was a lifelong painter and artist. He lived in New York and hung out at Andy Warhol’s Factory in the 1960s, but returned to the nature, weather, and imagery of the Northwest. In 1967, he organized the “Lux Sit” Light Show Co. and did 150 light shows for rock bands including the Grateful Dead, Jefferson Airplane, Pink Floyd, Chicago, Big Brother, and the Holding Company, and Country Joe and the Fish. His light show equipment is now in the collection of MoPOP, the Museum of Pop Culture in Seattle.
His artwork, often depicting Northwest nature and people, is in the collections of the Seattle Art Museum, Anchorage Art Museum, Nordic Heritage Museum, City of Seattle and many corporate and private collections. An exhibit of his art is planned for January 2020 at the Snapdragon Café and Black Cat Cabaret on Vashon.
His book An Evening at the Garden of Allah: A Gay Cabaret, co-authored with Roger Simpson, was published in 1996 by Columbia University Press.
Quiet and unassuming, Paulson nonetheless made an impact on his beloved Vashon Island. He contributed oral history interviews to the collection of the Vashon Heritage Museum on “Those Damn Hippies,” who moved en masse to the previously conservative island in the 1960s and were partly responsible for the Island’s largely liberal culture today.
This post was written by Stephen Silha and appeared in the Seattle Gay News.