IN and OUT Blog

Not well known is the important role the lesbian community played during the early years of the AIDS crisis.  Women stood alongside their gay brothers, worked behind the scenes and often served as caregivers.  Islander Dana Schuerholz was one of those on the frontlines as member of ACT UP.  As a photographer, she documented first hand the anger and frustration of the activist movement as they relentlessly fought against the tide of apathy, bigotry, and inaction. Her work also vividly shows the desperation and anguish of that difficult time.  IN and OUT is pleased to be able to prominently feature these important photographs.

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“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.

Be part if this year’s Vashon Island Strawberry Festival Kazoo Marching Band

lgbtqvashon@gmail.com

IN AND OUT

On an island with a harbor
Shaped like a question mark
The letter Q inhabits
Many souls

Queer quick quiet
Questioning questioning questioning
Quack

I like that about Vashon
Unincorporated, uninhibited
Unruly uncouth
Sometimes unhinged

You need a ferry
You need a lot of faeries
To get to the heart
Of this quizzical isle

In an old Lutheran church
Across from the Fire Station
Our historical museum
Has been duly queered

Rainbows sprout from every wall
Songs adorn the windows
Gardens question grief
And gender

Who knows what secrets
Might emerge in this space
Who knows what sense
Might coalesce from this quickening?

This is a honeycomb
Of queer community
Feast on it
Learn from it
Criticize it
Let’s all work to make life better for all…

This is It…

Loud and proud, an exhibit celebrates LGBTQ life on Vashon

By Elizabeth Shepherd 

Last week, approximately 600 people came out of the closet on Vashon.

The closet in question was not an actual one, but rather, the ingeniously constructed entry point to a new exhibition, “In and Out: Being LGBTQ on Vashon,” at the Vashon Heritage Museum.

The show’s opening night on June 7 attracted an estimated 600 viewers over the course of several hours, who came to greet friends and neighbors and find out more about the history and contributions of LGBTQ (lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans, queer/questioning) people on Vashon.

The raucous and celebratory evening, held to coincide with June’s designation as Pride Month and the 50th anniversary of the Stonewall Riot, drew a slew of prominent islanders who identify as LGBTQ — a multi-age group that includes real estate agents, artists, designers, business owners, farmers and educators. Several members of Vashon High School’s largest club, the Queer Spectrum Alliance, were also on hand, as were two drag queens who performed exuberant dances, a DJ who kept music throbbing throughout the night, and museum board members, who beamed as they wove their way through the throng of attendees…

Read the rest of the article on the Vashon Beachcomber website

Let’s All Dance is a five window print & sculpture installation by Brian Fisher adoring the windows of the Heritage Museum as part of IN and OUT. 


To island painter and printmaker Brian Fisher, a song is a very personal experience, evoking the emotional poignancy or elation of defining moments in life.  The same song might also be experienced as an anthem representative of tribe, connection or even a societal movement.  

Let’s All Dance was inspired by the coming out “Anthems” and music LGBTQ friends have shared with the artist.  Many are songs speaking to the universal experience of romance.  Some are songs about family and redefining what family means.  Others are songs of loss and pain, while some celebrate personal growth and acceptance. Brian has listened to this music while planning, making collagraph plates, printing and cutting the connecting dance, as subject, figural components for each window.

“My ears, eyes, and hands throughout this creative process have been filters for the wealth and diversity of music that my friends associate with coming out and their personal journey.”

An abbreviated song list accompanies the title of each window installation.
Let’s All Dance Window Song List (Word Docx)