Next Haven

Yesterday, my son and I went to the NXTHVN gallery space on Henry Street to see a performance by Awilda Sterling-Duprey.

We parked down the street and walked through fall leaves in the beautiful October sunshine. It was just starting when we got there and the room was full of people, all staring at Ms. Sterling-Duprey where she stood, blindfolded and dressed in a fabulous outfit of white coveralls and comfortable sneakers. She stood in front of a v-shaped black background with musicians on either side.

We watched her marking the black wall, feeling her way, and showing us how the music made its way to her bones as she moved in time with it. I forgot everything. My worries about the upcoming election, my work waiting for me to return after the performance, my obligations for the week.

I looked around the audience and saw a crowd that was just as engaged as I was.

When she finally felt finished and removed the blindfold, there was loud applause. While the band played on, she stood in front of each section of her audience, put her hands together in a praying motion, and bowed to all of us. I turned to my son and asked if he'd like to leave and he said, "Let's stay until the musicians stop." And so we did. 

I looked up Awilda Sterling-Duprey when I got home and discovered she is from San Juan, Puerto Rico and is 77 years old. One of my biggest hopes for the future is that I am still actively engaged in my art practice well into my 70s, 80s, and however long I remain on this earth and so yesterday the artist Sterling-Duprey became one of my role models.

And I hope years from now, when I remember this crazy election, the tension of these last weeks, the fear and nervousness about how people I love will be affected, that there will be a sliver of an image of Awilda Sterling-Duprey that rises to the surface of my memory. An image of a woman in white coveralls, blindly painting beneath a skylight raining down that particular autumnal glow, a wisp of a woman moving to the beat, shoulders shrugging and twitching, legs sliding with the saxophone, arms feeling her way along the canvas, purposely lost in one of the only things I think that truly matters, the energy to make something beautiful, to claim their spot in the fabric of this universe, marking along by feel for the sole purpose of saying I was here, I was here, I was here. 

Thank you so much for reading.