PLEASE CLICK & READ! June 21: Melissa Stang Benefit & Silent Auction

Thursday, June 21, 2007

8:00pm to 1:00am

Melissa’s story:

Like many artists, I have primarily lived a hand-to-mouth existence with no real financial security, company retirement plan, or equity built through home ownership. I have waited tables all my life to support the production of my work, earning just enough to keep the studio rent paid, purchase necessary materials, and meet expenses associated with the current exhibition schedule. Occasionally a small grant would fund the completion of a specific project. Always plodding forward, always hoping that some major opportunity lay just around the corner, some prestigious fellowship or exhibition which would propel my career forward and out of this precarious cycle. It’s a lifestyle I think many of us can relate to, always hoping that dedication to one’s work would, at some point in the future, pay off.

Well, in the blink of an eye, my life changed forever. I fell about 7 or 8 feet off a narrow balcony out the loading dock doors of my studio onto a hard asphalt parking lot. I broke my right leg in three places: shattering my heel bone, breaking my Tibia at the ankle, and fracturing my Femur at the hip. In short, I have injured myself quite severely, injuries that are likely to haunt me for the rest of my life, and may very well lead to other joint problems (like a hip replacement) requiring additional surgery.

I spent a week in the hospital and underwent extensive surgery. I am held together by a series of very long screws in heel, ankle, and hip. As a consequence, I cannot put weight on my right leg for at least three months, and then they’ll reevaluate. The shattered heel is apparently a very serious injury that takes a long time to heal. I’m pretty much immobilized and unable to work, much less leave the house.

One thing’s for certain: my days of earning a living as a server are over. Not only will I be unable to work for probably 6 months to a year, I’ll have to be retrained in some completely different career that doesn’t involve being on my feet all day.

Thank god for the kind assistance of all my fabulous friends who have been taking turns doing my laundry, bringing me groceries, cleaning the cat box, washing my hair. My friends have suggested this benefit fund to help pay my rent and cover basic expenses since I can’t work. I couldn’t make it with out all you guys—THANKS A MILLION!!!

Food provided by Mill City Cafe & Gluek’s Restaurant & Bar

Music provided by Paul Metsa, Cooker John, & John Devine

Silent Auction

Gift Certificate for two tickets to Theatre de la Jeune Lune
Gift Certificate for acupuncture session at Meridian Clinic
Summer Hat & Table Lamp with Custom Shade by Ella Ritzman
$200 value Gift Certificate for Jon Oulman Salon
$100 Gift Certificate for Penco Graphic Supply Inc.
Sconce by artist Aldo Moroni
Framed Mixed Media piece by artist Mary Snyder Behrens
Framed Print & Book by artist & author Roy Behrens

$50 Gift Certificate for Modern Cafe
Gift Certificate for two tickets to Ballet of the Dolls
MUCH MORE TO COME!!!

Suggested donation $20, or donate online if unable to attend. For more information about the benefit, visit www.melissastang.com. If you have questions or can offer assistance, email Melissa.

Anne’s note:

I met Melissa Stang at the opening reception for her exhibit at Minneapolis Institute of Arts on August 3, 2001. She is a wonderful, positive, bubbly, humble, strong and talented woman whose work tempted me to bring her home and let her paint on every object I own.

Here’s how MIA’s Arts Magazine described her show: “In Homo domesticus, Stang presents two new works. The first, From the Real Life Drawing Co-OP: Still Life with Domestic Disarray, is a monumental, irregularly shaped and assembled painting that seeks to reconcile the often-unattainable cultural expectations that she experiences as a woman artist. The painting sports cartoon-style images from her real-life life, complete with a cubist sense of space that not only tips tables up, but gives a fresh look under her kitchen sink and inside a closet heaped with shoes and dirty laundry.”

In that colorful, monumental work, there are shoes, dresses and bras strewn everywhere, evoking the irony of beauty—it takes work, and a well-dressed, well-accessorized woman is likely to have emerged from just such a chaotic coccoon. (Men often don’t get this. Thus my pleasure at “explaining” the work to my then-boyfriend, who may still regret having invited me to the show.)

Again from MIA: “The second part of Stang’s exhibit is titled Period Room for a Moist Temperate Environment (Or, A Natural History Guide for Interior Decorators). Here she depicts a domestic interior of a female herpetologist that is filled with furniture from yesteryear and assorted feminine domestic crafts bedecked with lizards and amphibians. Through this work Stang challenges museums’ presentation and ideas of ‘high’ and ‘low’ art.

“On a more serious note, Stang sets a table with three-legged frog-patterned china (all drawn, of course, by Stang). In doing so, she reminds us to heed nature’s warnings and pay homage to the many small creatures that have sacrificed their lives for human ‘progress’.”

To my eyes, the exhibit was intriguing, with layers of surprise. You’d look at an antique plate mounted on the wall, and think, “My grandmother had plates like that.” Then you’d look closer and the pattern would be a tessalation of lizards and snakes. And those three-legged frogs: as delicately drawn as they were chilling.

I feel badly for Melissa because of her accident. I almost feel worse for the rest of us if this means she won’t be producing more work. Please attend this benefit. By showing your support for one artist, you are acknowledging the value of art in the world, and that’s important. Plus, as parties go, this promises to be a fun one. Be there!!!