Alchemy Initiative and Ferrin Gallery to explore life and death through art
PITTSFIELD, Mass. – On Thursday, January 21, 2010, Alchemy Initiative and Ferrin Gallery team up to host a night of visual and performance art in downtown Pittsfield.At 5pm Ferrin Gallery will host a solo exhibition of photography by Jason Houston, called "Family of Mine." At 7 pm, following the opening, Alchemy Initiative will host Billie Best as she performs “The Widow Wears Red Pajamas.”
On January 16, 2009 Billie Best called her friend Jason Houston over to photograph her dying husband. She had been struck by “the serenity” of the scene: her husband’s still body, the Christmas tree, the lights. Best and Houston did not know that the day of the photo-shoot would be Chet’s last.
Documentary photographer Jason Houston’s images, although intimate and personal, are reflections of relationships, traditions, values and family dynamics that are universally identifiable.
Houston captured this intimate scene, which has been collected in a soft-cover book that Best, as publisher and writer, has entitled, “Dying Beautifully: The Story of One Man’s Beautiful Death, and How Dying Consciously Can Change Everything.” This book and experience were the inspiration for Best’s performance, “The Widow Wears Red Pajamas.” The book, "Dying Beautifully" will be for sale along with coffee, tea and baked goods, the evening of the event at Alchemy Initiative.
“The Widow Wears Red Pajamas” is 75-minutes of storytelling and poetry in which author/performer, Billie Best, shares her experience caring for her dying husband, musician Chet Cahill. She reflects on her social status as a widow, challenging the audience to liberate themselves from fear and approach their own inevitable deaths with a creative spirit. Poignant, inspiring, and occasionally quite funny, the performance is illuminated by Houston’s exquisite photographs of Best's husband taken before and after his death.
Ferrin Gallery is located at 434 North Street, Pittsfield. Alchemy Initiative is located just a block away, at 40 Melville Street.
Tickets for “The Widow Wears Red Pajamas” are $5 at the door, with all profits benefiting Alchemy Initiative.
Alchemy Initiative is an urban model of sustainability and community. An intentional community, Alchemy Initiative uses food and farming, health and healing, art and music, and sustainability and community as catalysts for social change.
For more information, email Jessica Conzo at Alchemy.Initiative@Gmail.com or call 413-236-9600.
Visit us at: AlchemyInitiative.org/ : : facebook.com/pages/Alchemy-Initiative/210744684363/ : : twitter.com/alchemy413/ : : flickr.com/photos/alchemyinitiative
