An interactive installation offers a unique way to let go of mourning
Thursday, May 2, 2002
By Anneelena Foster, Special to The Daily News
Steven Reigns & Cherylann Logsdon at the Joe Logsdon FoundationMichael Church was one of those light-up-the-room people, a man with a sparkling personality and a theatrical bearing. The Naples man lived a life of laughter and joy. When Church died in late 2000 of an AIDS-related illness, with him went the font of delightful enthusiasm and joie de vivre he brought to all he did and everyone he knew, those who knew him say. Loss of a loved one is painful in any case, and those who know and work with AIDS-affected populations are all too familiar with that pain and its frequent recurrence in their lives. But with Church's death, the very absence of his sparkle made the darkness that much more oppressive for those who mourned his passing.
For friend Steven Reigns, it made it that much more difficult to pass through the mourning.
"He was just one of my best friends. He referred to the spare bedroom in his house as 'Steven's room,' because I visited so often and I always stayed there," Reigns recalls. "Since our friendship was so much about enjoying life and there was always so much laughter in our interactions, there was this terrible survivor's guilt after he died whenever I found myself enjoying myself," Reigns says. "But it's hard to be in a constant state of mourning, even though that feels like it should be appropriate."
In fact, Reigns says, it is not appropriate. "To stay in a period of mourning, in depression, in solitude, would be denying my life," he says. "There are so many people who get stuck, and I don't think that's what our lost loved ones would want for our lives."
Reigns, an artist and writer from Tampa, eventually got unstuck after Church's death. Part of that process for Reigns was creating an interactive installation that he hopes will help others bogged down in their grieving after losing someone to AIDS. The installation, called Postcards to the Dead, will be at the Joe Logsdon Foundation in Naples for the next two months. Reigns says many of those who have lost friends and family members to AIDS are worn out by it all, by the debilitating nature of the illness, by the weight of the repeated losses, by being involved in efforts to overcome the disease.
So on one wall of the installation, there is an affirmation of being among the living. It begins with the words:
I don't feel like wearing ribbons
Or sewing
Or praying
Or venting
Or fundraising
Or medicating
Or meditating
Or mourning
"That text just comes from the sense of exhaustion. Our fingers are bleeding from sewing so many quilts. We're tired of accessorizing with red ribbons. We're just so sick of it all," he says. "It's a nightmare."
The Joe Logsdon Foundation was created in 1996 by Cherylann Logsdon and friends, after she buried her son Joe, who died from complications caused by his AIDS. After his death, she was stunned by the ignorance about HIV and AIDS in Collier County, and the resistance to even acknowledging that the scourge of AIDS was present in Southwest Florida. "When Joey died and we put the obituary in the paper, they called and asked us to change the wording to remove the reference to AIDS," Logsdon says.
She refused, and eventually, her son's obituary ran in the Naples Daily News with the truth about his death, without euphemism, without obfuscation. She pays to place a memorial in the paper every year, with a picture of her son, and a reference to her continued commitment to fight the ravages of AIDS in her community. This year's memorial ran last Sunday. Reigns respects and participates in those efforts. But he also wants to honor the lives that are lived - that were lived - before the shadow of AIDS stole their light and levity.
The interactive installation he's lent to the foundation is intended to help bring healing and closure to those stuck in the stage of mourning. It reflects Reigns' belief that when lived and experienced fully - as it was by his friend Church, and by Joe Logsdon himself - life can be one long, sweet holiday. When we go away on holiday or take a vacation to exciting, new locales, we send postcards back to our loved ones bearing images of our vacation spots.
For Reigns' Postcards installation, visitors are supplied with postcards that, instead of glossy photographs, bear on their faces the words, "My Life." On the reverse is the address "1981 Aftershock Lane," a reference to the date that AIDS was first identified. Visitors may fill in the name of their departed friends or family members on the addressee line, and drop the postcard in the mailbox that is part of the exhibit. Next to the address, pre-printed, is that standard, classic, post-card sentiment, "Having a wonderful time. I wish you were here."
Living with Courage
An exhibit of postcards helps survivors carry on
By Christopher Tittel
"Having a wonderful time I wish you were here!" It's a familiar enough message, typically found on colorful postcards addressed from people "living it up" on their travels through faraway lands to the loved ones they miss back home.
For visitors of the Joe Logsdon Foundation, however, the light-hearted message is taking on a much deeper meaning. "Postcards to the Dead," an interactive exhibit on display at the foundation this month, offers the visitor who knows anyone who has passed away from HIV/AIDS the chance to assure the victim that he or she had come to grips with their passing and is living life to the fullest. The exhibit is modest in design, yet powerful in effect. Standing at the far end of a small lounge filled with comfortable furniture and reading materials, the display included piles of white postcards, a large black mailbox and a thin curtain of ivory-colored gauze tied back with red ribbons. The poster spotlighted above the mailbox explains:
I don't feel like wearing ribbons
Or sewing
Or praying
Or venting
Or fundraising
Or medicating
Or meditating
Or mourning.
My life seems as if I am on vacation, only without you.
Visitors are invited to take a preaddressed postcard bearing the familiar "wish you were here" greeting, fill in the name of a loved one who has succumbed to HIV/AIDS and post the card to the mailbox. The address reads "1981 Aftershock Lane," a reminder that the virus has been taking lives ever since it was first diagnosed more than 20 years ago. "Let then know you are having a good time in your life," reads a small sign on the table nearby, "and that you wish they were here."
Several postcards taped to strings dangling from a makeshift paper ceiling, torn back to reveal wispy white clouds against a bright blue sky, assure mailers that their messages will ascend into the heavens and ultimately reach their loved ones.
Steven Reigns, a Tampa-based artist and author of the book Your Dead Body is my Welcome Mat, designed the exhibit to help cope with feelings of despair and guilt following the death of close friend Michael Church almost two years ago. "Regardless of how much we prepare emotionally," he said, "we're never really prepared. And it never seems like we can do enough fundraising. It's exhausting. I had a huge conflict whenever I enjoyed myself, feeling like I should be mourning instead. The exhibit is a way of honoring loved ones who have died, as well as honoring our own lives."
The exhibit opened at a St. Petersburg gallery in April, drawing more than 100 participants. Reigns expects the display will return to St. Petersburg at the end of its Naples run. For more information on the Logsdon Foundation, its fundraising actives and its services contact (239) 417-2935. IN Town Magazine, June 2002