Michael Howell, Part VI

The first issue of Real Change appeared in August 1994. The second issue came out October 1, 1994, and featured a two page article on the art of Michael Howell. It crammed a full 25 of Michael's drawings in together with a half page article describing Michael Howell's art and Michael Howell -- by Michael Howell. He didn't want anybody else interpreting him.

Meanwhile, the other gallery members were meeting regularly with Barbara Brownstein to prepare for a rededication of the gallery under a new name, StreetLife Art gallery, as a genuine cooperative art studio/gallery. Michael Howell was invited to all the meetings, but refused to attend, because his position was that he was in charge of the gallery, therefore decisions made without him had no force. Our meetings were just an opportunity, he thought, for us to exchange so much hot air. The gallery was what he made it. What we said it was meant nothing. If we wanted to change it, WE had to meet with HIM, not HIM with US.

The Archdiocesan Housing Authority, the Dominican Sisters, and A Territory Resource saw it differently. They were funding a cooperative gallery, not a Michael Howell gallery.

Without input from Michael, the other members voted to change the name, reorganize the gallery, put out a book featuring art and biographies of all the artists, and hold a public reopening. The date was set for December 8. Michael didn't make it.

[Above: The StreetLife opening, as pictured in the next month's Real Change.]

About the same time, though, Michael found a reason to get back on speaking terms with me. He wanted to apply for a bus shelter project. He didn't think he could get one on his own. So his idea was to repeat the success of the gallery idea: make a joint application with 2 other artists. The idea was the 3 of us would represent homelessness better than one could. We would offer 3 different kinds of art combined on the same bus shelter.

For the 3rd artist, Michael wanted our poet friend, Stan Burriss. It was the sort of sly choice I'd come to expect from Michael. He knew Stan would only get a small plaque for a poem or two, leaving the rest of the shelter to Michael and I. He got me to agree to do only the bottom third of the shelter, around the bench, while he did the upper two thirds. My incentive was that my share of the money Metro paid us would not be reduced by more than a third of a dollar. Stan and I would each get $333, Michael would get $334.

Getting a design approved was a nightmare. The man in charge of the shelter art program was Dale Cummings, who always seem to me to be on the verge of pulling his hair out in response to talking to us. I didn't blame him.

Michael wanted to use his wall projector to duplicate twelve of his small paintings on the fronts and backs of the six panels he would have. Stan, who, ever since his homeless days has always written his poems on napkins and paper cups he picks up at cafés and meetings, wanted Metro to create plexiglass cases to house cups and napkins so people could see them as they were written. I wanted to create a semi-abstract linear piece that would illustrate the words of one of the poems that Stan submitted.

Mr. Cummings objected, first of all, to the lack of cohesion these plans had. We had very tense meetings in which he basically said, "You guys get together and integrate your design plans, or we'll cancel this project." He objected to Stan's proposal on grounds of cost and practicality. The cases would be one-of-kind, so if they were damaged the cost of replacement would be too high. Stan was told he'd get the same kind of case that holds bus schedules, for copies of his peoms. Those would be easily replaced and cheap.

The biggest objection came when Michael presented the 12 paintings he wanted to use. Dale Cummings wanted women, minorities, and youth. Michael painted older White males, almost exclusively.

Cummings finally gave up on the cohesion issue, but never gave an inch on the demand for diversity of images. He kept reminding Michael that he understood that Michael has to have his own personal vision as an artist, but Metro is paying for this shelter, so Metro has a right to demand that the content be something that reflects well on it.

Michael became defensive. he felt he was being charged with racism. He made the point that he painted old White men because their wrinkles stood out. That was really what his art was about.

He was a landscape artist in effect, not a portrait artist. But he couldn't say it that way because he had spent years promoting his art as portraiture art. His whole rap was that he was depicting the "real" homeless. So Dale Cummings said, by only showing old White men and saying that you're depicting the real homeless you're implying that only old White men are real homeless. That homeless women and homeless Blacks and homeless youths and homeless Native Americans, for examples, aren't real homeless.

I thought it was great. For the first time someone speaking to Michael Howell about Michael's art was really taking it seriously. He was talking to Michael about what his art really was about.

Michael hated it. But after one long tense meeting after another he finally realized that Cummings wasn't going to budge. Michael caved and we went ahead.

[Below: The shelter was originally placed at 7th & Olive. From a photo accompanying a June '95 article about the shelter project taken by Karla Manus.]

Michael Howell, Part IV

For a long time Michael Howell was the only one who could open the Homeless Art Gallery, and he kept limited public hours. Visitors, including the artists who used it as their only studio and whose art was housed at the gallery, were able to drop in only two days a week at first. Michael had other commitments and couldn't operate the gallery more than that.

After I began coming in regularly Michael trusted the space to me for a few additional hours. I would show up Tuesdays and give Michael the opportunity to leave for a while, before returning to lock up. So, soon, the gallery was open three days a week. That continued to be the case until sometime in 1994.

A little about the physical space. The building is at the corner of 2nd and Bell. 2nd is almost level but Bell drops as you walk from the corner to the back of the building, so there's a direct entrance to the basement from the alley. The basement held the women's shelter, Noel House, still there. There was (and is) also a women's transitional housing program on the west side (back) of the first floor and above, called Rose of Lima. Rose of Lima was addressed on Bell Street, but both the gallery and Noel House shared the 2nd Avenue address. Rose of Lima, meanwhile, shared an internal door with the gallery and had internal windows that looked out into the gallery from their office space, so you could feel like they were spying whenever the blinds were open.

All this and the fact that AHA's primary concern at the building was keeping Noel House and Rose of Lima running, naturally created frictions. Those frictions were ultimately exacerbated by the fact that, in addition to being profoundly racist, Michael Howell was also deeply sexist and homophobic.

I've mentioned the racism, directed mainly at Asians. A freakish example of it occurred one day when we were leaving the gallery together, walking south. We were engrossed in a conversation as we approached Wally's, a little Mom and Pop store in Belltown run by a wonderful Korean couple. I wanted to get something in the store and suggested to Michael that we could carry on the conversation inside.

It wouldn't have been so freakish if he had just said, "No." Even "No, I don't like the people that run the store, I'll wait out here," wouldn't have been so bad. I didn't have to know what he didn't like about them. What he did that was so off the wall racist was get furious at me that I would do business with Koreans. It wasn't enough that he hated them, I had to hate them, too. He got angry to the point of sputtering. I went in anyway. When I came out he punished me by walking off in a babyish pouting sulk. He was as angry that he couldn't control me as he was racist. Control was important.

An apparent contradiction to that sort of behavior lay in the fact that he welcomed a Korean artist into the gallery. The contradiction is resolved by the nature of the relationship. Michael was in control of the gallery. Michael was not in control of Wally's. Michael could let one extremely talented Korean artist make his gallery look good, knowing that he could exclude any others. Michael also knew that he could potentially be accused of racism and was smart enough to know that the accusations could be headed off as long as he allowed token representatives in. He explicitly told me in private that he considered all that in allowing our Korean artist membership.

He also spoke to me at length about his theory that women can't be good artists no matter how hard they try, but that it was important to satisfy the wishes of AHA and the "Noel House dykes" by appearing to not exclude women.

Rather than grant space to any women artists, Michael Howell tried to make feminist points by offering art lessons to women. He made a point of reaching out to Noel House in particular, inviting them to send women up for help in learning art.

I think it worked for a while. Michael avoided using his disparaging homophobic language around Noel House residents and staff. The free art lessons were appreciated and gave the intended impression that Michael thought the women had promise as artists. Privately he told me it was a farce, the women weren't capable of learning, they were only good for crafts, and he had no intention of allowing "women's art" be hung on the walls of his gallery.

Arguing with Michael about any of his bigoted views would get you an angry tirade at first, followed by a flat refusal to continue the discussion further, followed by pouting and departure for the day. The next time you'd see him he'd pretend nothing had been said, and get irritated if you brought it up again.

I wondered how long I could continue to associate with the man. Being put in the role of an unofficial assistant made me feel I was endorsing his management. At some point the manifestations of his bigotry on that management would be too embarrassing, I thought. It turned out though that by the time it became unbearable to be associated with him there were other allies available and I didn't have to leave the gallery. I'll be getting to that.

Michael Howell, Part III

Late 1991 was a huge turning point in my life. I used to use email signatures that said things like, "Harnessing Stupidity, Since 1991" and "One Personality To Serve You, Since 1991." Between September and November of that year I resolved the old split personality and broke out of a lot of the problems that PTSD put me through. I quit smoking cold turkey. I felt like a new person. One of the consequences was that I decided I could deal with hanging out with Michael Howell again.

I decided that on the spur of the moment. I was walking by the Burger King on NE 50th on a Sunday and went in, impulsively. Sure enough Michael was there with poet Stan Burriss, who often dropped in to meet Michael without going on to the Blessed Sacrament feed.

After getting through with the "long time no see" business and after I dished up a diplomatic answer to "why haven't you been around?" Michel broke the news that he was about to move his traveling "Homeless Art Gallery" into a physical space downtown.

Michael Howell's Homeless Art Gallery had been a collection of art work done by homeless and formerly homeless artists who trusted Michael to store their art in his apartment so he could haul it out and display it in public places.

The idea for this traveling art show preceded the Seattle Goodwill Games of 1990. But the city's homeless sweeps in advance of the games spurred a revolt. There was a Tent City and associated protest. The protest gave rise to SHARE and WHEEL, Seattle's most active grassroots organizations powered by homeless people themselves. The rallies incident to the protests surrounding the Goodwill Games and to other actions by SHARE brought new life to Michael's art show. Homeless protesters wanted to show the public that homeless people are talented and sensitive human beings. So activists were happy to help haul the art around and set it up wherever public actions were planned.

Meanwhile, the severe winter of 1990 prompted the Archdiocesan Housing Authority to open a severe weather shelter in Belltown which evolved into a permanent women's shelter (Noel House) in a building at 2nd and Bell. Yielding to neighborhood pressures, the AHA agreed that the corner storefront of the building would not be used by the permanent shelter. Instead some other use would be found for it, one which would benefit the entire community, not only the homeless community.

Enter Michael Howell. He offered to run his Homeless Art gallery out of the storefront as a working studio and gallery. It would benefit the wider community by being a place where anyone could come and see the artwork. The studio space would be open to all walk-ins. Even non-homeless could create art in the space.

Michael figured he couldn't sell the idea as "Michael Howell's Private Gallery" open by invitation to other artists. He had to tell AHA that he wouldn't really be the owner of the new gallery. He told them it would be a democratically run cooperative.

Already in the Burger King, December 1991, without having seen me for two nearly two years, Michael Howell couldn't resist bragging to me how he was pulling the wool over the eyes of a "religionist" bureaucracy. The gallery would be open to homeless and formerly homeless artists, but he intended to retain iron control. There wasn't going to be any cooperative.

When he said it would be open to formerly homeless artists I perked up. "Hey, I'm a formerly homeless artist," I said. Even before I first met him I had been doing pen and ink drawings. I had since taken up acrylics. he asked to see some, so the next week I brought a handful of paintings to the Burger King. He admitted they weren't to his taste, but he said they would fill a niche in the gallery. He had been looking for a non-native who did "native" art, because, he said, the natives were too demanding.

I pointed out that my art wasn't really Native American inspired, except insofar that Native Hawaiians are now Native Americans thanks to Hawaiian statehood, and a fraction of my art is Native Hawaiian inspired, although mostly I've been influenced by art from other realms of Oceania, such as New Zealand and New Guinea and Indonesian -- and he said, "Yeah, whatever."

So that's how he accepted my art for display in the Homeless Art Gallery.

[Below: Me in front of my display in the gallery a few years later. Michael was already on the way out when this picture was taken but you can see two of his pieces in this scene. One is the bowed man in blue over my left shoulder. The other is a painting of a woman at my far right, below a couple of landscapes by a third artist. My stuff is around the windows. Michael wasn't able to paint directly on large canvases and boards such as these. One of the reasons he wanted the gallery space was to have a place to set up a projector. He came in nights when the gallery was closed and projected his small drawings onto large boards and traced them.]

There was still a little agoraphobia problem that made it difficult for me to ride crowded buses from the U District to Downtown Seattle. In March 1992 I saw the place for the first time thanks to Michael's gracious agreement to ride with me to keep me distracted and get me past the panic attacks.