Multimedia exhibit provides a window into the lives of Seattle's homeless youths

By Tina Potterf
Seattle Times staff reporter

	Heroin ... relaxes your whole body. It feels like you just took a bunch of muscle relaxers and sleeping pills and you just kinda nod out. It makes you escape from everything till you come down. — Jaclyn Mellon, quoted in "Endurance"
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With the help of Peace for the Streets by Kids from the Streets, a Seattle-based advocacy and education agency that provides resources and outreach to homeless youth and young adults, and plenty of dedication on her part, Mellon is off the streets. Now 18, she's clean, has her GED and a place of her own to share with her constant companion, her dog Toxic.

A new exhibit tells Mellon's story and the stories of 25 others who at one point in their lives were homeless. The more than two dozen raw and revealing testimonials are part of an arresting art installation created by New York City artists Bradley McCallum and Jacqueline Tarry.

Exhibit details See "Endurance" at the City Space Gallery, third floor Bank of America building, 701 Fifth Ave., Seattle, now through April 16. Gallery hours: 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. Mondays-Fridays, beginning today through April 16. Meet the artists at a reception, 5 to 7 p.m. Thursday. For pictures and testimonials from the participants, visit www.conjunctionarts.org/endurance. To learn more about Peace for the Streets by Kids from the Streets, visit www.psks.org or call 206-726-8500.

The project, titled "Endurance," features life-size photographs of 26 members from Peace for the Streets, along with audio interviews and a video that chronicles the "endurance" portion of the project, which had each participant standing motionless for an hour on a downtown Seattle street in memory of friends and loved ones who've died.

"Endurance" opens today at Seattle's City Space gallery in the Bank of America Tower, with a meet-the-artists reception Thursday night.

Peace for the Streets members oversaw many of the early stages of the three-year project, from selecting the artists to brainstorming ideas for portraying street life accurately. The project was sponsored by the Seattle Office of Arts & Cultural Affairs' ARTS UP program, which pairs artists with local communities. Funding also came from sources including the National Endowment for the Arts, Seattle Department of Neighborhoods and the Fales Foundation.

	David

Many of the participants are in a dramatically different place in their lives today than when "Endurance" began. Many are no longer homeless, others are in school or holding down steady employment. The whereabouts of roughly a dozen of the participants are unknown (PSKS Executive Director Elaine Simons is trying to track all 26 for the exhibit's opening) and two PSKS members involved at the beginning of "Endurance" died just as the project was taking shape. Steven "Filth" Greenberg, an audio intern on the project, died of a drug overdose, and Nicholas "Rooster" Helhowski, a former street kid-turned-homeless advocate, was fatally beaten at a North Seattle bus stop in 2002.

While there were obvious similarities between the participants, such as drug and alcohol addiction or past physical and emotional abuse, the artists let each person's individuality emerge. The teens and young adults, many proudly displaying facial piercings and dressed in baggy, layered attire in the dead of summer, aren't posing or glamorizing their circumstances.

There is, however, a sense of vulnerability conveyed in many of the photographs.

	Jessica

"There's an incredible level of detail in terms of how they are presenting themselves, what they are wearing," McCallum said during an interview last week at City Space.

At the heart of "Endurance" are the emotional and often revealing accounts of what life is like on the streets. The artists interviewed each person alone, some more than once, McCallum said. Each answered a slew of questions, such as why they left home, what they took with them and what it's like to live on the streets.

"Our approach to working with people's stories is to listen and honor what they are saying," McCallum said.

The hope is that "Endurance" will get people to reevaluate their perceptions of homeless people.

"There are misconceptions that we are all lazy and junkies," Jaclyn Mellon said. "People need to realize that we're not all bad people, and that's what this project does."

	Life-size portraits of homeless youths and their raw, revealing audio and video testimonials are part of an arresting art installation created by New York City artists Bradley McCallum and Jacqueline Tarry. T-Bone is pictured here.

Education is a critical component of the work that goes on at PSKS, an organization the sees about 400 homeless youth and adults each year, said Simons, the agency's executive director.

"I think what we are about to bring to Seattle is the most amazing introduction to homelessness," Simons said. "It's putting homelessness right there."

"Endurance" participant Sara Magyar credits Peace for the Streets with getting her off the street. Homeless since age 14 and hooked on drugs, Magyar learned of the agency during a chance meeting with some of the kids she once squatted with. Now 50, Magyar has been off drugs for five years, has an apartment and volunteers at Peace for the Streets, where she is known to many there as "Mama Sara."

Magyar has come a long way since that day nearly two years ago when she stood on the downtown street corner, mentally counting off the names of friends and family who died. She believes the exhibit portrays "without pity or judgment" what was her reality for many years.

"I would like people to walk out of there with a drive to do something. I want people to walk out of there different," Magyar said. "And when (people) walk by kids on the street to see them through different eyes."

Tina Potterf: 206-464-8214 or tpotterf@seattletimes.com

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