Sample Blog Post for My UB SW150 Students

Hello SW150 students! This is a sample of a full credit blog post for Blog #1. Please let me know if you have any questions. – Matt

Beacon

The art piece I’ve decided to talk about is one that’s incredibly important to me for a number of reasons, in fact I’ve carried a copy of it with me daily for many years.

The piece is “Beacon” by Frank Moore. The above digital replication does not do it justice. When I was first introduced to it as an undergraduate taking a drawing class, it was when we went on a field trip to the Albright-Knox Art Gallery in 2002-2003. We were given the go ahead to walk around on our own and I came upon it – it was a painting the size of a wall, and it made me feel so incredibly small. I had my headphones in (as I almost always do) and I was listening to the song “Rest in Peace” from the Buffy The Musical soundtrack.

You're scared
Ashamed of what you feel
And you can't tell the ones you love
You know they couldn't deal
Whisper in a dead man's ear
It doesn't make it real
– Spike, Rest in Peace, Buffy The Vampire Slayer the Musical

Go ahead and take a moment to listen to the song while you take in the painting. I broke down in tears in the middle of the Albright-Knox when I saw it, and its meaning and impact hit me. The painting and the music coming together to move me to a display of emotion I rarely show the outside world.

The painting shows a man on a hospital bed, lonely, in a sea of torment, connected to IV tubes, and with a tentacle holding injections. The lighthouse is a beacon of hope for a cure, shooting out a light that shares with it DNA/Genetics (Source: I remember the placard I read at the museum).

Having lost friends to HIV/AIDS (and the resulting complications thereof) this piece of art motivated me to become a sex educator in the LGBTQIA+ community, and to pass out/distribute condoms, and encourage HIV testing. It took the ember of activism in my chest and turned it into a roaring fire, which I carry with me today as a Social Worker.

More broadly, this piece had me consider the larger movements of art within the LGBTQIA+ civil rights movement. As it connected me to other art, I found other activists and artists who thought like me. I also began to more broadly learn the history of the LGBTQIA+ civil rights movements, through art and music. This piece of art connected me to a history that was my own, but hidden from me. I think it made me a better activist. Certainly, carrying a copy for close to twenty years must mean something.