The name came eleven months after the vision. For our inaugural event, the hotel gave author Natasha Stagg—we were celebrating her first novel Surveys —a large orange suite. I love hotels. Hard to Read takes place in a plush pink lobby, poolside, outside, fireside, or in one of two themed bars. As soon as I saw us bedside though—Natasha Stagg, readying before our reading, alongside fellow readers, artist Amalia Ulman, musician Jasmine Nyende, and actress Tierney Finster—I knew I had to program in-room.
I had a vision of dozens of my favorite, smartest artists in this glamorous, liminal space, getting comfortable, and so, weird. It was on a road trip I thought was going nowhere that the name came to me.
Sojourner Truth Parsons, a painter, was driving across North America, leaving our then-home of Los Angeles, with stops in Boulder and Toronto, towards a final destination of New York, where she had a solo show.
We left on the day of the eclipse. August 21, The Standard responded positively to my pitch. A complement to Hard to Read, this program would support alike arts scene, but more intimately and interactively. We would invite artists and experts to share work on and discuss sex, gender, and love, offering an alternative venue to the usual: academy, therapy, galleries, and the Internet.
We could call it Pillow Talk. Every event is different. The room, myself, and the night—always Thursdays—are the only constants. The room is corporate in feel. Dove grey, slate, and white with accents of yellow and orange. Our next three are scheduled, the details are coming together. Sometimes topic organizes form, sometimes meaning comes out of it; the program is a mix of somatic and discursive practices.
