Experiencing a transformation

“I think of myself as an intelligent, sensitive human being with the soul of a clown, which always forces me to blow it at the most important moments.”
— Jim Morrison

In 1991, Director Oliver Stone released the biopic, The Doors, about the 1960s band of the same name. In the movie, the lead singer, Jim Morrison, along with his band mates, were depicted as seekers of hedonistic pleasure — drugs, booze and sex — with little else to offer the audience regarding the music or the true essence of the band.

Unfortunately, Morrison was never able to make a rebuttal about any of the controversial scenes of the movie, having passed away 20 years earlier, but band member Ray Manzarek was quite displeased about the way the movie turned out.

On the Web site www.classicbands.com, Manzarek talks about Stone’s portrayal of the band.

“[Stone] should be ashamed of himself. Too sensationalistic. Too jivey. Jim with a bottle all the time. It was ridiculous,” Manzarek said.

Whether or not any given individual has seen the movie, many people have come to think of Morrison as a wastoid and as just another attention-hungry rocker. While he did indulge in such activities, Morrison was more than just a pleasure seeker: read any of his numerous poems, or pay careful attention to his lyrics, or peruse one of the many biographies written about him. Morrison was a profound thinker who wanted people to be free of societal limitations. But trusting one person to accurately convey the spirit of an artistic pursuit without firsthand knowledge can be a big mistake.

The same can be said of Burning Man, the annual pilgrimage in late August to the artist mecca in the middle of Black Rock Desert, Nev. Many stories have flown around about this nine-day, mega-cultural event. For anyone who has ever heard of Burning Man, most stories would include some form of debauchery — images of naked women rolling on ecstasy, men stripped down to nothing more than their hats drinking for days on end, couples sharing experiences with other couples, etc. And just as The Doors, the movie, gave those who saw it an unrealistic view of the band, these stories don’t give an accurate, well-rounded depiction of Burning Man.

In fact, the stories that locals have shared with the VCReporter aren’t sexual or about drugs or drinking. From the introvert to the penny pincher, from the professional artist to “art predator,” they all seem to have one thing in common: Burning Man is a transformational experience.

A little background
“Let’s build a statue and burn it.” — Larry Harvey, co-creator of Burning Man

Picture it: San Francisco in 1986, a group of people decide to have a party on Baker Beach. The weekend-long party would end with the burning of an effigy of a man. This small group maintained the annual celebration of artistic freedom for four years. By 1990, however, the park police stepped in and prevented the culminating conflagration of the effigy of the man. After a major mishap with the wooden effigy and some confused storage employees, Harvey and members of the San Francisco Cacophony Society —“an organization of randomly gathered free spirits who surf the bleeding edge of culture, space and time,” according to Louis Brill in an article on the Burning Man Web site — decided the desert of Black Rock City in Nevada would be the next-best place to hold the event. About 80 people jammed into a caravan of cars and headed for the dry lake bed.

As Brill put it, “It was the big A — an adventure into the unknown. It was more than leaving the city culture and shedding our urban upbringing.”

And the rest is history. The event evolved from a small campsite for a weekend into a virtual city that disappears as quickly as it springs up, all within nine days. Artists, hedonists and adventurers alike, all around the world, heard of the festival, and the population of Black Rock escalated from 80 or so in the early ’90s to approximately 50,000 today. The festival ends, as tradition would have it, with the burning of the wooden effigy within a few days of Labor Day each year.

Several Ventura County locals make the long trek to Burning Man every year — one person in particular has “burned” 13 times and now has her husband and child on board. Due to a variety of circumstances, though, some of the perpetual “burners” sat this year out. But missing a year or two doesn’t detract from what so many have already experienced. And even if some never make it back again, Burning Man has transformed perspectives and the ways they live their lives.

For others, it has just confirmed that the ways they have seen life can be appreciated by so many others, even if they are often misunderstood on their home turf. Here are their stories.

In their element
MB Hanrahan and sTeVe Knauff
Professional artists
Burned: Eight times out of the last 10 years

For Hanrahan and Knauff, Burning Man is much more than a place to let loose. For the artistic duo, it is a time to put their creativity on exhibit for the biggest of all art shows — a place where tens of thousands of people from all over the world can view their imagery and participate in an interactive art display.

“Really, it is the best artistic festival experience in the U.S. For the amount of effort to get to the middle of nowhere, it requires extreme motivation and dedication to get to this revolutionary experience,” Hanrahan said.

When the pair first started attending Burning Man, they camped out on the outskirts or “the suburbs” of the center ring, where the theme camps exist. But the two got motivated, and for the last two years they attended, their theme camp ideas made the grade and they found themselves preparing at least six months in advance the artwork that would be on display in the center ring. The Burning Man 2007 theme: green. So Hanrahan and Knauff went with their personal theme: greed vs. green. The idea behind it: In order to go green, there is always a bit of greed to make it happen. They painted several murals and created an oversized chessboard and game pieces so that passers-by could become a part of the art display.

This year, the Burning Man theme: evolution, in celebration of Charles Darwin’s 200th birthday. Hanrahan and Knauff went for a similar mixed media display with murals and another chessboard with larger-than-life game pieces featuring the symbolic battle of science and religion. Their theme: superstition vs. science.

But in talking with Hanrahan, very little of what she said concerned doing drugs or having sex. She said that her time there was about interacting with other people outside of the social norms and taking the creative experience to a whole other world. She said that although Burning Man wasn’t a commercial venue, having her and Knauff’s art on display is one of the best ways to network and could spin off as promising ventures in the future.

Always ready for the adventure
Gwendolyn Alley
Part-time college professor, full-time art predator
Burned: 13 times out of the last 17 years

Alley is known in the city of Ventura and neighboring towns as the art predator. She is known for her charismatic attitude, her art blog, and can get just about anyone to try something new and different — just ask her husband and close friend. She leads a biking tour every First Friday to the various art galleries opened to display new exhibitions.

But for the First Friday of this month, she took her dedication to seeking out art to epic proportions — Alley camped out with her husband, Marshall, and her 5-year-old son, Reed, at Burning Man.

While many may raise an eyebrow at bringing their youngster to an event known for over-the-top adult activities, Alley had nothing but positive things to say and certainly nothing she was ashamed of her son seeing. In fact, Reed is on his third burn, having stayed home with his mom and dad his first two years of life.

In a brief interview with Reed on the way to Burning Man earlier this week, he said the only thing he didn’t like about the event was the dust storms. Other than that, he recalled fond memories of “the giant Cheshire cat, the dinosaur, the monkeys, the trucks stacked all on top of each other ….” From the sounds of it, Burning Man is no more than a carnival on steroids to a child.

From Alley’s perspective, Burning Man has also transformed the ways her friends and loved ones live their lives. She recalled her husband’s first trip to the event — at that point they were only friends.

“Marshall is really careful with his money; he had always saved every penny,” Alley said. “He was surprised at how expensive Burning Man was, but a good friend really wanted him to go. He really had his doubts, thinking, ‘It can’t be everything everyone says it is.’ ”

He gets there and “he pays his money, saying, ‘This better be worth it.’ He followed me the rest of the way, and when we got to our camp, Marshall got out of the car, and said, ‘I can turn around now and go home and it would be worth every penny.’ ”

She said it took Marshall no more than 20 minutes of driving to convince him it was worth it.

“I can’t describe the individual creativity and art things and banners flying around. It really blew open his mind…,” Alley said about Marshall’s first time entering Burning Man.

Alley had a similar experience with a photographer friend who sought to take pictures of the event rather than participating. She said that within a few days, her friend was ready to bail, having gotten what he was there for. But she pushed him to try participating in the event — to shed his normal wear and get into the groove with everyone else. His response, “Yeah. Yeah. Bye.”

Twenty minutes later, she saw a man show up at her camp on his bike, in a black cocktail dress, long black gloves, a frilly hat and funky glasses. It took her a few moments, but she realized it was her photographer friend. He decided to cut loose and give Burning Man a chance. Rather than stand on the outside looking in, he embraced it.

Once again, the experiences Alley and her close friends experienced were nothing like the stories most people hear.

“Out there, you don’t have to be anybody you are supposed to be; you get to be who you want to be,” she said “It was transformative.”

“I decided I just needed to have more fun”

Kathy Talley
Former banker, introvert turned extrovert
Burned: 11 times

Before Burning Man, Kathy Talley of Camarillo was never known to be the life of the party. By her own admission, she was the one who would always find a way to get out of a social event or avoid a big crowd or sneak out of a party without anyone noticing.

“I am just an introverted, quiet person, but I like to have fun,” she said.

Being best friends and roommates with Gwendolyn Alley didn’t help her plight of trying to stay under the social radar. She remembers the day in 1997 Alley called her before going to Burning Man that year.

“Gwendolyn kept trying to get me to go,” she said. “I was a loan officer for a credit union, and she was trying to get out of town. She called me that Friday afternoon and said, ‘I am still here, I can meet you at my house at 6 o’clock. Bring $100 for your ticket, grab your bike and some clothes,’ and she talked me into going.”

Even though she had heard so many stories of chaos and debauchery about the epic art festival, she put her fears aside and went for it. She even found her own ride home with some people from Art City of West Ventura after Alley had to return back to work before she was ready to leave.

“Oh, man! It was fantastic! It was really great,” Talley said. “It is a total mind blowing experience.”

She said that Burning Man is a safe place where you could go and experiment and do things you wouldn’t normally do. Her recollections of the various activities of the event, though, weren’t like many of the stories that people talk about.

Hers were more of a spiritual nature. She reminisced about a special event with internationally syndicated astrologer Rob Brezny, where he performed a marriage ceremony — to yourself.

“He had everyone do vows to themselves,” she said. “It was really a very life affirming experience….”

She also said if one is looking for hedonistic activities, they are definitely there. But that doesn’t mean that any given person goes there just to partake in those things. Upon reflection, she talked about how she and some friends decided to help out a fellow burner and did an intervention with members from an Alcoholic Anonymous group that would meet during the event.

“Things like that are available out there,” Talley said.

The best times, according to Talley, were dressing up and wearing fun costumes, helping her husband set up his art light displays and handing out her mother’s cookies to various burners who were setting up their art exhibits.

Burn, baby, burn
Eric Werbalowsky
Committed environmentalist, nonconformist
Burned: Eight times out of the last 10 years

Werbalowsky is what many would consider to be a person who thinks outside the box. An art oriented environmental advocate, he has burned eight times. Although he is sitting this year out, he has fond memories of Burning Man as a true communal experience where attendees break free of societal norms, though conformity and unforeseen restrictions still take a place there.

Although, based on pictures and appearances alone, Burning Man would seem to be a place of extraordinary self-expression, he recalled various camps that had stringent dress codes. Not wanting to fall into these rules of conformity, Werbalowsky decided to set up his own camp.

“I was generally unaffiliated with any camp,” he said. “All the folks who did not want the social rules and schedules found themselves in a casual camp. Our whole plan was to have a good time. We didn’t fit in the clique.”

And so a new camp was formed, one where the general population was people looking to just have fun and not worry about rules. But there was one surprising aspect that bonded the campers together — salad.

Being an avid gardener, Werbalowsky would bring fresh produce from his home in Ventura to Burning Man. One night, everyone met at the camp at the same time, and one thing led to another until there were delicious salads for everyone to share.

“It was performance art in cuisine — this experiment in instant community in food….” he said. “These tribal gatherings, that human bonding around essential nutrition, food is love, people with music, art, body work and healing, brings what their gifts are and shares them.”

Werbalowsky experienced much more than salads at Burning Man. “It was an awakening, an epiphany. And it is an inspiration that carries off the playa, take the playa with you.”

The playa, a big open space outside the camps where huge art displays are set up, creates an unusual atmosphere of bonding with perfect strangers over whatever hands and imaginations can produce. And there, Werbalowsky experienced a range of human emotions that must be experienced to be understood. Emotions that are exclusive to the Burning Man experience.

Werbalowsky said that while he was sitting out this year, he plans on returning. He looks forward to getting together with fellow burners and exploring the nutritional possibilities.

Once you come out as a burner…
Many burners are perfectly fine with whatever perception others have. If so many have a negative view of the event, it means they won’t attend. The perpetual burners are only really interested in those who can truly let loose and have fun, and would rather keep the event as low key as possible — even though it is the biggest cultural event in the country.

Despite all the positive things that happen to so many at Burning Man, being a burner still has a certain negative stigma. Just as Gwen Alley said, “Once you come out as a burner, it is really hard to go back in.”

And that goes two ways — once you have experienced Burning Man, it is hard to see life the way you used to. And once you tell people you have gone, many won’t see you the same way.   

For more information, go to burningman.com.

michael@vcreporter.com