Highwire Act

Once again, a veteran gallery regains its balance — this time in Fishtown.

by A.D. Amorosi

	print	email	reply	rss feed

Published: Dec 4, 2007

Hurry I'm starting to see weird things, by Lisa Spera, digitally manipulated photograph, 2004 (CLICK IMAGE FOR LARGER VERSION)

Things looked bleak for the 20-year-old Highwire Gallery when it got ousted from the Gilbert Building in January, during the Convention Center's rape of Cherry Street. But now, there's nothing but light streaming through Highwire's storefront windows of its new home on Frankford Avenue in Fishtown.

When the co-op opens its doors to Bonnie MacAllister's performance poetry and Radio Eris' avant rock ruckus, things will get even brighter. Improvisational multidiscipline happenings have been crucial within that gallery's history: Toshi Makihara hosted poets and dance troupes when Highwire resided in Old City. John Van Zandt promoted a wide range of music from Eastern belly dancing to blues to punk when Highwire got to Gilbert.

Now Lisa Spera — a photographer and gallery member for five years — is Highwire's programmer of performance art and music. Along with curating visuals as a co-op member, she's Highwire's first-ever VP. And she does all this when she isn't drumming for Radio Eris or composing her own somnolent songs under the name "Lisa Sunshine."

"For me, 'Lisa Sunshine' is the dish and Radio Eris is the spoon," says Spera. One stirs the other and each is spurred on by her work as a photographer/curator.

"My life as Lisa Sunshine is enhanced by my visual arts," says Spera, who calls her work "neuro-explicit," objects photographed in their environment. "Trash is what people would consider something odd lying on the sidewalk like a shoe or a discarded toy," she says, referring to her own explosive Headless Doll (2002). "I see beauty in day-after-Thanksgiving leftovers."

That's what the photographer at home — the log cabin she shares with life partner Jeff Thomas on the 800 block of Lawrence Street — sees and does. In Eris and Highwire, Spera is part of a collaborative process with improvisation as its guiding hand.

"The images I work with seem to have a visual loudness and are often psychedelic in color and composition." Loud and psychedelic describes what Radio Eris sounds like on their recent Monkey Island CD —order built from chaos, a democracy of like-minded musicians spinning random fragments around Lora Bloom's screeching beatific poems. Eris' sonic and visual blasts were part of so many Highwire events.

"Highwire has openness toward risk-taking, experimentation and collaboration with other disciplines, without losing its depth of vision," says Highwire president Jeff Waring. He proudly mentions past collaborators like Group Motion Dance Co. and saxophonist/poet Elliott Levin.

Spera's predecessor Van Zandt died in August 2006. "I miss John," she says. "If it weren't for him I would've never met Eris. When we were told about plans to expand the Convention Center, I was upset. The Gilbert was huge and the exhibits there can never be equaled." But what Highwire lost in size, they gained in acceptance once they found a home along Frankford (so-called) Arts Corridor, near Rocket Cat Café and Germ Books.

Now Highwire is more at one with its immediate community. "What Frankford Ave. has to offer that both Old City and the Gilbert Building didn't is the community aspect," says Waring.

As artists, Waring insists that his gallery ask, "Who speaks the language?"

He's talking about their language. And one of the people in their new neighborhood who speaks the lingo is Spera. "Lisa's a people person and belongs to the group to interact," says Waring. "She'll invite in the creative grassroots of the city."

And when she opens the doors, what will she hope to find?

"Carefully restrained freedom," says Spera. "And lots of pretty color."

(a_amorosi@citypaper.net)

Featured Members Exhibit, Sat., Dec. 8, 8 p.m., $5, 2040 Frankford Ave., 215-426-2685, highwiregallery.com.

All reader comments are subject to our Terms of Use. By clicking Post Comment, you acknowledge that you have reviewed and agree to these Terms.

Name	please enter your name
Email (will not be published)	please enter a valid email
Comment	please enter a comment
Enter the security code on the right in the textbox below.
Security Code	please enter the code
	Join the City Paper Mailing List

Things That Matter To People Who Matter
First Friday Focus
Permanent Vacation
BiG TeA PaRtY 10th Anniversary Party
Really Rosie
Dance Happens Here