An exhibit featuring rare Arizona gay rodeo memorabilia at the Burton Barr Central Library last month engaged Valley residents and the local arts community with its unique perspective on the West.
Out West is a program that highlights the presence of the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender community in Western culture. The free exhibit ran from March 2 through March 31.
Created by author and filmmaker Gregory Hinton, it was first presented in 2009 at the Autry National Center in Los Angeles.
“I’m trying to create visibility that we do exist, especially in the rural communities where many of us come from,” said Hinton, who was born in Montana and grew up in Wyoming.
Posters contributed by the Arizona Gay Rodeo Association lined two temporary walls in the second-floor reading room of the library, one with a traditional cowboy figure and the phrase “We Were There.” Photos from the 1980s and ’90s, belt buckles and a collection of buttons with a bucking horse silhouetted in a gay pride rainbow filled the glass display boxes.
Hinton was first inspired to introduce more LGBT content to Western museums in 2009 when he was walking through the Autry National Center’s Film Gallery and noticed that “Brokeback Mountain” was not represented.
“I got to thinking, I wonder if these Western institutions have any kind of gay culture in their archives,” Hinton said. “I couldn’t find anything.”
After Hinton arranged for the shirts featured in the film to be exhibited in the gallery, the museum encouraged him to create the series that became Out West.
Hinton now partners with three other Western museums and has shown the exhibit in 10 states.
Out West’s unusual artifacts have been exhibited in conservative communities throughout the West, but the public reaction has typically been positive.
“The libraries don’t get much grief at all,” Hinton said. “I know that the Autry has routine complaints from conservative trustees … it’s time for the Autry to let go of their homophobic trustees.”
The Phoenix installation has been regarded positively, said Linda Holman-Bentley, the Adult Services Manager at Burton Barr.
Even visitors who said they were opposed to gay marriage did not express opposition to an exhibit featuring LGBT content.
“On my own reservation, they’re trying to move to approve gay marriage,” Stuart Easchief of the Salt River Pima-Maricopa Indian Community said.
Easchief said that while he does not personally agree with gay marriage, he does not have a problem with groups like the Arizona Gay Rodeo Association.
“Every organization should do what they want to do as long as nobody else gets hurt, as long as you don’t push what you are on others,” Easchief said.
Phoenix resident Anita McDaniel said she had not previously considered the presence of LGBT communities in traditional Western culture, but does not oppose programs like Out West.
“That’s fine with me,” McDaniel said. “People have different ideas about what’s right.”
In addition to engaging the public through its display, the exhibit encouraged collaboration by including local histories and narratives in the program.
“It was important to Greg (Hinton) that we include the local community in the programming because there’s so many LGBT stories in the West, and when he takes this to a city, he wants to get the stories there too,” Holman-Bentley said.
Not only was the material for the exhibit provided by the Arizona chapter of the International Gay Rodeo Association, but the free presentations that supplemented the exhibit often included local performers.
Phoenix historian Marshall Shore directed a dramatic reading of “Beyond Brokeback,” a collection of personal stories inspired by the film “Brokeback Mountain,” on March 7. A local filmmaker interviewed Hinton about his work in front of a small crowd as part of the event programming on March 21.
“There are gay rodeo associations everywhere, and it’s just better that they carry their own exhibit,” Hinton said.
He has even broader plans for the program.
“I want Out West to be presented as a program series in every state,” Hinton said.
Even the title of the exhibit indicates a broad mission of awareness and tolerance. “I co-opted those words and I’m happy to say I’ve changed their meaning a bit,” Hinton said. “This suggests that it means to be diverse and free in the American West.”
Contact the reporter at emregan1@asu.edu
