To Fill a Cavity

Two weeks ago, late on Friday night, I found myself sitting on the edge of the stage in the basement at Sid Rich college. The walls, bright red as they are, somehow told me this was a good place to be that night.  The echoes of the space were somehow a comfort where the music bounced around the few bodies inside. At around 11:30, there were already only four of us left in the room, taking in the dimness and the emptiness where before had been light and music and chatter. And it felt good. Really, really good.

This was a space whose existence I’d discovered barely three weeks earlier—it is now a space where I remember one of the greatest nights of my time at Rice so far. There hadn’t been a party; no solo cups, LED lights, or beer-sticky floors and bodies. What we had was the result of an idea, three weeks of hard work, and Cavity’s first student art show of the academic year.

Cavity, a small coalition of student artists and art-lovers, was a concept placed in our hands by three upperclassmen who, in a space of two weeks last spring, did more for student art at Rice than anyone else had for a long, long time. It was—and is—the result of minds coming together to do something where there was a need for it. Not just chatter and idealism, but walls and bodies in real time. Where Rice University turned away from providing us with the time and space for student art that so many of us want, they said we won’t stand it.

One night during dead days in the spring, they proved that they meant what they said, and on that night two weeks ago, in a place as seemingly unlikely as Sid’s basement, we proved it again. We found a space and made one of the most powerful connections I’ve ever felt—student to student, all of us who wanted to fill that space together. It was small, but it was ours, and it was covered to every aspect of its capacity with the things we all created. On those crazy red, black, and yellow walls there were paintings, drawings, collages, photographs, projections, lights, and words. There was a dance performance, a journal to draw on, a stage anyone could step up to and make something of their own (they painted furniture we’d literally picked up off the streets, and let me tell you, it looks pretty damn cool). A sculpture hung from the ceiling, and even the empty air around our heads eventually became full as students DJ-ed and beatboxed throughout the night. It was all ours. I’ll never get over how exciting that was, honestly.

No, it wasn’t easy, and it was far from perfect. It was a lot of running around helplessly, taking the longer way around, some canvases falling off walls, and a few messes (we somehow ended up with Oreo cheesecake and Oreos). It wasn’t neat or glamorous, but the beauty of it, and what I’m here to write about, wasn’t in that. It was in the people who—when we thought about student art and said this is something we care about—responded with hey, we do, too, and proved it. That was all it took, and it was one of the most incredible things I’ve ever felt. It was a kind of comradeship unlike any other, the feeling of bringing something to life, to live alongside the things other minds brought to life, and watching them all run off together and be.

I think, in the end, that it was an art in itself, and it was all thanks to all of you, who heard us and listened.
Thank you for filling that space with us.
There is more to come, and it is always for you.  

Written by Ana Paula P.