This event requires registration: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/in-out-and-about-there-and-then-tickets-153558986061

The presenter will offer materials garnered from William (Bill) R. Friday's experiences about growing up, coming of age, and coming out in the rural Pacific Northwest between the late 1940s and the early 1970s. Bill Friday grew up in a working-class, rural family and emerged as an artist in his mid-teens, earning college scholarships to attend university. His art increasingly allowed him to openly express his sexuality and gave him opportunities to find safe spaces to express himself in an era and environment hostile to all but overtly cis-gendered individuals. His seasonal work for the Forest Service in the 1960s and 1970s simultaneously meant more freedom and greater repression relative to his sexuality. His art and personal memoir help reveal how he and others found and made space at that time in rural areas and small towns