The Collective of Geniuses announces Homo for the Holidays

A Fundraiser for Portland's favorite Queer Non-Profit. Portlanders prepare to be wowed by the gayest of Performances and Raffle Prizes!

December 19th, 2009 – Portland, OR  Today Collective of Geniuses announces Homo for the Holidays, to take place on December 19^th from 6-10pm at Switchyard Studios located at 109 SE Salmon St. Tickets are $7 to $700 donation at the door, though no one turned away for lack of funds. The evening will include brand a new clown performance by the CoG Acrobatics; Aerial by Jack StockLynn, Nikita, and Charity McKee; Burlesque by Sahara Dunes, as well as performances by Val the Variety Act and many more. There will also be raffle prizes and an art auction. Prizes include donations from SinSavvy Productions, New Moon Massage, In Other Words, , Dashing Jack Accessories, and much much more! Art from Katie Simpson Spain, Smitty Amabilis, Rochelle Koivunen, Sam MAcKenzie, Traci Donahue and others to be announced. Childcare will be available on-site, with RSVP! Homo for the Holidays is a fundraiser for Collective of Geniuses to pay for the costs associated with filing for non-profit status.  To make a tax deductible donation go to http://www.collectiveofgeniuses.org and click on the donate button!

Why Homo for the Holidays? As the name implies many of us spend the holidays season alone, or with our chosen family. We plan to lift your spirits with our gay-ities and help keep Portland Weird for the Holidaze. Someone fantastic has already donated the actual filing fee, so now all we need to raise is enough to pay for the lawyer fees, so we can be sure we are all right and legal! Check out our Facebook event at http://kl.am/homo.

CoG’s mission is to create art that challenges the notions on which class, gender, privilege, and other social demographics are based. Furthermore, we empower marginalized artists, especially those who identify as trans, queer, womyn and/or minorities, and help them create sustainable economic stability through educational programs and creative opportunities.

Our main objectives is creating art as a means to create history. Art has been categorically represented through the ages as a main source of history. Art is the foundation of Cultural Anthropology. We look at everything from vintage fashion magazines to ancient pottery to cave paintings to create a picture and story of human evolution and culture. But what happens when all these stories are only a piece of the truth? What happens when large portions of the population are erased from art and history? It's like they never existed, nor is their existance acknowledged now. The voices of marginalized artists are and have always been silenced. We seek to change that by supporting and promoting queer, transgendered, womyn, and minority artists because we believe this art can have a powerful, positive impact on the culture at large.

Our secondary objective is creating art as a viable trade. We believe that artists spend a quantitative amount of time learning and practicing the trade of art and that it should be respected as such. Just as you wouldn't ask a doctor to operate on you for free; artists shouldn't be expected to offer their services for free as we spend just as much time if not more studying our trade. CoG advocates for not only funding for the arts but also specific funding for marginalized artists. We believe that by engaging in this work we can open the possibility of arts careers to a broader spectrum of people. We believe all people have the right to be come artists, and earn a living!

What Do We Do? We have a visual arts and a performance arts programas well as a business and furthering education program. We host ART (Artist Round Table). We produce original innovative theater and performances (mostly circus and puppet), holds classes and workshops, host tables at craft fairs and Gallery shows. If you can't make it to the show, this is another great reason to make a tax deductible donation online at http://collectiveofgeniuses.org.