By Beth Patel

Patrick “Pato” Hebet’s presentation, “I Love to Feel Where the Words Come From,” began with the book "Plain Living: A Quaker Path to Simplicity" by Catherine Whitmire, setting the stage for a walk through his process, work, and interaction with the Los Angeles community. Behind his tall stature and soft voice, he seemed to be a genuinely amiable and humble man, casually pulling out witty mentions of current events. Hebert went through various photos of his artwork, the majority was installations or community based, and each was prefaced with a poignant quote from a book or poem. Each piece of artwork, or project rather, took on a different form and invited the audience to explore not only concepts, but also a visual and mental space that has perhaps never been experienced in that particular way. The questions posed by his work: does the self exist without getting crushed with the romantic idea of the collective? How do we communicate or not communicate with each other? How does public space meet private space? Why live beyond our means emotionally? Questions that seemed almost too big for Stokes Auditorium but surely not too big for Haverford students.

One such question was probed along with his plans for a new installation. With the elections on the horizon, a work in progress involves the concept of “signage,” the cardboard signs we see popping up all over the Main Line lawns. He showed us his inspiration: photos he had taken of signage around L.A. and throughout his travels. Then digitally rendered images of his plans for an installation at the Orange County Museum of Art; the front lawn of the museum with signs posted all around. This “3-D sketching” helps him decide on how many signs he wants, their density, and their positioning. His next step was to ask students at local colleges some thought-probing questions.  Their responses are to be put on cardboard signs in the style of political campaigning signs. He showed us some of these anticipated signs, which ranged from “Not being wishy-washy is hard for me” to “I feel anxious right now.” His intention is to explore modes of communication and the idea of participation in democracy.

Another piece, "Mixed Signals," was a semi-public installation in a large street-facing window of a gallery in downtown L.A. At 5th and Main Street, a poor marginalized community bumps up against professional district. The piece itself was composed of stationary car headlights and streetlights, which flashed at a seemingly random accord. Hebert described it as “conceptualist and minimalist”, though the larger issue was the commentary in the neighborhood. He noted the reactions of pedestrians, photographing them and talking with them about their impressions. He noted that men of color seemed “repelled” from the gallery. This particular piece brings to the forefront his interest in public spaces and the reactions of interior meeting exterior.

Through the L.A. County Museum of Art, he worked with a group of children at Placencia, an inner-city school in L.A. He incorporated them into various forms of photography. However, his larger project with them involved asking them challenging questions, such as “What does your classroom taste like?” One of his favorite responses was that Placencia sounds like “a wooly mammoth jumping into a pool.” These answers in their original handwriting were printed on t-shirts and given back to the community.

Hebert brought us into his creative mind as much as he could, by sampling house music for the audience (DJ Oji and Una), playing metallic banging (which was, in the original piece, played inside of a freight carrier at the L.A. port), and showing the audience photos of his backyard. Being a photographer, he often had photos of the reactions to his public installations.

He furthermore spoke at length about his work with AIDS Project Los Angeles in the field of education.  This project involves prevention and helping those with AIDS to live happy, healthy and sustained lives. He works closely with the biannual publication, Corpus, a journal from The Institute for Gay Men’s Health, which uses art, cultural criticism, poetry, short stories, and humor to reveal the challenges of HIV prevention in gay and bisexual communities. His work with them means to work on the socio-cultural impact of AIDS, so that treatment does not miss “the power of interpersonal exchanged”.

His unique fusion of the thoughts, deep hopes and fears of his community, with his personal, and sometimes political, statements made for not only interesting explanations, but also for more thought on larger social issues. At the end of his talk, nodding to the Quaker tradition of community service, he urged students to involve themselves in wherever their passions lay. “Shape things to make them look the way you want them to,” he said to a full auditorium. He will be attending events around campus for the next week and returns later in the year for more involvement in the Haverford community.

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