Camera experiment captures unique portraits of homeless life for Aurora Warms the Night

AURORA | For years, home for Paquita Bartice and Jay Berge was the cramped cabin of a 1989 Volvo 740. The Aurora couple spent their days outside of the Martin Luther King Jr. Library on East Colfax Avenue and most nights they’d make the trek to the parking lot of the Walmart on Tower Road.

But when the pleasant chill of autumn would morph into January’s gelid bite, the pair — who refer to each other as one another’s eternal fiancée — would spend hours tuned in to radio station KOA, acutely listening for a magic number.

“We’d keep close tabs on the weather and whenever it would sink below 20 degrees, we’d head right over to Aurora Warms The Night,” Berge said of he and Bartice’s winter routine.

That regimen of survival is a familiar one for hundreds of ephemeral residents of East Colfax, but it’s a story and a situation riddled with intricacies that remain relatively unknown to outsiders of a tight-knit community.

This Friday, a coalition of artists — some newfound and others well ingrained in their disciplines — is looking to change that.

About two dozen photographs depicting life along East Colfax will be on display Friday, July 24, at the third annual Aurora Warms The Night benefit at the Aurora Cultural Arts District Gallery, 1400 Dallas St. — an event that for the first time ever will showcase the stories of the city’s homeless population.

“Sometimes I feel that the homeless don’t have a voice, and this event is giving them a chance to express themselves through an art form and to share their story,” said Sarah Hamilton, executive director of Aurora Warms The Night. The shelter on Elmira Street offers food, mental health services and bed nights to the homeless when the temperature dips below 20 degrees.

“We’d keep close tabs on the weather and whenever it would sink below 20 degrees, we’d head right over to Aurora Warms The Night,” Berge said of he and Bartice’s winter routine.

Hamilton handed out eight disposable cameras to several recipients of the shelter’s free summer lunch program — which served more than 2,000 free lunches between June 15 and July 10 — asking people to take photos of their lives, and their stories, that would later be displayed in a gallery setting. About a month after she doled the cameras out, Hamilton said what she got back surprised her.

“Some I didn’t get back, some got rained on, some got lost and some got returned with pretty personal and pretty amazing stories,” she said.

But at the center of the some 20 glossy photographs is a singular project with a singular photograph.

Colorado Springs-based photographer Sarah Curry spent about eight hours snapping photos, interviewing and recording Bartice for the benefit’s featured exhibit, a project series Curry calls portrait biographies.

Aurora Warms The Night Benefit
5:30 – 8 p.m., July 24, ACAD Gallery 1400 Dallas St. Tickets are $25 and can be purchased at blacktie-colorado.com For more information, call 303-361-6905.

“I record audio as I photograph the contributors, or subjects, and it’s quite a cathartic experience for them to listen to it after,” Curry said of the exhibit. “You see a portrait, you hear their story in their very own words and you’re able to touch something tangible that ties it all together. The idea is that it’s a full sensory exhibit.”

The result is a single 20-inch-by-40-inch portrait of Bartice displayed alongside an audio recording of her autobiography and a handful of her personal, important effects.

Bartice said that participating in Curry’s series rustled up some difficult memories, but reaffirmed her fortune. Last year, both she and Berge secured an apartment in the Fletcher Gardens apartments on Emporia Street after filling out an application at Aurora Warms The Night — a process that took over a year.

“Being in the show reminded me of certain things I had forgotten about, but it made me realize how lucky I am,” Bartice said. “I’m a survivor who gotten past homelessness, abuse, sexual assault — now I tell my story about surviving and I love it.”

Hamilton said that she aims to raise about $5,000 at the benefit — which is also set to offer appetizers, beverages, music and a silent auction — in an attempt to get a jump on fundraising for the shelter’s busy winter months.

“In the summer, people don’t think about sheltering, but I have to have a reserve built up for the winter, so having a fundraiser like this is actually really impactful for starting our winter sheltering,” Hamilton said.

She added that the most-valuable donation is the sponsorship of a single bed night at the shelter — a $35 expense that provides a bed, blankets, food, hygiene supplies and mental health services to those who choose to accept them. From November 2014 through February of this year Aurora Warms The Night provided 2,511 bed nights of shelter, according to Hamilton.

“Being in the show reminded me of certain things I had forgotten about, but it made me realize how lucky I am,” Bartice said. “I’m a survivor who gotten past homelessness, abuse, sexual assault — now I tell my story about surviving and I love it.”

Bartice, now an active advocate for the Elmira Street shelter, echoed Hamilton’s sentiments on the importance of donating and the vitality of services such as Aurora Warms The Night.

“If it wasn’t for Aurora Warms, I have no idea where I’d be right now,” she said. “Because of them, I can now walk around without people thinking ‘Oh, here comes another homeless person.’ I can be me, and I just love it.’”