Exhibitors Hope ‘This Is Our Yard’ Hits Home : AIDS stories: A 20-photo exhibit pictures the tragedy and hope of those with the disease.

Two Orange County artists have set out on a mission of sorts, a campaign of pictures and words designed to help counter what they feel is a pervasive atmosphere of ignorance, fear and hysteria shrouding the AIDS epidemic.

Mary-Linn Hughes and Jerry McGrath have assembled a traveling exhibit of photographic portraits of county residents who have AIDS or have tested positive for HIV. Additionally, there are photos of others affected by the disease, such as medical professionals and AIDS patients’ parents, friends and lovers.

“Our idea is to show that these are your sons, your daughters, your neighbors,” McGrath said recently. “These are real people, living here . The exhibit is anti-NIMBY (Not In My Back Yard), so we called it ‘This Is Our Yard.’ ”

“We wanted to interrupt the hysteria and fear by allowing viewers to hear peoples’ stories,” Hughes added, citing as indicative of the hysteria last year’s successful initiative in Irvine which deleted language from an existing ordinance that extended anti-discrimination protections to homosexuals.

Twenty large color portraits make up the exhibit, which is showing at Irvine Valley College Gallery Hall through Nov. 9. About half depict people with AIDS or those infected with HIV. Accompanying each photo are responses by each subject, in English and Spanish, to the question: “What do you want your neighbors to know about your experience with AIDS?”

In some cases, the intimate, candid narratives are painfully tragic. Writes Marge Goebbel after the illness took her son, Alan: “AIDS was the intruder into our lives. Months of anger, fear, hate and love. I was the last one to give up.”

Ron Talamantez-Nevarez, a ruggedly handsome man photographed beside his motorcycle, conveyed his uncertainty of living with HIV: “Will I get sick? Is this a symptom? How much time do I have? What is death? Will anyone love me?”

But much of the writing reveals a positive outlook, courage and optimism, a brightness like that in many of the portraits. In fact, the physical effects of AIDS are apparent in only one photograph. Among the others are those of a beautiful young woman sitting in the sun and a young man in his patio, smiling broadly like a Cheshire Cat.

Where other photographers have taken a distinctly different approach, portraying the disease’s corporeal devastation, McGrath and Hughes said they had something else in mind.

“In some ways, we wanted to interrupt those assumptions (about the deleterious effects of AIDS) and show that there are people living with this disease,” said Hughes, who for the past three years has led a self-portrait photography workshop in Laguna Beach for AIDS patients.

Wade Phillip Wenthur, for instance, is pictured smiling up from the sparkling turquoise water of a swimming pool. He writes that this year his health has never been better since he was found to have AIDS in 1986 at age 28.

“Because I have AIDS does not mean I think less of myself or should just sit at home, anticipating death. I have found that AIDS is at the center of my life, and I am enjoying myself, helping those around me that have been affected by the HIV virus.”

Writes John Rolling Thunder: “For myself there is no battle with the dis-ease (sic), just total surrender to one of life’s challenges. I am not dying from this dis-ease either. I am living.”

While some photographed for the exhibit have not been so fortunate, others who had been very sick “are doing better now,” McGrath added. “I think that’s important to know. A lot of people don’t want to be seen as needing pity.”

The upbeat element was one reason that the collaborators chose to shoot color photographs: McGrath had seen many “scenes of the horrific” in black and white. Color is also more realistic than the “abstract” alternative, he said, and helps carry the message that those pictured are “your neighbors” in the Orange County community, not feared casualties or mere numbers in a statistical study.

McGrath, 36, and Hughes, 35, met as undergraduates at Cal State Fullerton and found their first participants through Laguna Shanti, the AIDS service organization where Hughes conducts her workshop. Later, other local agencies helped. The pair developed rewarding relationships and a certain intimacy with those they photographed: One session with a bulky, large-format camera took seven hours.

“It was an experience,” said McGrath, who coordinates the photography program at Irvine Valley College. “We got to spend quality time with people, and they seemed to be really happy that they were being included in this and to have a place to tell their stories.”

“This Is Our Yard” is scheduled to be shown at the Art Store in Fullerton, Cypress College, Pierce College and other sites in Orange, San Bernardino and Los Angeles counties. The artists are also seeking donations to produce an exhibit catalogue or book of their work.

“This Is Our Yard,” 20 large color photographic portraits of Orange County residents who have AIDS or tested HIV positive and their family, friends, lovers, care givers and AIDS service providers. Building A300, Gallery Hall, Irvine Valley College, 5500 Irvine Center Drive, Irvine. Through Nov. 9. Gallery hours: Monday through Thursday, 8 a.m. to 10 p.m.; Friday, 8 a.m. to 5 p.m.; Saturday and Sunday, 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. Films on AIDS screened Friday, 8 p.m., Building B200, Room B209. Panel discussion on AIDS Nov. 9, 8 p.m., Forum Theatre, Room A301. Both free. Information: (714) 559-9300.