With Palm Springs AIDS memorial, Philip K. Smith finds redemption

Phillip K. Smith III stands in front of "Lozenge Combine 1," a glowing blue and purple artwork in his Palm Desert studio.

By Daniel Vaillancourt

Nov. 21, 2024 3 AM PT

Palm Springs City Council on Thursday approved the latest design for its once-controversial AIDS memorial.
Critics lambasted the original design as offensive and speculated it was a cruel joke.
Artist Phillip K. Smith III could have dropped the pro bono project but stayed on, eventually winning over skeptics.

Doesn’t it look like an anus?

That question — posed in September 2023 by one of the 16,000 members of the Gay Men of Palm Springs CA Facebook group — ignited a firestorm over the initial design for the Palm Springs AIDS Memorial Task Force’s future sculpture in Downtown Park.

Hundreds of likes and comments followed. While some chose to compare the design by artist Phillip K. Smith III to a 9-foot-high doughnut, many were outraged by the anatomical likeness that the AIDS memorial evoked.

“I remember it was very difficult for me to keep the conversation civil,” said group administrator Raymond Lafleur. “I can’t even recall how many comments I deleted.”

Jake Ingrassia, a TV news reporter at the time, picked up the story, which aired on local ABC affiliate KESQ. The segment went viral, taking the discussion national. Lafleur believes the design elicited a PTSD-like reaction in those who perceived the message to be, “This is how you got AIDS to begin with.” He led the campaign to have Smith go back to the drawing board.

In the offices above his gargantuan studio in nearby Palm Desert, where he was raised and still lives, Smith said he was sad, frustrated and angry to hear that people were offended by the original design. “You’re accusing me of something I’m not, and we didn’t even get to talk it out,” he recalled thinking about the hate emails he received. “That was probably the hardest thing to handle.”

The original design, made public in 2021, had sailed through the Public Arts Commission and the Palm Springs City Council, and some 400 donors had raised more than half of the memorial’s $600,000 budget.

Smith, 51, honored by this “massive ask” in January 2021, had not taken lightly the responsibility of accepting this commission. “I feel like working on a memorial is an artist’s highest calling,” he said, adding that he debated for almost two months.

Then, lightning struck. Alone in his studio one morning, “I sat down and just sketched it out.” He informed task force founder Dan Spencer he was all in, and agreed to design the project pro bono. “If someone else did it, and it wasn’t great, I was really gonna be frustrated. Probably for the rest of my life.”

The death of his original artistic vision was crushing for Smith, but he moved on.

“All of the trauma made it easier to step away from the purity of that first thought,” he said. “If you stick with it, you’re sticking with the controversy.”

Of course, the award-winning, internationally renowned artist behind memorable installations at the Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival could have walked away altogether.

“That’s way too easy. I mean, talk about the worst messaging possible,” he said, recognizing the HIV/AIDS community’s history of being abandoned. “Do we repeat that? That would be horrific. Talk about PTSD. I’m an optimist. You find a way. I love being in difficult rooms because I love humanity and all the realities of emotions and conversation.”

Smith, task force founder Dan Spencer and other task force members — all volunteers — found themselves in a difficult room indeed when, a few months later, they met with Lafleur and two other Facebook group members: Danny Kopelson and Oregon AIDS Memorial co-founder Ron Withrow.

“It was a tense meeting, but the beginning of getting us to work together,” Lafleur said.

Five listening sessions were planned, each bringing Smith and the task force together with 15 to 20 community members.

“If that meant me being yelled at for an hour, then that’s what needed to happen for the project,” Smith said.

Instead, what transpired were conversations in which strangers shared freely, and intimately. “I grew up in the desert,” Smith said. “I had never once heard that people chose to come to Palm Springs to die. That was very powerful for me — chose to come here because there was a community of support that didn’t exist anywhere else, and continues to this day.”

Lafleur said that from the first meeting, he saw how sincere Smith was.

“He was intently listening, going around the table, letting everyone speak their mind,” Lafleur said. “He asked questions. He seemed very moved by some of the testimony.”

Phillip K. Smith III stands by a model of his Palm Springs AIDS Memorial, which has a teardrop motif.

Smith had long understood his greatest challenge would be creating a memorial that combines grief and loss with joy and hope. “Good luck with that, Phil!” was the refrain at each gathering. But something happened at the fourth listening session.

“People were weeping in the room, and laughing at the same time,” the artist remembered. It hit him. He’d found the core of the new idea. “The bridge between the two emotions is a tear.”

After a town hall last March attended by more than 100 people, Smith retreated to his studio. With the help of Spencer (part of the Key West AIDS Memorial’s design team) and Burzeen Contractor (Smith’s design associate for more than two decades), a new concept slowly emerged.

Defenders and detractors of the first design were invited to presentations at Smith’s studio. Lafleur was among the first to see the new plan, and when the reveal was over, he could feel the artist’s eyes upon him.

“He probably didn’t expect for me to react so positively, but I had to, because I think he did a great job,” Lafleur said. “So many memorials you see across the country share common elements like a ribbon or whatnot. This stands apart from those others. I think that speaks well for Palm Springs. It’s a unique community.”

That so many people’s voices were heard and recognized makes the new memorial “all the more powerful,” said Mayor Jeffrey Bernstein, who Lafleur emphasizes was instrumental in initially getting the clashing parties talking.

Set in Downtown Park at the center of a 20-foot circle with twin entries and benches, “The Well of Love” will consist of a trio of conjoined, 10-foot-high stone ovals anchored by a single pedestal and tipping out slightly toward the viewer. Made of mirror behind cast glass, each reflective face will depict a unique “pool of tears of joy and grief” that defies gravity.

On the ground below will be each face’s title in bronze letters. “Forever Remembered” will have a single teardrop at its center, representing the deep connection to one individual. The seven drops of “Forever Loved” will acknowledge caregivers. “Forever Celebrated” will show the ripple effect of those whose loss permanently affects our lives. Smith described it as “a beautiful collection of memory, love, joy and sadness — all of it pooled together in a singular experience.”

QR-coded bronze plaques at each entrance will lead visitors to an online element, encouraging more profound engagement.

Phillip K. Smith III stands in front of red and blue lightboxes, an artwork titled "Twelve 90's," in his studio.

As the memorial’s complexity has grown, so has its budget — to $1 million to $1.2 million, with about $600,000 still needed to be raised. Organizers hope to start fabrication in January and unveil the memorial in time for World AIDS Day 2025, which is Dec. 1. When the Palm Springs City Council voted to approve Smith’s new design Thursday, it also allocated $65,000 toward installation plus an additional $60,000 at Smith’s request.

“As challenging as it was, it was incredibly powerful and enjoyable. Challenging in the most beautiful of ways, and an opportunity for me to learn about myself as a human being and as an artist,” Smith said of the whole process. “I feel like I was the right person for it.”

The writer of this article is an employee of DAP Health. Prior to the writer’s employment there, DAP Health contributed to the first AIDS memorial design.

Palm Springs hated his AIDS memorial design. How this artist’s do-over turned debacle into redemption

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