PROVINCETOWN — With one week to go until the Carnival parade sets out on Commercial Street, Mark Adams is working late in his Miller Hill studio, painting the author’s name onto a human-size reproduction of the cover of Andrew Holleran’s acclaimed 1978 gay novel Dancer From the Dance. Surrounding Adams are his paintings of other fabled queer literary works: Giovanni’s Room, The Hours, Tipping the Velvet, and, of course, Faggots.
The paintings will decorate a float in the 46th annual Carnival parade on Aug. 22, for which this year’s theme is “Renaissance x Revolution.”
“These books represent the gay Renaissance,” says Adams. He put together a list of 40 queer titles before narrowing it down to 11 to paint. “They embody the flowering of gay life and the evolution of our self-perception.”
Adams interprets the book covers in his signature ethereal, flowing brushstrokes. “I want these to look more painterly and less perfect,” he says. “As if I didn’t plan it out very well and they just happened.”
Every August, the Provincetown Business Guild partners with local businesses to commission artists for the annual Carnival parade floats, providing them with stipends for materials and labor. This year, the Provincetown Bookshop tapped Adams to work on their float.
Adams is putting the book covers on lauan plywood panels, which will come together to form a library of queer literature that will roll down Commercial Street on a flatbed trailer on Thursday.
The titles he’s chosen mark the beginning of a renaissance for depictions of queer life in literature, and many are from an era when queer characters were mostly portrayed as closeted, sick, or even as criminals, Adams says: “You couldn’t justify having a gay character who wasn’t doomed.” Pointing at Dancer From the Dance with his paintbrush, he adds, “This is one of the first novels that expressed a kind of romantic joy about gay eroticism, gay attraction, and gay life.”
For those wanting to see all the floats in their full glory, the parade heads up Commercial Street starting at the Harbor Hotel at 3 p.m. and ending at the Coast Guard Station in the West End of town. Commercial Street and all entering streets along the route will be closed by 1:30 p.m.