I knew Diana Alva for over 40 years. I first met her through Detroit’s visual arts scene. We were both young artists who were going out to galleries to see various art shows, circa late 1970’s and early 1980’s.
In those days, when I was both shyer and odder in ways, Diana was someone that you’d feel comfortable talking to. Early on, I saw her as yet another talented and interesting person. We were friendly.
Diana was helping to run the Michigan Gallery. This space ran for over 25 years. In 1997, when it closed, the Zeitgeist Gallery and Performance venue took over the same space. The Zeitgeist featured theatre and artwork with a special sensibility and outlook, which was very different from what the Michigan Gallery was doing. I got to know her better in those Zeitgeist days.
In 1998, Jim Puntigam and I started the Spaceband. Before that, we had a short-lived project called the Afraid of Music Band. Diana was involved with both. She enjoyed playing music with the Spaceband and she was an important part of our sound and presentation.
Spaceband has been playing for 25 years now. In the early days we were a five-member group. We practiced every week. As the band grew to ten or twelve members, we had more concerts yet we practiced less often. We always played some unique music and put on a good show. Diana brought a lot to both our sound and our sense of presentation.
Diana had a great sense of humor and of style. For part of the time, she named her Spaceband persona Oomlock McNally. She designed her costumes, often using real or artificial plant life. Her musical sense was superb and she really added a lot. She specialized in playing unique percussion instruments. I always tried to listen carefully to what she was doing and to respond to it or to compliment it. Also, it was great having at least one woman in the band. There’s a lot of “male energy” in our music and she added a positive feminine outlook or vibration.
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As a fellow visual artist, I found her art to be vibrant and truly extraordinary. She’d worked at Pewabic Pottery in Detroit and did a large body of work in clay. Diana was also an excellent painter and truly followed her own path. We enjoyed seeing where it led. I went to many of her exhibitions. She had a great success showing her work in France at the Musée de la Création Franche in Bègles and had many shows in the Detroit area. I did a number of collaborative works with her at the Zeitgeist’s annual visual jam sessions, with no solo work allowed.
Her spirit and her strong personality was often an inspiration to those of us who knew her. Jim Puntigam was close to her personally, artistically and musically. The Spaceband performed on their wedding day and the bride and groom joined in. I’d meet some of her family over the years, at art shows and Spaceband concerts. I got to see many of them again at her 70th birthday party.
The last few years were especially challenging, for her and for many of us. I know that she kept in touch with some of her artist friends through a series of zoom meetings. Some of us had some idea of her health challenges and with what was going on in her life. I’m practically telephone-phobic and rarely use the device. Yet I had a few memorable telephone conversations with her, in these past five years.
She had another success with her August 2021 exhibit Abstract Reflections. This was a solo show art detroit contemporary. The Spaceband played its first show since the pandemic hit. She played with us too.
In a curious coincidence, her final performance with the Spaceband was also at the detroit contemporary gallery, exactly one year before she died, on January 28, 2023. We’ll miss you Diana, rest in peace. Perhaps we’ll meet again, in the beyond.
Links:
From 2009
https://www.modeldmedia.com/features/detroitclay19909.aspx
From 2018:
And more:
https://www.detroitcontemporary.com/diana-alva
http://www.musee-creationfranche.com/?portfolio=alva-diana
https://en.everybodywiki.com/Diana_Alva
This piece is dedicated to her memory and also to her family, to Jim Puntigam, to Veronica Bielat and to others whose lives she touched.
There’s a memorial exhibit soon at the detroit contemporary:
“An exhibition will be held from April 2nd – 7th at detroit contemporary. We will gather for a celebration of life on April 6th from 1:00-3:00 pm in the gallery where we will tell stories, eat good food, and laugh, just as Diana would have wanted.”
-Lillian Settles, Diana’s granddaughter
https://www.detroitcontemporary.com/current-upcoming-exhibitions/diana-alva
Also, the Spaceband will do something March 24th, next Sunday afternoon 1-4 at the Ellen Kayrod Gallery.
for art and artists 
March 27, 2024 at 11:53 pm |
thank you, maurice, for your heartfelt reminiscence, of diana, a woman with a big, big heart, dennis