On Halloween, 1988, Jay Fraley first formulated his idea for "The Project". He had gone to West Hollywood to enjoy All Hallow's Eve; the joy, the celebration, and the costumes. Being by training and education both an accomplished actor and photographer, he began to be intrigued. The first attraction was to the costumery; not to the rented and the cliché' but to personal and creative expressions. The idea was foe a photo documentary. The documentary would record ten years of costumery. It would take a more formal approach than any one previous; not party shots, not partial photos, but actual studies taken in the studio. Thus, in 1990, with a crew dedicated to the project, he took to Hollywood Boulevard, and to West Hollywood, and began to collect names, numbers, and addresses, and to line up some appointments for the studio. Since that first year, Fraley has taken the project to the streets, to film the participants in their most spontaneous expression, as it were - in the wild. The plan was to continue the project until the end of the 20th century. Qua artworks, these photos do not readily admit of classification. For instance, some of these photos are likely to shock. So one might think they belong in a genre of Mapplethorpe and Serrano. There is a significant difference, however. There is a thread that runs through contemporary art that seeks to generate shock for it's own sake. Some would classify Mapplethorpe and Serrano in this vein. This is clearly not true of Fraley, though. He is aware that some of the work will shock. Nor is he prepared to apologize for that fact. Nonetheless, his interest is the honest documentation of the phenomenon. The shock value is unintended and incidental. Nor would Fraley's work fit comfortably with that of a Lucien Clergue, someone who is interested in simply treating the human figure as an artistic form. Tellingly, when asked for his own favorites, he list among them Annie Liebowitz. This would be perhaps the best comparison, then. His art is in the true spirit of photo-journalism., an attempt to research a subject, and document it artistically. When asked for a title for his style of photography, Fraley suggests, "Whimsical Austerity." This embracing of paradox is utterly apropos. What Fraley has found is that there are prevalent themes present in personal costumery. One is simple fantasy. People dress up as a form of escapism. In some cases, there is no more to it than that. Others project a more sensual message. "Halloween," says the artist, "has always been about sex and sexuality." but the overwhelmingly dominant themes embrace current social and political issues. Frequently, these issues are serious, or even distasteful. But the willingness to deal with violence, or the macabre, with humor is what the incongruous title "whimsical austerity" applies to. The issues are grave, but the treatment is light. Fraley refers to his own form of black humor as a twisted perspective. "A costume," says Jay Fraley, "represents some form of suppressed desire." An accountant who once a year goes out in drag is expressing some side of himself that is hidden in his workaday life. To see the trends in costumery is to see an expression of the unconscious life of the society. the artist notes that the study began to be about costumes, and ended being about people. Inasmuch as art is an expression of the artist's view of life, Fraley's art gives us a window into the inner life of our culture. Douglas Deaver PhD.