ART XX MAGAZINE COVER ART AND DESIGN BY KATIE BUSH, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED, 2009 BACK COVER ILLUSTRATION BY CRISTY C. ROAD, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED, 2009
we are paulina nowicka mcfarland founder, art director
melanie maddison contributing writer
P lives in the world made up almost entirely of
Melanie Maddison (Leeds, UK), who thinks that
paper and glue. Book maker, self-described
there’s not enough hours in the day, is about to
media activist, sensitive soul with a penchant
give birth to issue five of the art zine ‘Colouring
for deconstructing, cutting up and re-making;
Outside The Lines’ www.myspace.com/colouring-
she designs, organizes things and occasionally
outsidethelines & www.cotlzine.blogspot.com,
flips out about the lack of hours in a day. Her
whilst trying to keep many other balls in the air.
print work and other projects can be found at openarmspress.com
francesca austin ochoa founder, managing editor
contributing writer
Francesca Austin Ochoa is a Salvadoran American
Jennifer Darling hails from the small town of
writer and ideologue with an appetite for the
Danville, Virginia where she works as the town’s
absurd. She is collecting feminist and queer
most heavily tattooed special education teacher.
media from love letters, to pornography to cyber-
She is behind the zines Gretchen and the Nihilist
anarcha-punk and beyond.
Chocolatier as well as the craft/DIY zine Rocket.
lex non scripta founder, curatorial advisory editor
jennifer darling
cristy c. road Lex Non Scripta is a hermetic yet affable queerion
contributing artist
who was raised in a land of mystical unicorns, captivating books with never enough words, and
Cristy C. Road is a twenty six-year-old Cuban-
illustrative dreams that were perpetually pushing
American illustrator and writer. Blending
their own boundaries. In fact, Lex still dwells
social principles, sexual deviance, mental
there, although now their world is sprinkled with
inadequacies, and social justice– she thrives
a glittery coating of ever-transgressive politics,
to testify the beauty of the imperfect. Cristy
urban gardening, art theory/criticism/love/making,
illustrated especially for Art XX. See her
technological distractions, bike grease, power
amazing art on the back cover of this issue.
tools, and a near constant battle with dominant power structures.
Art XX Magazine / Po BOX 22474 // / Oakland, CA //
www.artxxmagazine.com
issue no. two
noelle duncan
elly sarabipour
fun coordinator/ copy editor
digits coordinator
Originally a small town girl from rural Vermont,
As a recent transplant from Chicago, Elly has
Noelle has coordinated and managed fun in many
become the order maker and stress reducer
locations including Montréal, Boston, Providence
by keeping our books balanced and stopping
and now in the Bay Area. She has been an active
us from using the collective bank card on cof-
participant in queer/feminist activism and
fee and art supplies! Along with her passion
community arts from a young age, including
for Balance Sheets and her mad Profit and
her time at McGill University in Montréal and
Loss analysis skills she is an active volunteer
continuing in SF. When not working with ArtXX,
in the Bay Area and is in search of finding her
Noelle works in online marketing, plays in Bay
true calling.
Area-based synth-funk band Elle Niño, makes hot beats, founds book clubs, sips mojitos and bubble
jiz lee contributing writer
tea in the Mission, and enjoys geography quizzes, arm-wrestling matches, and reading through the 100 best novels of the 19th/20th centuries.
rhiannon argo contributing writer
Jiz Lee is an acclaimed queer porn performer,
Rhiannon Argo is a writer and photographer.
an artist in the Twenty-four Hour Show, Board
She is the author of the hot-off-the-press
President of San Francisco’s CounterPULSE arts
novel The Creamsickle published by Attitude
organization, and has served on committees
Books, a new imprint of Spinsters Ink. You can
from the Isadora Duncan Dance Awards to the
catch her touring the book this fall throughout
Asian Pacific Islander Cultural Center. Working
Europe and the US of A with Sister Spit. Her
to cultivate queer/gender and multi-cultural
photos can be found in Cutter Photozine, and
artistic growth through access and support,
in one half of the travelling photo exhibit The
Lee’s interests lay in performance theory and
Popsicle Project, which features loads of cute
queer sexual body politics via crafts of art, sex,
queers and their oral fixations.
and technology. Lee also blogs at JizLee.com. Thank you Art XX Magazine for being fierce.
shawn tamaribuchi
ill nippashi
contributing writer
contributing writer Shawn is a hot mess. When she’s not running around
“Ill Nippashi lives a far more glamorous life than
biting peoples’ ears off and molesting queers, she
you can ever imagine. Go ahead, though, try to
can be found in front of a camera, computer or other
imagine it.”
technological device diligently executing her slow death via media assisted suicide. Shawn also has an alter ego at sydblakovich.com and likes to make art at twincest.net.
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ISSUE 2
Welcome to the second issue of ArtXX: A Radical Arts Magazine. It’s been nearly a year since our last issue, but we promise it was worth the wait. This issue is chock full of mind blowing talent, fierce politics, and endless creativity. Our goals are three-fold: to improve the visibility of a group of artists who are significantly marginalized on the basis of their gender and/or sexuality, to be a source of documentation for the extraordinary work this group produces, and to serve as a space for free artistic expression and a vehicle for social change through the avenue of independent publishing. We are fighting the disinformation of mainstream media and offering a place for our unique performative, visual, written, analytical, and sexual languages to seen and known. We believe in the power of art and media to make radical transformations in the lives of its audience, just as we believe in the power of the audience to make radical impressions on art and media. Thanks to all our readers and contributors for your support, input and creativity. You inspire us. Our identity crisis/gender dystopia? We titled the magazine ArtXX: Women in the Arts, wanting to make a strong statement about an underrepresented group of individuals that crossed the lines of sexuality. We realized that by naming ourselves after a chromosomal definition of gender we have alienated members of our own community, and compromised our own theories and ideals on the fluidity of gender. We are a magazine for all female bodied, female- identified, and trans male and trans female artists and their (our) many genders— straight girls, femmes, femmebots, andros, fags,
orly cogan page 66
fag hags, fag daddies, unicorns, narwhals, etc, etc… We do not believe in genetic or cultural determinism. We believe in owning what is ours and reinventing everything else. Help us come up with a new name! Send us your feedback to edits.artxx@gmail.com or PO Box 22474, Oakland, CA, 94609 xoxo
columns jiz lee: Seeing is Believing: Cognitive Neuroscience in a Queer Porn Revolution.............................................................................................. .06
Art ?? ALL TEXT AND ARTWORK ARE COPYRIGHT OF THEIR RESPECTIVE CREATORS AND PUBLISHERS. NONE OF THE MATERIAL IN THIS PUBLICATION MAY BE REPRODUCED
rhiannon argo: Titty Twister................................................................07
IN ANY FORM WITHOUT THE WRITTEN CONSENT OF ARTXX MAGAZINE OR THE COPYRIGHT HOLDERS. ALL OF THE IMAGES UTILIZED HEREIN ARE REPRODUCED
francesca austin ochoa: Castration Revenge..........................08
FOR HISTORLICAL OR SCHOLARLY PURPOSES ONLY. EVERY EFFORT HAS BEEN MADE TO PROVIDE ACTUALLY ACCURATE INFORMATION.
ill nippashi: SCUM Gives Warhol Another Shot...........................30
ART XX IS PUBLISHED TWICE A YEAR. SINGLE COPIES MAY BE PURCHASED VIA OUR WEBSITE WWW.ARTXXMAGAZINE.COM MAKE CHECKS OR MONEY ORDERS PAYABLE TO: ART XX MAGAZINE PO BOX 22474, OAKLAND, CA 94609 EMAIL: MAIL@ARTXXMAGAZINE.COM ART XX IS A VOLUNTEER RUN AND SUPPORTED COLLECTIVE. WE ARE A SUBMISSION BASED PUBLICATION AND ARE ALWAYS ACTIVELY LOOKING FOR CONTRIBUTORS, COLLABORATORS AND VOLUNTEERS. PLEASE CHECK OUT OUR WEBSITE FOR MORE INFORMATION: WWW.ARTXXMAGAZINE.COM
Art XX Magazine is a sponsored project of the New York Foundation for the Arts.
cristy c. road back cover illustration.............................................80
NS CO L
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CONTENTS
mary coble page 62
gb jones page 24
features meliza ba単ales........................................................................................................12 choung dai vo..........................................................................................................18 eileen myles.............................................................................................................22 g.b jones..................................................................................................................... 24 lisa black....................................................................................................................32 sadie lune.................................................................................................................. 34 umayyah cable.....................................................................................................36 laura splan...............................................................................................................40 katie bush.................................................................................................................46 nicki hoberman.....................................................................................................52 monica majoli..........................................................................................................56 mary coble...............................................................................................................62 orly cogan................................................................................................................66 lisa black page 32
mia nakano...............................................................................................................70 mel kadel.....................................................................................................................74
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Porn is more than voyeurism; it’s vicarious SEX! When we see pornographic images, our brain uses the same mirror neurons that scientists describe in cognitive neurology as those which give us the ability to infer each other’s mental
01 / SEEING IS BELIEVING : Cognitive Neuroscience in a Queer Porn Revolution / jiz lee / photograbhy by umayyah cable courtesy of pink and white productions
states (i.e.: desires and beliefs). This phenomenon is called ‘Simulation Theory;’ it maintains that we as the viewer empathize subconsciously with the person we’re watching. The concept is not so new: in many ways, mirror neurons are a neurological explanation for many of the performing arts. Directors understand how to create a vicarious reality. Audiences participate in a ‘willing suspension of disbelief.’ This describes a provisional suspension of judgment that leads to the engagement of the viewer in the work (otherwise the viewer would possibly question the validity of the narrator) and thus lends believability to behaviors, ideas, and actions. If you’ve ever felt your leg twitch while watching a dance performance, you’ve experienced a sympathetic motor response in kinetic intelligence. This twitch is not far off from the often synchronized rhythmic clenching of thigh muscles experienced when watching sex. Whether it is theater, dance, sports, or movies, the Simulation Theory blurs the distinction between the minds of the audience and the minds of the performers. To propose a connection between audience and porn performer is profound when it comes to the creation of queer identity around sexuality. This means queer/feminist porn has the power to validate the sexual identities of queer viewers as well as educate the curious. Queer/feminist porn has the power to normalize sexual and gender identities that have been marginalized and presents a more accurate depiction of behavior and desire to those who have never seen it. In porn, viewers have the ability to transcend cisgender (the term “cisgender” means that one’s gender identity matches the behavioral role considered appropriate for one’s sex. Some describe it in simplified terms as “the opposite of transgender”) culture through social voyeurism and vicarious sex. For a non-queer/unfeminist audience to watch and become engaged with queer/feminist porn performers offers them the potential to understand others via an intimate interaction with themselves. When the fear of another’s identity is driven by confusion and insecurity about the unknown, the very act of watching builds familiarity. This sexual education has the potential to
I know a gal who loves porn. She works at San Francisco’s sex toy retailer Good
abolish the stereotypes and misconceptions that form the arguments of both hatred
Vibrations and her passion is erotic cinema. On any given day you’ll find her
and apathy.
enthusiastically making recommendations for everything from the Adult Indus-
Need an example of porn doing good? There’s plenty. For example, Trannywood
try’s most acclaimed flicks to the most niche of pervy motion pictures. W hen
Picture’s films portray sex between all kinds of men, including transmen and cis-
met with skeptical exclamations that porn is either evil – or boring, she’ll simply
gender men. By representing a variety of queer men, the company presents pairings
protest: “Shush. You just haven’t found one you like!”
of male sex not commonly seen in the mainstream. This vision is empowering to
Context is everything, and pornography is no exception. Events like Toronto’s
couples in such partnerships, or individuals interested in queer male sex. Tranny-
Feminist Porn Awards demonstrate that the ownership and agency of sexual plea-
wood educates those new to the idea of having sex with a transman by presenting
sure is no longer reserved to the good ole boys’ club. Even porn has the potential
both a visual video documentation, as well as an informational pamphlet. Further-
to be a medium for sexual revolution. And as a financially profitable industry
more, they present all sexual encounters with a complete demonstration of safer
– raking in a widely speculated $13 billion annual estimate (more than people
sex practices, thus bringing to cinema both cultural responsibility and visibility.
pay on movie tickets, art shows, and all the performing arts combined) – why
Empowerment through porn? Fuck yes.
shouldn’t porn be a platform for gender and sexual equality? The recent boom of projects from queer porn companies such as NoFauxxx.com,
For those who can watch porn and identify with the performers as people to whom they can relate via body size, race, ability, gender, sexuality, orientation, sex beha-
Pink & White Productions, Madison Young, and Trannywood (each owned
viors, desires, and responses, seeing this shared experience on screen validates
and operated by people who identify within the queer community as dykes,
their identities in an incredibly intimate way. Experimentation with queer sexual
genderqueers, transfolk, fags and more) – has created a community with its
media and self-created sexual images are increasingly accessible with the rapid
own market. Fans of queer porn are quick converts when they discover videos
availability of affordable consumer-level camera and web applications. The future
portraying sex with people to whom they can actually relate. The experience
of sexual rights and pleasure is upon us and it’s an art form worthy of exploration
is ultimately sublime. It’s validating, it’s exciting, and it’s highly erotic.
and potent with possibilities. We like what we see.
NS UM CO L I’m even envious of my boyfriends flat, smooth chest, his top surgery scars two curved lines smiling at me, but other times I’m envious of huge boobs. The same week he got a double mastectomy this girl Lolita at my night job got implants.
02 / titty twister / rhiannon argo / illustration emily cunningham
She instantly made more money. “Are you happy with em?” someone asked in the dressing room and she said no. She wanted them bigger. She was already starting to save up again for another surgery. It was much cheaper for her to get the implants than for my boyfriend to get his removed. The night before his surgery I asked him what he wanted to do his last night with tits. Wanna titty twister? I yanked one boob, pancaked by being smashed down by years of binding, and
“I knew your sister was really crazy when she stopped wearing a bra to school,” my little sisters best friend told me the day after I came back to town. I’d just spent most of my fifteenth year at a hippy ranch one state over that my mother banished me to for bad behavior. I didn’t believe my sister had gone to chase the moon as my mom put it, because I hadn’t seen the initial evidence. I figured she was just doing drugs and couldn’t deal, like the time I fell out of a tree on acid and was convinced I was walking around dead for two days, completely wigging out. But I finally believed the stories when I saw my sister, Miss Beauty Perfectionist and High School Popularity, walking around the neighborhood in sweatpants, tangled hair, no eyebrows, no bra and no make-up. This was the girl who quoted beauty magazines, like Allure and Cosmo, how some do Bibles. My sister was a year younger than me, but she had huge boobs and I didn’t. I had been so jealous when they had appeared on her chest practically overnight. That paired with her tiny waist and long red hair, and every boy in town learned her name or at least just memorized her bra size. The boys who forgot her name hollered Jessica Rabbit at her when she f lounced through the halls with her shiny red hair and flawless make up. After witnessing her surge in popularity I couldn’t wait to grow some tits of my own, certain that they would change my life, make me instantly not invisible at school and give me an all access pass to all the fun shit. All my sister had to do was flash some cleavage, and Davey Clark let her hang out around his exclusive backyard mini ramp and watch the boys skate. It was the only skate ramp in town, and he never let girls skate it. He only let me watch once, only cuz you’re Jessica Rabbit’s sister, he growled and then kicked me out fifteen minutes later. What a waste of a great rack. Davey Clark said about my sister after she went away to the mental hospital a year later. I would have smacked him across the knees with my skate, if I didn’t hate my sister for making my life a living hell, and if Davey hadn’t finally let me skate his ramp after school. My in was that I never grew tits, stayed a flat-chested little stick, my clothes got baggier, and my hair shorter, so it was easy for Davey and his crew to forget my gender. When I finally grew some tits in my late twenties, small but there, enough to have to wear a bra to my day job, I didn’t really want them. I found out how annoying it was to wear a bra. That strap digging into your back all day. Clothes tend to make me squirm if I can feel them. I like jobs that require taking them off. Maybe this has something to do with my mom living at a nudist hot springs when I was in her belly, before she moved into a tipi in a magical meadow, where she continued a life of naturalism. Even after she moved back into the regular world she refused to wear undergarments. As a kid I was always freaked out that everyone at school would find this out. When she chaperoned my second grade field trip I sat petrified on the school bus while she walked around counting kids heads, freaked out that the bus might lurch spilling my mom into the aisle, hippyskirt flipped up over her head while my entire class laughed at her underwearless bush. I guess I knew even then that if you were a woman with an aversion to undergarments, it was like announcing your insanity to the world. My ideal set of tits would be ones that were only attached to my body when I needed them. I could use them to make more money at my night job but I could take them off the rest of the time and not need an annoying bra. Sometimes
twisted like it was a doorknob. He yelped at a sensation he would never feel again.
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francesca austin ochoa / castration revenge / illustration paulina nowicka mcfarland
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Ok, so I was thinking about how to explain gender variation to our “gender normal” readers who might be wondering what the fuss with all the queerdos was about. And I was thinking that I could make a quiz that someone could take that would tell them what their gender was, and then everyone would realize that they are all freaks.
WHAT IS YOUR GENDER? Questions to ask; If you were a pair of underwear what would you look like? Day to day drag… what are the key elements of daily gender performance? What is the most important aspect of your personality?
What do you masturbate to? What is your favorite sexual fantasy? What is you favorite non-sexual fantasy? do either of these have anything to do with gender? Is there anything that doesn’t have anything to do with gender?
I employ the expertise of some friends: Me: I’m thinking about making a “what is your gender quiz,” ya know, kind of funny/meaningless, but mostly to illustrate, to those who haven’t really thought about it, that there are many, many genders and it is a creative, rather than assigned identity. Ok. I need like 5 umbrella genders that the answers to the quiz would lead the person to… R: A-SEXUAL CYBORG PERVERT B: how can you be a-sexual and a pervert? R: I’m just sayin C: I’m a transsexual male, and if anyone
Me: Really R_? Is that how you identify?
tries to call me anything else it pisses me off.
R: just sayin!
L: Your gender is so boring. I decided my gender is Prince’s last outfit in his Purple Rain video C: James Dean is totally a quintessential gender. Fucking J_ thinks he’s James Dean.
Gender Quiz FAIL!
B:Gaygoyle! Beastly, very beastly
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francesca austin ochoa / castration revenge / illustration paulina nowicka mcfarland
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ISSUE 2
What does Freud say? Nobody cares what Freud said. Freud claimed that normal female sexual development occurs when the child realizes that she, like her beloved mother, is castrated. The young girl blames her mother for her castration and thus turns to Machinery is an extension of the body and the her father to fulfill her desire for a penis.
The child and later the
woman only satisfies her longing when she has either a penis inside
mind. Machinery and non-organic compounds enter, “fix� and manipulate the human body from prescription medication, to prosthetic arms, legs, cocks to an internet love affair. The line that divides the human-animal and
of her or she gives birth to a boy.
synthetic machinery is blurred. The line that
Or she buys a dildo.
divides man from his cunt is blurred. There
(Freud was pre-silicone).
is no line between my dick and my cunt, no line between what is me from what I have to plug in to an electric socket.
Can you imagine an ungendered body? Judith Butler posits that being recognizably gendered is a requirement to being human. Unless there is a language, or cultural understanding to recognize ones gender then said individual is without personhood in that social system. This was true for the first women who wore pants, it is true of genderqueers, transsexuals and intersex people. Gender is only one of many components of personhood — sexuality, race, physicality, nationalities, and religious and political affiliations, and the intersections of any and all of the above, all mediate how and to what degree an individual is seen as human. But all of these elements are inextri-
Gender testing for the Olympics began in the 1960’s to verify that men were not competing in the women’s games. Initial testing required female athletes to parade naked before, and be inspected by gynecologists. Later, genetic testing was instituted, and what was found was that 1 in
cably married to gender. The framework in
500 women did not have the typical xx chromosomal pattern.
which gender, and others of the above men-
Though many individuals had been raised and identified
tioned social and institutional categories, is culturally presupposed is maintained
entirely as women, they were subject to disqualification because they had a xy pattern. Further testing indicated that variations of chromosomal patterns were not uncommon.
through an authoritarian, regulatory process
The testing eventually came to an end because it was
that criminalizes those who challenge its
realized that the complexity of gender far surpassed its
boundaries by inflicting psychological and physical violence. Butler uses the imagery
biological understanding. If biology cannot explain gender, then what can? Is it only through believing in and performing the constructions of sex and gender that they become
of the knife to illustrate the means by which reality? Is it like believing in the dollar? Believing that culture cops — be they the boys in blue or an army of white coats armed with stethoscopes MD’s — metaphorically and literally cut away
a piece of paper is reasonable barter for your labor, for food to eat, for embarrassing pictures of you being printed without your consent? What if we stopped? What if we created meaningful currency? What if we created meaningful
that which does not fit into their definition identities and genders that reflected who we really were? of citizen or human.
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meliza bañales / excerpt from city notes / illustration by laura lamoratta
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ISSUE 2
E x c e r pt f ro m c i ty not e s by Meliza Bañales
It ended the way it began: with a kiss. Here is the thing. That night. The smoke
me coffee and a bagel in the morning. Shouldn’t have let you drive me back to my
and leaves that cracked against your window as we had sex after only knowing
hotel in Revere. Shouldn’t have called you later when I had time to kill. Shouldn’t
each other for an hour. You saw me do what I do. Write poems. Read them in
have met you at that park in downtown Boston. Never should have sat on that
front of people. Not a big deal. Yes, the poems chronicle my fuck-ups. Yes, I am a
bench with you in Fall in the afternoon with your arm around me and those eyes.
human being. No, I still haven’t figured out my own past yet. You were on top of
Those fucking eyes of yours they caught me again. And that mouth. The words,
me and I kept telling myself not to look in your eyes, so I focused on your scars
“Isn’t this romantic?” falling out of that mouth and into the deepest, sweetest
deep across your chest. That was easy. But then, I broke my own rule. I slipped
part of me. It sealed my fate. One year later, you move out of the apartment there
and when I did you held me there. It was dangerous, that risk. That look. And
is no trace of you, no smell of you in the sheets, no one waiting up anymore. In
you kept thrusting into me, harder, faster, and I tried to tilt my head back and
the garage, you put clothes in a box and making my big exit, my great escape,
close my eyes. But you wouldn’t let me leave. Then, a kiss. A real kiss with spit,
announce to you my departure you take me into your arms. You hold me so tight.
and tongue, and the tender bite of my lower lip and then moving to my ear, my
Then you release and give me those eyes again. And I let you do it to me one last
neck. You traced it all. And I’d like to say what an artist you were but we all know
time I let you see me. Then we lean in and it happens. The kiss this time slow.
tracing doesn’t count. Worst of all, I let you do it. I let you soften me with that
Very little tongue. No spit. Lots of lip but still light enough for me to feel your
mouth, that hunger that fell out of you into me. I tried to think in parts in science
breath against me. There is no good-bye. No turning around. There is no. Now.
in medical practice — external view of the foot external view of the hand external
There is the heart. I felt it break when I opened for you back there. Then a light
view of the ear external view of the eye. The heart. My raw heart which led me
bulb shorted in the house. And without saying a word you pointed to your chest
here to begin with I shouldn’t have spent the night. Shouldn’t have let you buy
then mine and said, “See. Don’t you see.” I do what I do best when I have no job
and no money and no hope: I write a poem.
present I’m sure is just a miscommunication or a clerical error or an honest
I’ve paid lots of money to institutions in order to do this.
mistake. A present that involves too many bills and too many worries and
I have paid no money, but have given up everything to do this.
part-time jobs and too much education at all the wrong places like univer-
I’ve tried reasoning with the phone company, the credit card company, and my
sities, bathroom f loors, and Christian science reading rooms.
loan officers. I try to negotiate with them through trade. I will write a poem. A
A present without a f lat tummy, an espresso machine, and a well-behaved-
nice poem. I won’t use bad words or say how they make me want to kill myself. I’ll
dog. A present without pills but a past full of them in a body who, in the present,
lie so well that my readers will think I’m telling the truth and will like what they
fights everyday to fully let them go. A present where I only clench my fists based
see. If they could let me. But they only know a language of currency. They speak
on a past where I pushed them through windows, doors, and mirrors (those
in dollars and dream about the things they will buy when I pay them. They talk
mirrors are my biggest regret because some of them weren’t mine and I’ve been
to me in fragments and numbers and remind me that they possess contracts and
standing on the edge of bad luck ever since). I need a sit-down, a face-to-face.
collectors and lawyers and lots of other important people who will make me. Pay.
Call on all the spirits, or Queens of Swords or Jokers or Kings of Cups. Be my conduit.
They’re not interested in my poem and since everyone thinks they’re a poet, they
Make the past see the present and then have a conference with the future. I’m
look at my offer like a sack of sewage on their front door. It stinks, they say. And
sure we can come to an arrangement that will benefit all parties. Truly. Really.
it’s taking up space. Just send the check in the mail, they persist. We just need a
It’s days like these when the poems don’t work, the milk is already bad, and the
signature, they say. You can keep the poems, but send us the signature. Then we
dog. The dog still doesn’t know “sit” from “no” and there’s always a hidden mess
can get this whole thing cleared up.
in the corners and it might as well be my own pile of bones ready to go out to
So I’ve decided,
sea. It’s days like these that add up to weeks and months and, you get the point.
I want you to learn the tarot. I want you to learn the tarot and buy at least four
Besides, you like hobbies, you want hobbies, I’d rather give this to you than my
decks of cards. I want you to learn the tarot and buy at least four decks of cards
money to the lady on Haight street. So you see. You see. I need you to learn the
so that you can read my future or I can ask four questions or I can see four futures.
tarot. Buy at least four decks. Tell me how it all turns out. Tell me what to wear
I want you to read my future, tell me how I turn out because I’m convinced I
and how to feel. Tell me how to feel. Because right now I’m convinced I didn’t get
got it wrong. I’m convinced my futures tried to call me and leave messages and
the message. And I can’t read my own futures.
somehow they got erased. The messages got erased or lost and now I’m stuck in a
I’m superstitious like that.
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michelle tea / an excerpt from “stuck on my eyes” / illustration by SALUTE!
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Michelle slept deeply on the night she learned the world would end. She suspected she’d toss and turn with disbelief, the news shows running through her mind again and again, images of buildings already tumbling. She was sure her fear of a nearby, immediate catastrophe would keep her uselessly alert. What would stop anyone from beginning the inevitable destruction of Los Angeles tonight? She considered the lunatics, the barely-hinged, the madmen and women clutching at a slipping sanity with sweat-greased fingers. Why should they hold on any longer? What would stop the Scientologists around the corner from rebelling, finally, from setting the sprawling Celebrity Center to ruin, a rain of bricks and fire upon the Franklin Strip? Why wouldn’t the very earth awaken to the diabolical plotting of the humans and shake them off her back? Anything seemed possible now, this night, and Michelle imagined herself an impotent sentry on the lookout for nothing she could control, fretting away the darkened hours. She worried about Kyle and his nerves, imagined him alone in his bed, his mind lit up with horror, his anxious thoughts careening like a pinball, disoriented, smacked with flippers, scoring an anxiety multiball as thought after thought after thought came rolling out from a consciousness cramped with the effort of flinging them away. But Michelle slept. Roquelle snatched her to her chest in that bossy way she did each night, as if Michelle were a willfull blanky, promiscuous in her ability to comfort, likely to creep away once Roquelle started to snooze. The girl’s arms strangled Michelle’s chest, her elbow jut into her ribs, but Roquells’s clutch was so serious, this night the worst night, so she settled into her captivity. She waitied for her mind to engage the gears of panic, but instead began to dream. Michelle dreamed a boy. In the dream she walked alongside him in a great garden. His arm was wound around her waist–– and with each step they took her hip rubbed into his. In sync, they curved around a circular path that took them by tall, wiry stalks of echinacea, the purple petals peeled back in utter submission to the sun. Their ankles rolled as they navigated the cobblestones in fancy shoes, hers bright as a child’s toy with plastic chains and strips of shining leather, and his delicately soled, for climbing in and out of fairy-tale carriages, unfit for the reality of dank curbs and skanky gutters. Michelle enjoyed the sight of their shoes clopping in unison through the garden. They stopped beside a bush of Angel’s Trumpets, huffing the waxy horns of each dangling blossom. They rubbed the fuzz of the Kangaroo Paw, were dazzled by the new wave-y Sticks of Fire. Euphorbia Tirucalli, the boy said, and Michelle thought, I’m Euphorbic!, so blissed out and goofy her dreaming self wondered what drugs she was on. In her dream the boy knew the name of every plant; in her dream Michelle understood Latin, the noble, ancient music of it making sense. A receptor in her mind was activated and in an instant she understood that she knew all languages! Had always known them! Her mind, a hive of words. A rush of excitement washed through her. She turned back to the boy, who was more beautiful than all the flowers, more artfully created than the patinad water fountain, the curving cobblestones, the stitching of their fancy shoes. His voice, speaking Latin, was a sweeter roar inside her ears than the water’s drip and patter, and the click of their heels on the rocks. Oh, Michelle felt so romantic! The boy pulled her closer and together they made fun of the docent leading the tour, who didn’t know the Latin words for anything, who hadn’t discovered that she could speak Latin, or Spanish or Swahili if only she flexed that part of her mind. Michelle and the boy whispered at each other in a sucession of languages, the potential of their minds illuminated. The boy’s shirt was slashed as if it had survived a knife fight, and Michelle’s pants were too tight; the energy between them flashed from pure to sleazy; they pecked each other’s cheeks and had to restrain from groping. Michelle bit back her desire to slip her hand through the gash in his shirt, to press her ass against him. I’m your Eurotrash boyfriend, he murmured in Castilian Spanish. Their love expanded as they expressed it variously, in Norweigan, German, Italian. So many nuanced words! Different kinds of words for different kinds of love, and Michelle felt them all — sad love inspired
I’m your Eurotrash
boyfriend, he murmured in Castilian Spanish. Their love expanded as they expressed it variously, in Norweigan, German, Italian.
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michelle tea / an excerpt from “stuck on my eyes� / illustration by SALUTE!
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With every step Michelle
could feel the pressure of a ghost hand between her legs and she knew that the imprint was his, the boy had been there, had worked her like a puzzle box.
love hopeless love affectionate love friendly love desperate love passionate love
retreating. The boy was so close to the war he could feel the nation shudder as
murderous love respectful love platonic love forbidden love trashy love sacred love
it absorbed the missles. The boy was not easy, as he had been in the dream; he
holy love. Michelle’s heart felt as full and drooping as the blowsiest rose in the
didn’t yet care for flowers and plants and he didn’t know he loved Michelle. He
garden. The boy’s attentions buzzed and inside it; she was so open to him she
only knew that he was scared, and very far from his family, stranded in snowy
shed pollen on cobblestones.
mountains on a planet that had scheduled its own destruction. He needed a tele-
The boy did not like how the designer of this garden had deliberately starved
phone. The pills he’d gotten from the traveler’s clinic had not calmed him; since
certain plants of water, so that their stressed-out leaves would turn a more pleas-
swallowing them a fragile pane of glass had seemed to come down between him
ing color. Neither of them liked how the designer had employed a worker to pluck
and the world. He was too struck with terror to cry.
every other leaf from the canopy of trees arching above them, so that the light filte-
Michelle turned the boy around in her mind, not wanting to let go. If he didn’t
ring through the branches would be dappled just so. What a control freak, Michelle
love her yet, where was that love? Was it dormant in his heart, a pocket of love
said, in French, just to hear the chic sound of it sliding from her mouth. She was
like an air bubble suspended, waiting to be popped? The love would fizz like car-
concerned for the worker charged with this duty, imagined him a struggling
bonation, would tickle them both and then be gone. It was a small pocket of love
Mexican man on a ladder, earning minimum wage, slowly losing his mind as he
the boy carried for her, its duration brief. The boy was slumming in Michelle’s
scanned the boughs — leave a leaf, pluck a leaf, leave a leaf, pluck a leaf — the
heart, he would slam the door on the way out, breaking it, but it didn’t matter. It
cancerous sun warping his body. His body, Michelle imagined, would be heavy,
was a fair trade, Michelle thought, a broken heart for some of that love. A fair
would wear overalls, maybe a navy blue jumpsuit made of stiff fabric. She thought
trade, but it didn’t matter, because she’d never know him.
she would maybe write a story about him, this man who plucked leaves in service
Across the narrow alley, the neighbor’s jowely Rottweiler stuck its head out the
to a megalomaniacal garden designer. She shared her inspiration with the boy,
window, locked eyes with Michelle and growled. What D’you Want, Thug? she
who gave her waist a squeeze. I want to know how you work, he told her, in
tried to menace back, but suceeded only in waking Roquelle, who found morn-
Armenian. I want to know your process, where your ideas come from, how you put it
ings unacceptable. She snapped her limbs around Michelle tighter, demanding
together . . . The boy’s work was flowers, plants. The beautiful boy made beauty,
silence. Roquelle was dreaming she was a man. In a dark nightclub filled with
that was his job. He thought it was people like the mad designer, with his desire to
friendly people a girl was beneath him, up against the wall, and they were kiss-
manipulate nature like a plastic putty, that brought problems into the world. The
ing. Roquelle’s eyes opened inside the kiss to watch the colored lights strobe
designer’s artificial aeshtetic was a poison in the garden; the boy wanted to feed
across the girl’s face, enjoying the f licker of the girl’s eyeshadowed lids, like
the thirsty plants water, to give them back their native, less flamboyant color.
she too was somewhere else, dreaming this. Roquelle’s fist was bunched in the
He wanted to return the missing leaves to the branches that swayed so slightly
girl’s volume of hair, her fingers rubbing ringlets to tangles, and from both their
above them. Michelle wanted that, too. She imagined how damp and green the
throats erupted tiny, hungry sounds, murmers that slid from one opened mouth
air would feel beneath a heavier canopy, how shaded, how the boy would kiss her
into the other. In Roquelle’s dream her tits were gone and the space they’d occu-
there, in the right, natural shadow, and how the animal fur of his cheeks would
pied was filled with potential, with the miracle of the girl’s hands resting lightly
brush against her skin, his gentle moustache. He would flip his sleek fall of bangs
on muscle, her long acrylic nails glowing in the dark, stabbing tiny stinging
from his eyes, or she would take the inky lock of it in her fingers, twirling it away
bursts into his skin, leaving marks. In the dream Roquelle felt strong and new,
to make room for her face. With every step Michelle could feel the pressure of a
and the freedom was an abrasive harmony, intoxicating and too much, like the
ghost hand between her legs and she knew that the imprint was his, the boy had
blare of synthesized beats, the racket that filled the club and moved the bodies
been there, had worked her like a puzzle box. With every step she savored the
around them.
sweet, dull pain of how he’d solved her. In the dream Michelle pulled her cell phone from her purse to check the time,
From outside this world of sound and color and hair he could hear Michelle addressing the neighbor’s dog, and reality began to leak into this glamorous dream,
she didn’t want to be late to meet Kyle, Kyle was at the garden, Kyle was stroll-
regular whatever sliding into cracks in the dance floor, contaminating everything.
ing somewhere with a man, his boyfriend, Kyle was in love, too! I’m In Love!
Michelle’s voice, always dehydrated from no water and many cigarettes. Her sour
Michelle thought happily, for love was her most favorite place to be. I’m in love,
wine breath fogged Roquelle’s cheek as she spoke, trying to be gruff with the dog
she blissed, and Kyle is in love too, the thoughts came to her in Mandarin and she
but it came out weak, calling the dog thug. It was kind of funny, but Roquelle
loved the chunky, choppy noise of it inside her head, words beginning in a call
didn’t want it, she wanted to go back inside the club, be with the girl. Roquelle
and ending in a trill, squeezed, almost sung. She wanted to tell the boy how spe-
gave her girlfriend a shake, a little rough, a little angry at how familiar the body
cial it was that everyone she loved was in love, but her cell phone melted away
felt, how entitled to it she was, that she could loop her arms around Michelle like
into a Salvador Dali jumble of floating nonsense and Michelle realized that she
this, thoughtlessly intimate, no challenge, give her a rustle, feel her against —
was in a dream. Swiftly reality slammed down on the part of her mind that could
yep, her tits, fuck. Roquelle felt the dark cloud of awakening settle upon her, and
comprehend Latin, Armenian, Madarin. Swiftly and with great sadness she un-
as consciousness wrung the sleep from her head she gave Michelle a kiss on the
derstood it had all been gibberish, gobbeldygook, she could not speak Cantonese
back of her neck, without really thinking about it, still half-kissing the girl in the
or Tagalog or Portugese. She was was in her bed, caged in Roquelle’s sleeping
nightclub, who she knew was real, the club was real too, though they were both
grip, the single damp sheet knotted around them, the Los Angeles smog coming
far away, the girl further than the club. The girl would be unrecognizeable to
through the windows. She lay on the mattress feeling the dream evaporate from
Roquelle today, if it had been possible for them to see one another, which it was
her body. She took stock of what what she knew. She did not know languages
not, Roquelle knew this, with a deep pang she accepted it, that the girl would
anymore, only English, bland as white noise in her mind, a static language, unin-
never know her, that she would never know the girl, and also, more wrenching,
spired. The garden, that was real, she could feel that it was near to where she lay,
that she would never know her own self the way she had there, in that dream, and
and the boy of her heart, he was real as well, but he was not near, and he did not
that the girl, whoever she was, would never become that girl, that one girl with
know her. He was stuck in the mountains of another country, with war planes
the hair and the nails and the mouth opened to a kiss, that girl would never get
zooming overhead, bombers delivering their final destructions before reluctantly
to happen.
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photography hong-an truong My work deals with kinds of impossibilities: translation and language, representation of historical trauma, remembering and forgetting. I often appropriate archival footage as a point of departure for exploring the politics of representation and the construction of the self and difference in relation to history, time, and memory. Many of my video and photo based projects begin as archival research around war violence, and are sometimes based on interviews I have recorded. Using video loops, manipulated footage, and multi-channel projections, my work re-imagines/re-stages historical events as a way to propose a kind of temporal awareness that betrays an understanding of the self as fully present to itself.
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eileen myles / what I saw
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eileen myles
what I saw I think one of the reasons William Pope. L’s A Negro Sleeps Beneath the Susquehanna is in my opinion the finest piece of performance art I’ve ever seen is that by its “end” it existed in its own category – one of sublime artifice. Practically religious art. Because all the elements were carefully chosen and exquisitely played and then he left us. The end of the piece didn’t exist so it almost had a religious note. Certainly musical. Well, let me back up. The piece took place in the context of a residency. Maybe that’s important too. To perform in a residency is a thing in itself. A group of us
and it was great. But I had no idea what William was working on. I think he was making
had been invited to spend two weeks in residence at Cowan, a leafy
paintings in the basement and I don’t remember ever seeing them. Or
park-like place used for conferences and stuff and it was close to (or
maybe I did. I think they were abstract paintings.
part of) the campus of Bucknell which is in way southern Pennsylvania.
On presentation day (when peoples’ spouses came and so did the public
In Amish country, so the land is yellow and green and rolling. Farm
and obviously whoever was paying for our residencies ...) one went to see
country and it’s not far from Gettsyburg, the site of one of the worst
Carol Hepper’s artificial tree installed in the middle of the land, and Paola
battles of the civil war.
in a pale pink dress leaped out from behind trees in a riveting and esoteric
The idea was for each of us to create a piece during our residency
manner. Barbara Pollack’s fuzzy polaroids. I feel we went away somehow
and show it at the end. People were living on the site of the conference
before we came back for William. We understood he was doing a perfor-
center mostly. Which meant they sort of lived in barracks and never
mance. There was a sound of an engine of some sort over by the river and
really got away from each other. I know we ate, but I don’t remember
this was actually the first time I knew there was a river here. I guess I
how meals occurred. There were these sort of dining rooms in their bar-
hadn’t been so interested in the land. When we got closer we saw that
racks. William and I lived in the Poet’s House much nearer the Bucknell
it was William lying down with his face in a mound of flour, white flour,
Campus. I think because he was working on a novel and I was writ-
breathing into it and just by existing making his face not so much white,
ing too there was a sense that we needed work spaces rather than the
as not so black, but powdered looking. I was impressed at this point by
great outdoors like sculptors and photographers. And this was a great
his comfort in getting down into it, a willing abasement. The breathing
reversal from most artist colonies where writers get like a little ledge
went on for a while and then he got up. He was now sitting up at a table
to work on in their bedrooms and sculptors and painters and composers
and began speaking into the microphone instead of breathing into it.
get big studios by the sea or something. Here the writers got a house
I remembered that he kept uttering the word crab. That his language
felt broken even when it was whole. Wish I could dream. That was some-
started walking down the river. He was staggering. I never thought of
thing he said again. It was like entirely subjunctive speech. It was his
it till now as like a crucifix, the burden of it, I mean. He was stum-
but it was like he was saying it for him. He was carrying it for himself.
bling either from its weight or from the unevenness of the river’s
That his capacity to speak seemed central to the nature of the piece. That
surface. But the mirror ref lected the trees on either side of the river.
the words could be forced to come if he and we were patient enough to
It ref lected the sky for a moment. It felt very emotional, right away.
wait for them. I just saw a musician perform like this the other night.The
Like familiar like you already knew it. I keep remembering as I write
song was all broken. It was really painful though constant. But he had
this that there was a full moon tonight. In New York. A very special
us. I would love to read a novel William would write. After some reading
one, bigger than it will be for more than two years. I forgot to look.
he put some big boots on, tall rubber boots. Or maybe he was already
The mirror on William’s back sometimes felt like he was carrying the
wearing them. He had some silly thing on his back, like a fanny pack, but
river, that he was the river himself that he was it. He seemed to vanish
it was a rubber one. He wore a jock. Everything he had seemed ready to
into everything there was, walking further and further away from
float. In retrospect his voice had been really loud when he was sitting at
us. The voice was gone but you still felt it. And the breathing too. He
the table. It seemed to echo deeply. I think this because the rest of the
could do this. The performance didn’t so much end as leave us. It was
piece was silent though I felt I still heard it. It was quietly booming now.
an astonishing spectacle somehow. And I wound up feeling very very
He seemed to look, kind of weaving around for more things to use,
sad. I thought about how Mark Twain stopped writing Huck Finnfor
to pick up, to do something with, but he just wound up in the water
ten years because he didn’t know what to do with Huck and Jim when
and planted there were some pieces of mirror. A large rectangular
they got to the river. The residents and the visitors were just sitting
piece that he mounted on his back and it had like lines, probably tape
there. There was nothing to photograph anymore. Because he was gone.
running across so it wasn’t sheer but mostly broken-looking. And he
We kept looking down the river but that was it.
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gb jones / Interview by melanie maddison / images courtesy of gb jones, drawings by gb jones
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G.B. Jones is a Canadian artist living in Toronto. She first became widely known in marginalized, counter-cultural communities in the mid 1980’s for her work co-founding the homo-punk, anti-establishment movement, queercore, in Canada and North America. Queercore created an all-out assault against values that would strive for assimilation of queer and creative cultures. Interview by melanie maddison GB’s work at this time was as one of the founding members of queer-
It’s the story of Georgie, played by Jena von Brücker, who sadly
core band, Fifth Column, and wrote and illustrated alongside Bruce
says goodbye to her little puppy and runs away from a horrible
La Bruce in the seminal radical queer zine ‘JDs’ between the years of
home, only to end up in a strange world on the streets of a big city
1985 and 1991. GB was also directing and starring in various under-
filled with perverts, pimps and smut peddlers. She soon makes
ground no-budget films that have since screened worldwide, such as
three friends; Peanut (KC Klass), who has been kicked out of
‘The Trouble Makers’ (1990), The Yo-Yo Gang’ (1992) and ‘No Skin Off
their home and also forced to live on the street; Janie (Jane
My Ass’ (1991).
Danger), a streetwise girl who models for Lollipop magazine
GB has continued to work on visual art and films, often with little to
and does movies too; and Rufus (Mark Ewert), who is kid-
no budget yet a very strong sense of community and DIY ethos. GB is
napped and forced to be in an evil porn director’s (Johnny
often found collaborating and creating with members of her com-
Noxzema) movie with a six-foot-something drag queen
munity, and working collectively with other female artists, such as in
named Beulah Blacktress (Vaginal Davis), before Georgie
the lesbian arts journal ‘LTTR’, the female comics collections ‘Juicy
rescues him. Together they have to try to find their
Mother’, and in exhibitions such as ‘Coming To Power: 25 Years of
way in the big, bad world. Along the way they see a
Sexually X-plicit Art By Women’.
lot of strange things, meet a lot of strange people,
I interviewed GB not long after the New York premiere of her latest film, The Lollipop Generation, which GB spent fifteen years
and find out the world is not as it seems. Just what makes The Lollipop Generation
working on.
similar to my other movies is that most of it is
Hi GB, how are you?
shot on Super 8 film. I try to use Super 8 just
Greetings!
like a regular person would have, back when it
It was the New York premiere of your film, ‘The Lollipop
was popular. So my first movie, The Trouble-
Generation,’ earlier this month. How did the screening go,
makers, is a home movie, just like the home
and what has the response been like?
movies everyone made with their Super
From what I’ve heard from people who attended, the screening went
8 cameras in the 1950’s and 60’s, shot
well!. Anonymous Boy did the introduction before the film, and people
mostly in my room and my neighbour-
told me it was great. It was totally sold out so not everyone got a chair
hood, except instead of featuring a
to sit in, which was too bad, but everyone did get a lollipop to suck on
family in a nice home it features
during the film! After the movie I did a live phone-in interview with
everyone living in our condemned
Ed Halter and then people asked questions. Jennifer Camper asked me
house back then — Caroline Azar,
what my favourite flavour of lollipop was and I said ‘black,’ and then
Bruce LaBruce, Anita Smith and
there was a discussion about whether black lollipops actually do have
me — and people who came
a flavour, but in the end no one could agree. That’s always the way it
to visit us, like Joe The Ho,
works out though, doesn’t it?
Stevie Sinatra and Dave-Id.
For those who are not aware of the film, could you describe
My second movie, The
and explain the film; and perhaps how it does or doesn’t
Yo-Yo Gang, isn’t like a
relate to the other films you have directed?
Super 8 movie that a lot
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gb jones / Interview by Melanie Maddison / images courtesy of gb jones, drawings by gb jones
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of people would have made themselves but, rather, like the ones they could
So, more a product of it being created on little to no budget? Equally,
buy from the back pages of magazines in the 1950’s. That’s when they sold
I am interested in the degree to which you see your way of working
short Super 8 fetish movies for watching at home, often starring Bettie Page,
as a counter to the assimilation of the film medium, with its often
in magazines with titles such as Vice. The Yo-Yo Gang is like a collection
hegemonic, learned, linear ways of working and narrating?
of Super 8 fetish films, with each scene featuring a different fetish, such as
I think the way we’re making movies is similar to the really low budget films
bondage, girl fights, piercing, spanking, boys making out, girls beating up
made by people like Ed Wood Jr. and Doris Wishman and Ray Dennis Steckler,
boys, and so on, and starring musicians Leslie Mah, Caroline Azar, Donna
and the way we’re making movies is the total opposite to the way Hollywood movies, or even most ‘independent’ films are made, where each person only does one specific task. With the movies we make, anyone working on the film will get to do lots of different things. So, Jena von Brücker and Johnny Noxzema and Andrew Cecil also did some of the cinematography, and Vaginal Davis and Jena and Andrew wrote some of their dialogue. And I asked a lot of the musicians who appear in the film to write a song for the movie, so Joel Gibb, Jane Danger, Anonymous Boy and Gary Fembot all wrote songs that are featured on the soundtrack. Some people help with lighting, other people do voiceovers, people help set up their own shots. They had to work that way on those low budget Ed Wood Jr. and Doris Wishman movies too, cause they couldn’t afford to do it any other way. But at the same time, we’re trying to do something really different than they did. We don’t just have actors in the movies, we have musicians and artists and writers and zine editors and filmmakers and actors and all kinds of people, from all different scenes, all doing lots of things. It’s a really different way of making a movie and it’s about filming a ‘scene’ that’s going on. Not just the scene happening the particular day when we’re filming, the moment of shooting the scene for the film, but the scene that is our real lives. I think the one thing that’s similar with all the directors I’ve mentioned is that they did things because they wanted to. They didn’t listen to anyone who ever said “No” to them, they didn’t listen to people who told them their films were bad, they didn’t care if what they did made lots of money. They never said “I can’t do that”. They just do whatever they want.
Dresch, Beverly Breckenridge, Tracy Thomas, Anita Smith, Suzy Sinatra, Lynna Landstreet, Deke Nihilson, Mark Freitas, and me and Bruce LaBruce. With The Lollipop Generation, I wanted to make a movie like the typical travelogue film that a family would make when they went on vacation. It was filmed all across the U.S. and Canada and it features all the people I met, like Mark Ewert, Jane Danger, Vaginal Davis, Calvin Johnson, Jen Smith, Anonymous Boy, Rachel Pepper, Gary Fembot and so many others. Jena von Brücker is the star of the movie. She was my traveling companion during all my trips, so it’s the home movie of our travels. Since it was us travelling around and not the typical family, it’s just a little bit different than the usual family vacation movie. I think all my movies are different because they’re not like the home movies you’d see at your parents house. ‘The Lollipop Generation’ was filmed and produced over a gestation period of fifteen years. Was this time frame intentional in order to chronicle a period of change within queer culture – a literal ‘generation’? Hmm, no. It’s not about that. I mean, there are straight people in the movie as well as queer people, and various cultures appear in the movie. I’m not a part of just one scene, I kind of wander through a number of different circles. But it does chronicle a generation of people living outside the mainstream, on the margins of society, all of whom are exceptional in many different ways.
“I THINK THE WAY WE’RE MAKING MOVIES
movies or plays, they make drawings or they write books, they make short films for You Tube, they do whatever they can do. It’s a lot harder to try to
IS SIMILAR TO THE REALLY LOW BUDGET
create your own culture, to make a little place for yourself and your friends in
FILMS MADE BY PEOPLE LIKE ED WOOD
mainstream culture has to offer you, once you want more, there’s no going
JR. AND DORIS WISHMAN AND RAY DENNIS STECKLER, AND THE WAY WE’RE MAKING MOVIES IS THE TOTAL OPPOSITE TO THE WAY HOLLYWOOD MOVIES, OR EVEN MOST ‘INDEPENDENT’ FILMS ARE MADE WHERE EACH PERSON ONLY DOES ONE SPECIFIC TASK.”
this world. Let’s face it, it’s not for everyone. But once you notice how little back. People will use whatever they can, by any means necessary, to make up a culture they can live in. For those of us who aren’t willing to just wait around and take whatever the big companies decide to offer us, it’s obvious that money doesn’t make things better. They spend millions on those blockbuster movies, on the television shows, on the malls, and they’re still boring. It doesn’t take a lot of money to make something interesting. It just takes an idea. Developing on the above question, I once read you explain your use of basic tools and materials as being an exercise in the ‘aesthetics of poverty’ – what were your political meanings when using this phrase? Aesthetics has its own politics. You know, when one thinks of the great aes-
One of the most inspiring and encouraging things about your work
thetes such as Oscar Wilde, Charles Baudelaire, Radclyffe Hall, Una Troubridge,
— whether it be the films you direct, the art you produce, the zines and
J.K. Huysmans, Aubrey Beardsley, Romaine Brooks, Jean Cocteau, one can’t help
literature you made, and the culture you establish and document — is the DIY ethos you start with; the idea that we only need bare essential elements to make things happen. From using pencil in the creation of your artwork due to its availability and affordability, to using your friends and larger community in your films, using Super 8 film, to creating music recorded and dubbed at home, and beyond, there is a real sense of creating with the skills, talents, and materials that you have, without a pretense of “the bigger the better.” It’s these sort of actions that I believe have the potential to create waves of inspiration and encouragement that may lead others to believe in themselves as cultural creators, artists, or merely able to live creative lives true to themselves and that which they know – thus adding to the diversity of art that we can and do produce. What are your thoughts on this idea? I think we all know that life is pretty easy if you just go to your job everyday, get some take out food on the way home to watch American Idol or Big Brother and maybe vote on who should stay on the show, occasionally write a blistering letter to a blog about how ugly some Hollywood star is, vote for a politician once every few years, and that’s the extent of your participation in culture. The culture
but notice that many of these people were usually at great odds with the moral-
in this society is designed for spectators and consumers, not participants. It’s
istic societies of their day, and frequently the legal system as well. Yet these are
one immense mono-culture, where everyone shops at the same stores that are in
the artists, writers, and filmmakers who have shaped culture, from the position
every mall, eats the same food at the same fast food outlets, listens to the same
of an outsider. As Baudelaire would have it, the dandy’s very existence was a re-
hit songs as everyone else, sees the same blockbuster movies, and watches the
proach to the responsible citizen of the middle class. For antecedents, one could
same television shows about other people’s lives because there isn’t anything
also look to the original punks, who assembled a style that gestured towards an
interesting about their own life. Maybe that sounds mean, but there it is, I said it.
apocalyptic vision of the future.
But really there are a lot of people who can’t stand to live like that, and
My invention of the term Aesthetics of Poverty was used to describe the pe-
there are more and more of them everyday. They don’t want to watch a televi-
riod when I made The Troublemakers, in the late 1980’s. Despite being extremely
sion show about someone else’s life, they want to live their own life. They
poor, I was determined to live a life absolutely beholden to an aesthetic vision.
aren’t willing to settle for what this culture offers, and they do whatever it
For all of us at this time, our sense of style was entirely self-made. Unlike the
takes to make their own culture— they do everything you’ve talked about
earlier aesthetes, and even the punks, our clothes weren’t made by designers or
and more, they do zines, they’re crafting, they make home recordings, they
clothiers, but rather bought at Goodwill, The Salvation Army, yard sales, occa-
use Super 8 film or borrow their parents’ cameras, they act in their friend’s
sionally found in the garbage, and refashioned and styled by ourselves. We never
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gb jones / Interview by Melanie Maddison / images courtesy of gb jones, drawings by gb jones
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ISSUE 2
“IT’S A LOT HARDER TO TRY TO CREATE YOUR OWN CULTURE, TO MAKE A LITTLE PLACE FOR YOURSELF AND YOUR FRIENDS IN THIS WORLD. LET’S FACE IT, IT’S NOT FOR EVERYONE. BUT ONCE YOU NOTICE HOW LITTLE MAINSTREAM CULTURE HAS TO OFFER YOU, ONCE YOU WANT MORE, THERE’S NO GOING BACK.”
shoplifted from those thrift stores but we did steal our food from large supermar-
around. I used spraypaint and cheap stencils from the dollar store to do graphics
ket chains, and I imagined the runway for our looks to be the two way mirrors
in our zine. I made my movies with a camera from Goodwill and filmed my room
and surveillance cameras that are always watching poor people everywhere they
with the big hole in the ceiling and the raccoons peering in. Combined with the
go. But rather than be self-effacing about being poor, we did the exact opposite
content of our zines, our writing, the band, and the drawings I was doing, we
and made ourselves noticable and notable. We gave each other haircuts and
became a total affront to decency. I wanted to make our circumstances, our pov-
dyed each other’s hair and took photos of each other whenever we could afford
erty, visible. There is no greater reproach to society, whether it’s the middle class,
film. Beyond personal style, I wanted to use the very materials of poverty in my
upper class or lower class, than visible poverty among its ranks. They hate that
artwork. I didn’t want to hide the fact that I was poor. I used readily available
more than anything and will do whatever it takes to hide it. I wanted to make it
pieces of used paper or flyers to draw on with any type of pencil that was lying
impossible to ignore, so I made it an aesthetic.
I once read Arnold J. Kemp describe your style of illustration as ‘usu-
I see that recently you have turned your illustrations towards a
ally casual, pencil on paper, with heavy outlines and carefully rendered
subject matter with a ‘darker’, less sexual theme, including ruined
tits, asses, biceps, quads et al... and whether framed, pinned to a wall,
buildings, car crashes, religion, and beyond. Is this move a comment
or printed in a zine, they maintain the freshness of pages torn from a
on current society, in a world post-queercore, post-need to depict that
teenager’s school notebook’ I love this quote for its ability to capture the
which you once would?
very dichotomy of your work that I find most key, that of the personal
I’m interested in symbols, and altering their meanings, or context, to reveal what-
and private vs. the public.
ever lies beneath, or to the side, or behind them, whatever hidden meanings might
It’s funny because now I’m drawing car crashes and serial killers, and if my drawings were torn from a teenager’s notebook, it would be a teenager who is
lurk out of sight. Everything means more than it seems to, or something different than it’s supposed to.
sent to the guidance counselor and then locked up in an institution and forced to take psychiatric drugs. It’s a good thing I’m not a teenager. Teenagers aren’t
Do you think that is why those things that merely appear to be what
allowed to have a private life anymore, hardly anyone is these days, what with
they are — malls and reality television, and fast food — don’t hold an
the government reading our emails, listening to our phone conversations, watch-
interest for a whole group of ‘counter-cultural’ people who need more
ing us through two-way mirrors, filming us on surveillance cameras everywhere,
than that in order to live [with fulfillment and creativity]?
and ripping pages out of teenager’s school books. I don’t know if there even is a
I do, because all those things, malls, fast food outlets, television, blockbuster
difference between the personal and private and the public anymore.
movies, ultimately exist only to serve the interests of the owners. None of the above items arise out of a creative impulse, or in the interests of the rest of
Kemp describes your work as almost having the essence of precious and
society, the reason for their existence is to manage and manipulate the popula-
private (subconscious?) fantasies or desires drawn in secret in school
tion while making a small group of people very, very wealthy and many people,
books, whilst at the same time also having a very public display of
if not aware of the actual facts and figures, intuitively sense this. They know
queers with their hearts and their truths on their sleeves, seen in all
they’re just being used. So they look to find their own little social scenes, or they
their realistic forms with all their legitimate, oft radical, realities.
create them — a place where it’s not just about how much money they make
People write a lot of things about me and that’s good. And of course, people see in my drawings what they’d like to see, and that’s good too. That’s what they’re
for the company, or how much they’ll spend, but where their own interests are important and aesthetics triumph.
for. I don’t really know how you could tell from a drawing if the people I draw are queer, or bisexual, or questioning, or ‘in college and experimenting,’ or pansexual,
Do you believe that everybody is inherently artistic and creative and
or ‘just having fun,’ or ‘I got so drunk I don’t know what I did last night,’ but I like
that we all have the potential to be artistic by our own value judge-
to borrow something Angela Carter wrote in her book The Sadeian Woman, about
ments (as opposed to the hegemonic, dominant judgement of arts’
the writings of the Marquis de Sade — “...it is art with work to do.” — and say
worth by ‘higher’ parties)?
that these drawings are just doing their job.
A sense of aesthetics has to be cultivated. You can’t buy an aesthetic. It needs inspiration and inf luences to develop and our present society makes this very
For me, in Kemp’s words there is also another dichotomy, that of your
difficult, unless one is determined to seek it out. As it stands, I think a large
work being printed in zines and stuck on peoples walls, (as I type in my
majority of society has no concept of aesthetics and any instinct to be creative
room there is one of your pieces photocopied from a zine stuck to the
and artistic has been killed. But those in whom a sense of aesthetics has devel-
wall behind me!), yet increasingly your work is being shown in gallery
oped, however it happens, do whatever they can to find a way to make this a
spaces and exhibited in group and solo shows. What for you are the agita-
part of their lives, regardless of the judgement of others, because it becomes
tive realities of working with such dichotomies?
a necessity.
You have one of my drawings stuck to your wall? Actually, that’s really better
The irony is that it is an absolute necessity in any society, in any culture, in any
than any exhibition, when someone photocopies one of my drawings out of a
civilization, and the very fact of the lack of value currently placed on aesthetics is
zine or a book and puts it up in their room. I think that’s so great.
why the world is falling apart. A culture becomes cohesive through its aesthetics and without it, it is nothing.
Your illustrative work often has strong themes of sex/authority figures/
That’s why all our little subcultures, all the garage bands, and You Tube chan-
power/abuses of power/gender roles/delinquency/challenging expected
nels and crafting circles and zines and artists and writers and filmmakers and DJs
and asserted values. How important to your spectrum of work is docu-
and blogs and distros and style and all the participants and everything are all so
menting and commenting on power, authority, expectation, and domi-
important. We’re making culture where there isn’t any. That’s why the mainstream
nance— and their uses and misuses— in order to create new subjectivi-
is always stealing our ideas because, really, we are all the culture that exists.
ties and alter expected narratives or asserted symbolic values? It might be important to look at all the kinds of topics, which are often implicit
Finally, what is your favourite and/or most enjoyable aspect about cre-
rather than explicit, or unquestioned, or assumed to be ‘natural’ or ‘normal.’ All of
ating artwork that makes you continue and keeps you developing your
these themes are the underpinnings upon which a society is constructed and the
practice and topics?
only way to deconstruct it is to figure out how it was built in the first place. But I
Nothing makes me continue, I don’t have a choice. It’s something I have to do. I’m
mean literally deconstruct, as in tearing it down and building on the ruins.
a slave to my aesthetic.
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ill nippanashi / S.C.U.M gives warhol another shot / illustration by paulina nowicka mcfarland
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ISSUE 2
S.C.U.M. Gives Warhol Another Shot: A No-Wave Feminist Reconsiders Andy the Dandy by ill nippashi
“Being sexed is hard work.” Yes, Mr. Warhol, it is. I am invested in feminism,
in the idea that the goal of “art” is profound exposure, to reveal who and what a
even when it doesn’t feel particularly invested in me. I invest myself in iden-
person is when they are alone, to unveil the ways in which the imaginations
tity politics, art, and the destruction of the old guard: even when the returns
of artists are confronted by and kick against the outside world. I want to fight
are low. From these places I have a particular contempt for Warhol: over-exposed,
against “passing” and embrace “honesty.” Marginalized strata have always had
little Mr. King of high culture.
discreet lexicons of “taste:” a shared sense of style used to timidly reveal more
Reconsidering Warhol is tricky territory: the story I have given him is one
dangerous desires. Forgetting Andy Warhol, remembering Andrew Warhola it is
I hold protectively close to my chest. In one of art history’s greatest gender
easy to see how his work was not so much an attempt to pass as a confrontation
twist moments a woman (Valerie Solonas) assaulted a man’s (Warhol’s) physi-
of passing, particularly given his flamboyant persona and aesthetic.
cal body, exaggerated his gender as an ethical defense, and used the attack
Borrowing a line from Oscar Wilde, Truman Capote once called Warhol “a sphinx
to compromise the integrity of his work. After the shooting, Solonas held up
without secrets.” There is something I find myself hesitantly admiring about
the SCUM Manifesto as explanation for it and indeed, the subsection entitled
Warhol’s dishonesty, his brash acknowledgment of his audience. Warhol exce-
“’Great Art’ and ‘Culture’” seems to speak directly to Warhol’s work with incen-
lled not at making art, but at making money — not admirable, but he was
diary clarity. “The male ‘artistic’ aim being, not to communicate (having nothing
admirably transparent about it. Warhol hid what other artists f launted (their
inside him, he has nothing to say), but to disguise his animalism, he resorts to
well-spring of personal pain), and exposed what other artists concealed (their
symbolism and obscurity (‘deep stuff’). The vast majority of people...are easily
profiteering). Andy Warhol didn’t make a living, he made a killing.
conned into believing that obscurity, evasiveness, incomprehensibility, indirectness, ambiguity, and boredom are marks of depth and brilliance.” I have always allowed Solonas to inform my opinion of Warhol. The Warhol/
Warhol is by no means absolved in my mind, in no manner guiltless. If I can appreciate Warhol’s queer sensibilities, I must indict him on these very grounds. Warhol is the American dream. First rejected, later celebrated he recreated the exact
Solonas narrative contains comfortingly firm battle lines: Man Vs. Woman,
elitism that alienated him. Sociologists and homo-historians have long pondered
Celebrity Vs. Revolutionary, Quirky Vs. Criminally Insane. But if I step away from
the proliferation of queers within the arts. Often the reason given for this is that,
the charming revenge fantasy, the quaint second wave verisimilitudes, their
rejected by friends and family, the queer invests in the arts as a way to succeed
gender borderland blurs. Warhol was no more traditionally male than Solonas
apart from those who denied them the presupposed tools for success. Though
was traditionally female. The fight is between two gender non-conformists, two
this is often viewed as an homage to collective resiliency, it reduces creativity to
queers, and is more about capital and culture than gender.
mere spite, making Napoleons of us all. This narrow view ignores the way in which
Ubiquitous as the coke bottles he loved, a cursory internet search pulls up
queers lacking blue-prints, invent and reinvent pleasure every day. Queers in the
thousands of books and hundred of products ranging from “Silver Factory eau
arts? Queer is an art, and some record this not just on each other but on paper, on
de Parfum” to skateboard trucks and baby clothes. His consumption has been
canvases, on vinyl, on any surface we can mark.
nearly total. People born post-Warhol mostly view him with ambivalence – he
Being a woman, being a queer has taught me the ways in which desire can
is no longer an artist so much a symbol of Art. But if art, if criticism, has taught
silence and control. Desire is a form of categorization. Once a thing is desir-
me anything it is to distrust ambivalence.
able it’s destructive power is harnessed. Warhol’s garish aesthetic refuses to be
To rewrite Warhol’s story, perhaps I need to invoke his otherness, to resurrect
forgotten. He left a legacy of doubt about the definition of art and authorship.
Andy the Young Dandy: a talented commercial illustrator whose early homoerotic
But he destroyed nothing. Solonas was right about the disguising of animalism
line drawings were rejected by galleries, the young not-yet-famous artist who was
and the con game of culture, but these are what I most appreciate about him.
rejected by the elite Abstract Expressionists for being “too swish,” the upstart
The worst of Warhol is that he fell so short of the mark — as head grifter of high
who was told to “paint what he loved” and began painting money. This is not the
culture for one shining moment he had the chance to expose art and glamour for
Warhol I know — sympathetic and sarcastic. This is exactly the Warhol I know —
the Ponzi schemes they’ve always been. Warhol wrote “The only time I ever want
cynical and greedy.
to be something is outside a party so I can get in.” He never said what he would
Would I respect Warhol more if he continued to draw nude, kissing boys? It is tempting to believe that art is a subjective search for truth. There is nobility
do once he got there. Oh Andy the Dandy, Warhol the Wallflower: we went to the Silver Factory and all we got was this lousy look of practiced boredom.
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lisa black / by shawn tamaribuchi
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ISSUE 2
lisa black Anachronistic presentations of still life preserved, mechanized, and reinvented, New Zealand artist Lisa Black breathes life back into matter. Her process is transformative, using technological adaptation and mimicry to engineer a subject that once was living, dead, then non-living and back again. If technology possessed a consciousness that is both playful and inquisitive, it would surely reside in the framework of Lisa Black’s creatures. Where do you find your materials? I find my materials all over the place. From online auctions to junk stores I am always on the lookout for interesting mechanical parts, I am fortunate enough to travel a lot, so, I have the option of looking all over the World for unique pieces.
What would be the ideal environment to showcase your work? My work is often referred to as Steampunk. It seems to be a movement that is rapidly growing with more and more conventions popping up. I would be keen to submit my work as part of a Steampunk exhibition. A curator in America recently suggested I be part of The San Diego Comic Con this year. His stall will incorporate several Steampunk works and I am particularly excited about being involved in such a colossal event. I was recently involved in a group exhibition called ‘Creature Discomforts’ at The Suter Gallery in Nelson, New Zealand. The exhibition involved quite a lot of taxidermy work and I’m really looking forward to showing my work alongside artists interested in a very similar genre.
If you were to recreate the story of the Garden of Eden, what automatronic parts would you give the serpent? Well, I am currently working on a cobra. I try to determine the significant or dominant part of the animal that might be improved by the mechanical pieces. In the cobras case the jaw will be a focal point.
My cats are pretty cute but useless. What cybernetic upgrades would you suggest I have installed in them? I think there is something about my work that inspires people to imagine what could be. I get many suggestions about what animals I should ‘fix’ next, and although I enjoy the enthusiasm and discussion, it is simply impossible to dream up a creation and make it. My work relies on what parts I find and what animal I come across. This is the first step in my creative process and so depending on what needs ‘fixing’ in turn determines the outcome.
Who are your archenemies? I don’t have any enemies. Although I’m often on the receiving end of some pretty harsh feedback about my work. There is often the assumption that I have killed the animals for the purpose of my work. I recently had someone create a picture of me with my mechanical works photo shopped in. I was fat, bald and with nipples all over me. The amount of effort this person put it was incredible.
What would be your dream project? I am always on the look out for larger animals. I would truly be excited to work on a taxidermy horse. The tricky part is finding one that has died of natural causes and is here in New Zealand. There is always the obstacle of clearing customs requirements if I were to consider importing an animal.
If you had to place the fate of the world in the hands of humans/animals or machines, who would you choose and why? What are we if not machines? I think in the future it will be impossible to tell the difference between what we would now consider human and what you might call cybernetic. My pieces represent a harmony between organic and mechanical, some people frame it as a conflict, but I see combining our technological advances with our evolutionary ones natural. Everywhere you look you see the melding of the two and I welcome it with open arms!
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sadie lune / interview by francesca austin ochoa / photos gretchen robinette
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ISSUE 2
sadie lune
If you are watching porn and getting off, do you think the perfor-
facets of yourself? Is it sex positivity?
mance of porn becomes interactive.
On one level it is, its sex positivism, and beyond that, the issue of shame and
I think that is Voyeurism Plus. The “Jacker- offer” can sit there and rewind a cer-
comfort. I want to do what I can in the world to help people relax about their own
tain part over and over again, and they get to be the puppet master. People are
shame and make people comfortable with themselves for who they are. At times
interacting with the piece, but not with the performance. It’s sex in a box, and
that means eliciting a great deal of discomfort, uneasiness, and other more diffi-
I think it is really safe for people. One thing I like about live performance is the
cult feelings to get there. I want people to feel good about themselves and not buy
connective aspect, the lack of known ending, and often the discomfort that
into this cultural ideal — so close to original sin — that tells us there is so much
comes from dealing with live bodies in real time.
wrong with us. I am susceptible to and actively suffer from that cultural learning
I especially like pieces where the audience has some sort of job or gets seduced
everyday in many ways. I know it hits other people even worse.
into being a collaborator. I feel that as a culture we are becoming worse and
I’m also really interested in symbolism and absurdity, and the relationship
worse at actual connectivity. Having a performance where the performer and
between repulsion and compulsion. I feel like much of my work is right on that
audience have eye contact is symbolically a way to keep exercising those
line between glamour and disgust, seduction and repugnance.
muscles of what it’s like to be human with other humans. To know a stranger in a moment, and to want to be close to people despite any awkwardness of lack
Have you found a symbol that you find best expresses that line between
of safety…
that dualism? I don’t know that I have found one symbol. One of the pieces that I’ve done for
I like the forced improvisation or forced creativity that it creates.
a number of years is an homage to Annie Sprinkle. The piece is called The Cervical
Yeah, it gives you permission. It lets you step outside whatever modality is
Show and Tell. I get situated in front of the audience with a mirror, a flashlight a
your auto pilot role. Crying in public comes to mind. You are not supposed to
speculum and some lube. I am usually wearing something sexy, and spread my
cry in public, it makes people really uncomfortable. It is a symbol of human
legs as I go about inserting the speculum into my pussy, and then positioning the
pain that no one wants to deal with or acknowledge. Usually, when it’s hap-
mirror and flashlight so that I can see my own cervix. Then I invite the audience
pening to me, I don’t want to have to leave what I m doing to fit the comfort of
to come up one by one and hold the flashlight and look at my cervix and they can
society. In my mind people should cry in public more ‘cuz it would make us all
ask me any questions they want. I usually give a bit of anatomical description,
feel more at ease.
and also talk about the wonder and importance to me of doing things like this, especially in terms of it being a feminist act. People are always overcome with
Do you see a power play involved in giving these permissions in your per-
awe and amazement. What gets everybody is when they see the tiny pinhole
formance and how does that relate to your work as a professional Dom?
in the cervix where a baby could come out. Everyone was born, whether or not
Hmmm, I like giving those permissions. It feels good to me. There are a lot of
someone has a cervix — it becomes this universal amazement of what our bodies
different shapes of puzzle pieces that go along with my character and person-
can do. Part of it is this pornographic act of spreading my legs, and it’s like “whoa,
ality, but there is one that is very strong and fits well with submissive people.
pussy in the face” but then it goes to this way weirder and more intense element
So, there is this kind of “right fit” feeling to it. Conceptually, people think of
where there is this commodified, fetishized, and damned aspect of the vulva and
this time as the “post-feminist” era, like the “post- civil rights” era, it’s this
labia — it’s a really loaded image — but then going inside and blowing that notion
“okay, we’re done. Pack it in – fixed that one.” As facile, or sophomoric as it
open. It’s sex positive and body positive and invites curiosity.
seems, I still think there is an incredible need in the world for strong, powerful,
The secret to the success of the performance is that generally I have a ringer in
and dominant women to be seen, heard and reckoned with, whether it is sexu-
the audience; someone who has pre-agreed to jump right up and take a gander as
alized or not. Also, it appeals to the idea that we are always in these conversa-
soon as I offer the flashlight. That moment, the invitation, is like a cusp moment
tions and interactions with power. To ritualize it, or add symbols, and have the
between discomfort, disgust, etc. and comfort, curiosity, permission, amazement.
recognition of it in a consensual way is overt. I like things that are explicit.
Often times, people, especially in groups, need someone to take the lead in those moments to help them move through whatever fear or repulsion or self-conscious-
There is more consent in that kind of sexual or performative play than
ness (no one wants to be perceived by a group of peers as the person *too eager*
there is in daily life.
to get really close to the wide-open pussy) and relax into the curiosity connectiv-
Yeah, and that makes me feel really comfortable. Having a container where you can
ity and fun of the exercise. We get a lot of warnings about coming too close to
deal with things that you might think you are not allowed to do, or are not sup-
other’s bodies, and about appropriate expressions of sexuality, and these are very
pose to want to do to other people. I still have those feelings. My whole work
important issues. But when you layer them on top of a culture which is increas-
is about sex-positivity and combating shame. I suffer from it also. It’s good to
ingly more comfortable with its laptop than its family or lovers, a person, after
practice those places where you get to face that and overcome it.
decades of training has a pretty good neuroses going about personal hygiene,
By “your work” are you referring to your art, your paid work...?
come all the psychological roadblocks and get close to a stranger’s genitals,
My whole life’s work — it’s all mushed for me. Art, sex work, personal relation-
and beyond, in a non-sexual interaction. Some people can’t make eye contact
ships and doing sex positivity workshops — its all a big web.
and some make sure they do, before and after they look. But it’s always really
appearance, body hair, odor, and STI’s. It is in fact a very brave act to over-
heartening to watch people overcome their discomfort and allow themselves to What is the common thread in this web, between your artistic, perfor-
relax into the idea that it might be ok and even pretty neat to have and share these
mative, visual and sexual mediums? Is it just that these are different
strange, beautiful, messy bodies.
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umayyah cable / interview by francesca austin ochoa
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ISSUE 2
San Francisco based artist Umayyah Cable shares the personal narrative behind her stunning photo essay on Palestine. Interview by francesca austin ochoa
1.
Opposite page, far left: Untitled 2009 Portrait of Bassam, with this daughter Abir, who would have been this tall. Bassam stands in the village school yard, not far from where Abir was shot in the head and killed by Israeli soldier’s while walking home from school.
2.
Opposite page, top right: Untitled 2009 Pecans, Bethlehem. One way that Palestinians stay close to their roots is by the harvesting and eating traditional foods.
3.
Opposite page, bottom right: Untitled 2009 Abandoned and bombed out buildings are a common sight throughout the West Bank.
4.
Top right Untitled 2009 This photograph was taken from the roof an apartment building in Aida refugee camp and shows the gravity of the Israeli Apartheid Wall.
Tell me a little bit about your background.
and gets really close to the prints to the point where the guards have to
I am half- Palestinian, my mom grew up in the West Bank and she met
tell me to back off. I’m obsessed with the image and the print quality…
my father while in college in Beruit. I grew up in Boston in the 1980s
it’s this weird commodity aspect of photography. That’s also why
and my mom was heavily involved in peace activism, specifically
I’m obsessed with Polaroid, because it is the ultimate in commodity
concerning Palestine, Lebanon and Latin America. I was always going
fetishism. It’s like “oh shit, one image!” Not reproducable?! At least
to protests and around a lot of really strong, mostly Arab women, and
not in its original form.
was always taught to stand up for what I believe in and to speak to my mind. In my teens, when I came out as a queer person I didn’t realize,
I love Polaroid for that reason. It has that existential quality to it:
that for me personally, being queer meant being politically queer.
it exists once and you have one shot at it, the end.
Being a woman, a feminist, a Palestinian and queer... all these crazy
It’s definitely more along the lines of Henri Cartier-Bresson’s concept
intersections of my life! Sometimes I’m so far outside the box for some
of “the decisive moment.” That’s it, that’s your moment.
people that it makes them uncomfortable, which in turn makes me uncomfortable, and then it’s just awkward. I have been trying to use
How did you begin your essay on Palestine?
photography to reduce that awkwardness and to tell stories. To make
A few years I got fed really up with the political situation in the states
it clear that we are all humans, global citizens, and that we all deserve
and in the Middle East. At the same time I felt this really strong urge
respect, regardless of how we identify.
to move away from portraits, and away from medium format, and move
“Being a woman, a feminist, a Palestinian and queer...all these crazy intersections of my life! Sometimes I’m so far outside the box for some people that it makes them uncomfortable...”
back to 35mm, being fast and on my feet and moving a lot. I was also overwhelmed by this desire to go to Palestine. This was in 2006 and I began planning a trip for 2007. In 2007, there was a lot of division within the Palestinian community because of conflicts between Hamas and Fatah in the West Bank. It was kind of a mess, but I decided to go anyway. I went with an organization called Sabeel. It was a good trip and it was a bad trip. It was really difficult to be there and witness people living in a giant prison. But it was really important for me to go and see the beautiful side of Palestine and to see that there are people who have lived through some really atrocious experiences, yet they still have hope: they still find beauty and they still find joy.
How did you choose photography as your medium for storytelling? I don’t feel like I really chose it. It’s more like it chose me. When I
Was there a particular moment during this trip that was particularly
was little I used to grab my moms camera and run. She would shout
poigniant that you felt like you were able to capture?
after me “don’t take any pictures!” because film was pretty expen-
Yeah actually there are a couple. (See photo 6) I was just wandering
sive and I used to run through it like water. I always had these plastic
through Aida refugee camp and these people were looking out their
toy cameras and one day one I was 11 or 12 I told my mom that I
window and were like: “You! What are you doing? Come up here!” They
wanted a real camera. For x-mas she and my sister gave me a Pentax
invited me up and served me tea and were chatting at me in Arabic,
SLR and after that I was hooked.
and I was trying to make small talk in Arabic and English. I was totally
I never thought I would go digital. I love film, I’m a dark room junk-
mesmerized by this mural they had painted in their living room. They
ie, I have a serious passion for making fine art prints and archivabil-
were living in a very cramped, overcrowded, dingy apartment build-
ity is important to me. I’m one of those people who goes to a museum
ing in a very cramped and overcrowded refugee camp and there were
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Untitled, 2009 Mixing henna for a bride Beit Sahour, West Bank. It’s traditional for the women of a village to gather for an evening of dancing, singing, and henna mixing to wish the bride well the night before her wedding.
maybe fifteen people living in this apartment. This mural that they
a dash for it and take the back roads home. As soon as they exited the
painted is of Jerusalem and they are Muslims. They live six miles away
shop Abir was gunned down.
from Jerusalem, which is the second holiest site for Islam, and they are banned from going there. They simply cannot go: not to work, not to
So you think this body of work is more photo journalistic or is it
shop, and most importantly they cannot go there to pray. This mural is
more a personal narrative? Is there a difference in this circumstance?
a reminder to them of what they hold sacred, and what they are not al-
I am very personally invested in this. I am Palestian. It is very personal
lowed to have. (See photo 1) This man spoke to the Sabeel group. We were in a school yard in Anata, which is a village just outside of East Jerusalem. The Aparthied Wall cuts through the school yard. This man’s daughter Abir was ‘this
for me, and it’s also very personal for a lot of people who aren’t Palestinian. I am a photojournalist and I am an activist. I go along with the saying that the personal is political and the political is personal. I have met a lot of people who don’t think that Palestinians, as a people,
tall’ when she was killed. She was walking home from school with
are worthy of soverignty. This photo essay was not to show revolution
some friends and they noticed that there were Israeli soldiers and
or the intafada, it was to show that Palestinians are people, people who
tanks in the road. They knew they had to avoid the road, because when
are worthy of their human rights. A lot of what Westerners see in the
the tanks are out it means there is more danger. The girls ducked into
media is fighting, anger and tragedy, but there is an immense back story
a shop, bought some candy, and were going to take a taxi home, but
of culture, community, and individuals. And that back story is important
Abir didn’t have enough money for a taxi. They decided just to make
for the sake of empathy. I am sick of the “angry Arab” that Western
6.
Untitled, 2009 Hand painted living room mural, Aida refugee camp, West Bank. Although only 6 miles away from Jerusalem, these Muslim West Bank residents, like all West Bank residents, are barred from entering Jerusalem.
“Jerusalem is the second holiest site for Islam, and they are banned from going there. They simply cannot go: not to work, not to shop, and most importantly they cannot go there to pray. This mural is a reminder to them of what they are not allowed to have.”
media portrays. There is more to it than that single ignorant image. What is it like looking at the wall? The wall is daunting. Before my trip, I had seen so many pictures of the wall (see photo 4). But it’s not until you are standing right next to it that you feel the weight of it. It’s about thirty feet tall plus five to seven feet more for the watchtowers that line it. It’s huge. It blocks the sun, it blocks the wind, it blocks people from their crops and olive trees. It tears through the landscape and it tears through the psyche. It is a serious physchological and emotional blockade. It’s like living in a prison yard. There are even snipers in the watch towers. It’s terrifying. I keep thinking about how they are going to dismantle it, and I think about the Berlin wall and how the people literally ripped it to shreds, but the Berlin wall was a fraction of this size.It is going to take a lot to bring this one down. But it must come down. It must.
art xx art magazine xx magazine / 040 / 040 ARTIST laura NAMEsplan / TITLE / interview by paulina nowicka mcfarland
Blood Scarf, 2002 Detail of diptych, chromogenic prints mounted on aluminum, 24”H x 20”W
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Pillows made to look like skin, nightgowns made from facial peel and tapestry hand painted with the artist’s blood. Laura Splan transforms our human temporality into both comforting and unsettling art. It’s magical, heart-stopping and too close to home. Interview by paulina nowicka mcfarland
Can you talk about your relationship to the body as a
which such objects have narrative implications and how their
vehicle for art?
histories become embedded in their structure and use. I am
I had been making work for some time that included imagery of
also interested in exploring the “domestication of viscera” and
the body. That imagery ranged from the clinical to the scientific
the “medicalization of beauty”. Antimicrobial products are
to the visceral. Much of that work incorporated domestic, femi-
marketed for our bathrooms and pseudoscientific beauty
nine or decorative elements and craft processes. At a certain point,
products target our bodies. What may seem like an attempt
I wanted to make work that challenged the apparent nature of
to high-light the vulnerability of the body is more a reflec-
the visceral in a way that made it less confrontational. I wanted
tion and investigation of our larger cultural obsession
to draw the viewer into the work with more points of entry.
with the body. My work is often inspired by media and
And I also wanted to make work that was more authentic and
advertising engines that generate feelings of need,
less staged. Using blood as a drawing and painting medium as
anxiety, and paranoia around our bodies if we don’t
well as facial peel as a textile solved many of these problems.
prescribe to their notions of beauty, vitality,
The material with which I had created a formal, decorative or
hygiene, and health.
abstract image was informed, transformed, and subverted by the material with which it was rendered. Familiar traditional
How long do the blood paintings take?
wallpaper patterns and delicate embroidered fabric became
For example, your Wallpaper Series?
usurped by the disconcerting fact of their materiality.
There are two separate bodies of “wallpaper” works. Wallpaper/Samples is a
You reference the body so literally, as if to remind us
series of small works in which I traced
viewers that we are so vulnerable.
the designs on existing wallpaper
The vulnerability of the human body is one idea I am interested
samples in blood. However, I rece-
in evoking, but I’m equally as interested in questioning our per-
ntly created a wall-sized instal-
ceptions of the body and its biological function. Likewise, I am
lation for Manuf®actured at the
interested in the intersections between these notions within
Museum of Contemporary Craft
historical, institutional, and cultural contexts. For example, how
(Portland, OR). For this, I hand
does the form and function of a scientific instrument such as
block-printed blank wallpaper
a stethoscope leave a mark on our psyche? Does it dictate a
using blood as ink on a foam
prescribed relationship between doctor and patient that implies
stamp. The block printing
power structures and social conventions? I examine the way in
process for the installation
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laura splan / interview by paulina nowicka mcfarland
Pillows, 2002 inkjet prints on silk, mixed media, stainless steel shelf, 24”H x 36”W
was of course more labor intensive and used quite a bit more blood than the small Wallpaper/Samples Series. It took several weeks to complete the four strips of wallpaper needed for the wall-sized installation. What is the meaning behind using your own blood in your artwork? Using my own body streamlines the conceptual meaning of the work. There’s a certain pragmatism and logic to it that relieves the viewer of the question of “whose blood/skin is it and why?” If I were to use anyone else’s blood, that would only open the door to more questions about a specific person’s/animal’s role in my work. Instead, by using my own blood, it contextualizes and contains the material and process within the artist’s studio. The viewer is accustomed to imagining the artist working in the studio. In that sense, there is a performative aspect to a lot of my work. The way the viewer will imagine me making
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Negligee #1, detail, 2007 Machine embroidery with thread on cosmetic facial peel,dress form, 64”H x 16”W x 16”D
“ Using my own body streamlines the conceptual meaning of the work. There’s a certain pragmatism and logic to it that relieves the viewer of the question of “whose blood/skin is it and why?”
the work becomes part of it’s conceptual meaning. The image of me drawing blood or peeling cosmetic facial peel off my body is certainly part of the work unfolding for the viewer.
understanding of the way we relate to the world visually can make us more critical of our perceptions in our day-to-day lives.
What is the process for collecting blood? All the works on paper use blood taken from my fingertips. I draw the blood
Do you ever get grossed out or repulsed by your own work, like the
using a heel prick type lancet to prick each of my fingers. I then collect the
photos of scabs magnified by thousands, is it ever emotional or
blood in heparin (anti-coagulant) tubes and store them in my refrigerator. For
difficult to make this type of art?
the wallpaper installation, I would draw blood every few days filling as many
I never get repulsed by my own work or by the imagery I’m researching to make
tubes as I could each time. However, I am embarking on some larger projects
it. And it’s never emotional or difficult to make this type of work. But I certa-
in which I will draw blood from my veins.
inly understand that it may evoke repulsion or emotion in others. I think the success of a piece can be assessed by the range of emotions and responses it
You talk about your work as having both qualities that attract and
evokes. My work doesn’t necessarily appeal to a broad audience, but the most
repulse. You create a dichotomy, where the artwork at first glance
successful pieces are able to appeal to a small audience in many different ways.
is welcoming but inspected in detail becomes uncomfortable, even a
The challenge is to make work that keeps challenging the viewer and evoking
bit chilling. How important is to evoke both of these emotions or that
questions while maintaining a sense of wonder and mystery.
double take? My work has always been concerned with perception and the exercise of look
You state that “not only the form of an object can reveal meaning but
ing at something in more than one way. It’s not always the primary focus of
also the materials and process by which it was made.” Can you elaborate?
every piece, but it’s something that reveals itself in my work a lot. I believe
The Doilies are a piece in which I intended to create this type of a ref lexive
that art can have a lasting impact on the viewer and that the experience of
scenario. Doilies as an object and historical artifact are loaded with meaning
the malleability of perceptions is an important one. Gaining a more dynamic
that evokes ideas of domesticity and decoration. They also allude to women’s
Top: Gloves, 2008 Cosmetic facial peel, mixed media 1”H x 12”W x 3.5”W Bottom: Doilies (SARS), 2004 , freestanding computerized machine embroidered lace mounted on velvet, 16.75” x 16.75” each framed. Doilies (Influenza), 2004 , freestanding computerized machine embroidered lace mounted on velvet, 16.75” x 16.75” each, framed Doilies (HIV), 2004 , freestanding computerized machine embroidered lace mounted on velvet, 16.75” x 16.75” each, framed.
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Stethoscope, 2002, stethoscope, mixed media, stainless steel table, 36”H x 96”W x 24”D
work, which is often tedious and time consuming. The use of the doily in the
craft mean to you in terms of your theme of domesticity?
home is sometimes one of camouf lage to hide a scratch in a table. Likewise,
Most of what I do that is craft oriented is relatively self-taught. I often come up
they were traditionally used to protect the fabric of furniture from the oil in
with a conceptually based idea that requires that I learn some new craft or
people’s skin and hair. So the doily is embedded with meaning that relates to
process. I learned to knit at the first Ladyfest in Olympia, WA in 1999 and
the body, comfort, and beauty. In my series of doilies, the pattern of each doily
soon after created several pieces that incorporated knitting with yarn as well
is based on the structure of a different virus. Here the familiarity and tradition of
as vinyl tubing with liquid running through it. The idea for the work was the
doilies serves as camouf lage for the unsettling viral imagery.
impetus for taking the workshop. Latch hooking is something I learned to do as a child. I learned machine and hand embroidery via books, the internet, and a
How do you decide something is a good material to work with like facial
very generous woman with a machine embroidery business in San Francisco
mask or blood, or tubing?
named Gina Evans. I learned to sew in high school in a class called “Textiles
I tend to choose materials, images, and processes that either relate to the body
and Apparel”. I’d be surprised if that class still existed but we had a textbook and
in a biomedical way or to domesticity and femininity. I enjoy playing with the
tests and everything. It was a fabulous class, in which I made an extremely
tension between elements that are seemingly at odds with one another and inter-
hideous pair of elastic waistband shorts with faux tie-dyed material. Yikes!
twining their meaning in a way that questions what is inherent and what is
I think the historical relationship between craft, gender, and domesticity is
socially constructed. Much of my practice is simple, experimental investigation
rich territory. I am particularly drawn to tedious and time-consuming processes,
in which I pose a question to myself: Can vinyl tubing be knit with and still have
craft or otherwise. There are certain meditative, mind numbing, and obses-
liquid running through it? Can remnant facial peel be used as fabric for garment
sive elements to a lot of craft techniques. I personally enjoy this type of work
construction and needlework? Can blood be a good drawing material? So
and find it relaxing. But I’m also well aware that I was raised to in relation to
of course there is a lot of failure and frustration involved in trying to answer
prescribed gender roles. My mom was big on chore lists. Dusting the leaves
these questions. And I always insist on the answer being “Yes!”
on the houseplants and sweeping the cat footprints off the vacuumed carpet were some of our chores. I’m channeling and challenging these urges all the
Some of the work is very craft oriented, you make rugs or embroidery.
time in my work. So the role of craft in my work is both personal as well as
Is it all self taught and self made? What does that connection to
political in a larger cultural context.
Blood Scarf, 2002 detail of diptych, chromogenic prints mounted on aluminum, 24”H x 20”W each
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katie bush / by francesca austin ochoa
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INTERVIEW BY FRANCESCA AUSTIN OCHOA What is evil?
in full control of their experience and have freedoms. To me, consequence
An ugly, self-absorbed hog agenda gagged up by gross snakey people with
and chance make things more interesting. If a person narrowly escapes a
thick black, myopic anti-hearts (the 180 degree opposite of the sun, Bjørk
horrendous apocalyptic nuclear accident by clicking on the fake boobs of a
and unicorns).
promiscuous cheerleader and then abruptly dies by contracting SARS from a dirty Christmas scotch tape dispenser, it is because they (and they alone)
You repeat many of the same images in your work, for example mili-
have chosen the wrong adventure. If they drive their freshly vacuumed ma-
tary weaponry, cheerleaders, the blond woman — sometimes with,
roon (non-air conditioned) minivan off the tip of a huge, throbbing penis and
sometimes without— a medical face mask, babies being trampled,
then suddenly explode into a thousand spectacular glittering baby heads
meat, etc. Who are these characters? Are they enemies? Heroes?
who projectile vomit happy gay rainbows, it’s because they have chosen the
I personally hate the idea of ‘enemies’ (they’re so mean). The patterns and sym-
right adventure (and deserve to live).
bols in my prints + websites are meant to signify power, apathy, compassion (or lack of) and ranging levels of fear and paranoia. I am interested in working
In your web pieces like ‘Destroyevil.com’, do you give the explorer
with the visual memes that are barfed up and on to us by the corporate media,
tools for which to combat evil?
like pandemic-preventing face masks, plutonium-tipped death missiles, impreg-
Hopefully the human being looking at my stuff has an open, sweet heart and
nated teen sluts etc. My ‘characters’ have a symbolic consistency to them – for
they use that crucial cardiovascular tool to fight ugliness everywhere — on
instance, the decapitated screaming baby heads are always advocates or
and off line.
detractors of what I think is rotten in the world. I like to layer and layer and layer all of these housewives and bombs and minivans and genitals on top of
Your pieces are not static, rather you are constantly adding to them.
one another, so there is a feeling of amplified overabundance. I heart Rococo!
How long have you had these internet projects and how long will
I want to pattern these things into hyper-ornate monstrosities — with the hope
they continue? What is your relationship to their evolution?
that all of these elements combine — holistically depict a compounding sense
The idea that this type of art has the potential to be infinitely built upon feels
of organized confusion.
right on to me. I want my websites to be in permanent f lux, remaining f luid rather than fixed. It is an add-add-addiction, and I need expensive mental
Yes, your websites are a fabulous monstrosities of this organized confu-
help in order to stop doing this. Someone help me. Conceptually, “More. more.
sion. In these cyber-matrixes the viewer is an explorer and an agent
more.” aligns with many consumerist themes that I’m interested in represe-
within them. As they navigate, they may hit dead ends, endlessly travel
nting. My first site (Lovekatie.com) began thirteen years ago and was based on
through pictographs, or end up in the same place that they started. Can
a zine I was making at the time. I’ve added the most to Destroyevil.com – I started
you explain this interactive element, and how it fits into your concept?
it the night after George Bush’s Axis of Evil speech and I have been consis-
The people of earth, especially those that come to my websites, need to
tently working on it since 2002. I want that one to be like those chocolate
have the power to choose their own adventures. I wouldn’t want to be some
Christmas calendars, where you open an evil window and you get an evil
bossy shepard that navigationally herds people inone direction or another.
treat. It would be nice if my websites continue on until the end of the world
When people digitally wander across my pixel terrains, I want them to be
and maybe even after that. I’ve been thinking these URLs are really just
A morally upright medley of Destroyevil.com, web art, January 29, 2002 – ongoing
‘You and What Army!’ 60 sq ft triptych, Large Format Digital Print, 2009
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A morally upright medley of Destroyevil.com, web art, January 29, 2002 – DETAIL
magnetic waves of lady-thought, so I’m hoping — even if the world ends, that
realize, witness and discuss embarrassing anti-intelligent creative setbacks.
my 01001010100100010001 chunks are already permeating in the outers of space somehow and will carry on and f loat into the universe until she or he decides
Where next?
to end itself. I will continue adding things to them until I, too, am star dusts
The two main projects I’m focused on right now are ‘Authority Office’ and
f loating with my magnetic bits. That seems lovely.
‘Sexualjihadist.com’. Authority Office is a digital music+performance+video +installation collaboration with two wonderboy artists John Koch (USA) and
How do you feel about artificial intelligence? If you could program your
Kota Uetsu (Japan). We are making 2009 YouTube videos in 2009. I think right
pieces to self-replicate and choose their own avenues for growth and
now we are at 232.
expansion, would you let them?
We’re using a Tenori-on which is the most god-like instrument we’ve ever laid
Yes. YES. Artificial Intelligence is terrifying and sexy and I would fall in sick,
our paws on. It is actually very much like the artificial robot unit that I was just
permanent fascinated love with this kind of self-replicating pixel spewing
verbally masturbating to in the previous paragraph. It has cute blinking lights
artbot. It would be like having a birthday every millisecond! I would like it
and it generates gorgeous, insane sounds. All three of us are in love with it. We
to look like the disco lab that the bionic woman would get her feminine body
perform with it live and we use it to make the soundtracks to our DeMenTeD videos.
chips re-calibrated in. I could stand behind bullet-proof glass and softly touch
Sexualjihadist.com is a new website I’m launching during 2009 San Francisco
round blinking lights, and the unit would chug along and generate good,
Pride. This site and 69 large format digital prints are based on my loathing of Prop
futuristic minivan vagina designs. I would become completely obsessed with
8 and inspired by Pat Boones’ same-sex marriage ‘thoughts’ in this barf-article
its futuristic outputs and no human being would ever love me again. I would
http://www.worldnetdaily.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=82830
never leave that robot room. I think, though, for this to be comfortable (for
(*please refer to definition of evil at top of page). This site will be the most techni-
me and the bot), it would need to have a switch (preferably on its front and
cally complicated, ornate one I’ve worked on and I’m having a colorlicious blast
preferably skin-colored) that I could turn on or off at any given (art emergency)
spending my time on it. It will be the gayest and straightest thing this world has
moment. This would help us (both) avoid the uncomfortableness of having to
ever seen.
“ I heart Rococo! I want to pattern these things into hyper-ornate monstrosities–with the hope that all of these elements combined – holistically depict a compounding sense of organized confusion.” A morally upright medley of Destroyevil.com, web art, January 29, 2002 – ongoing
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nicky hoberman / by francesca austin ochoa
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nicki hoberman Nicki Hoberman’s paintings may be some of the most visually disturbing artwork that I have ever seen. Underlying the flawless technique, the delicate pastel palate, the kittens and butterflies, is a grotesque circus of consciousness forming in the minds of anglo-adolescents. In their bulging eyes the surrealist cultural-physical landscape that adults are accustomed to is taking shape. The fear, distrust, perversions, sexuality, vanity, jealousy, and ego of the psyche theatrically play dress up across their expressions. They give off the nightmarish quality of being trapped in a doll house with childhood ghosts and a never ending music box plunking Fßr Elise, aaaaaah. Hoberman has perfected the craft of showing you the world through the eyes of a child. Innocence is overrated.
Opposite page: Twist, 2002 5’x9’ oils on canvas
Powderpuff 1, 2005 7’x5, oils on canvas
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monica majoli / interview by paulina nowicka mcfarland
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In the vivid oil paintings and breathy watercolors of Monica Majoli, the landscape of psycho-sexual identity is explored. Through her intense and explicit imagery — piss, pain, isolation, deprivation, and suffocation — she weaves a narrative of community, solitude, personal experience, and shared imagination. Interview by paulina nowicka mcfarland
In your work you emphasize the phychological aspects of a
project onto them – which gives me a feeling of freedom in my work.
sexual and physical experience, what fascinates you about the body and that raw physicality?
Does the oil medium and the painstaking process of apply-
I think of the body as the vehicle and interpreter of experiences
ing paint in layers relate to the eroticism of the paint-
and container of consciousness. It’s challenging to work within
ings, or the subject matter?
the figurative continuum because of the weight of historical
I’ve discovered that the attenuated process of layering or
precedence and the objectification of the body that has created
repetition is crucial to my attachment and identification
disassociation between the viewer and the subject depicted.
with my subject. I’m drawn to working out my feelings
My use of sexuality revolves around the desire to stimulate a
and confusion about relationships in my work, so the
visceral response in the viewer to the actualities of our physical
process of painting and repainting is emotionally
nature. SM, which has been the dominant form of sexuality that
driven. The liquid quality of the glazes makes
I employ visually, is useful to me, as it highlights the psychologi-
the process especially sensuous and increases
cal nature of sexuality and consciousness.
the luminosity of the subject, which I find very beautiful.
When did you first decide to take up the subject of human, specifically gay, sexuality in your work?
A lot of your 90s oil paintings of piss par-
In 1990 I began addressing overt sexuality in my work, until that
ties seem to express isolation rather than
point my work was covertly sexual. I was compelled to deal with
the joy of sexual encounter. Can you talk
gay sexuality and the AIDS epidemic in 1990. My close friend, Paul
about the mood of these paintings?
— who I came out with in high school — contracted HIV, and the
Yes, that’s perceptive of you! My work
fear and grief I experienced at the thought of his untimely death
isn’t about the pleasure of sex, as much
was expressed in my desire to document his life and activities.
as it’s about the complications of inti-
Thankfully, he’s thriving more than 20 years later. I’ve found that
macy. The desire and impossibility of
the use of gay male sexuality has been especially liberating for me
connection has been the motivation
in the studio, as my relationship to the subject is both familial and,
behind the work from the begin-
at the same time alien, too. This dual response allows me to both
ning. This theme has been the
identify intimately with the figures and activities, depict and
underlying issue throughout the
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Untitled 1993-1995 Oil on panel 15 inches in diameter
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Untitled, 1990 (detail) Oil on wood 12 x 12 inches
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Untitled, 1991 Oil on wood, 12 x 12 inches
various bodies of work I’ve made. Just to clarify, that isn’t to say I don’t find
of buffer and transforms the potentially alienating aspects of the activity, to
sex in actuality pleasurable and satisfying! Merely, for me, it poses itself as
make the underlying motivations for release more apparent to viewers.
a perfect site for exploration of vulnerability, exposure and discovery of self and other. I use sex abstractly, as my subject matter, to activate the unwieldy
What beauty do you find in SM? What draws you to it aesthetically and
forces within us that shape our self concept. Hopefully, this resonates within
emotionally?
the viewer, too.
The extreme psychological aspects of SM and it’s ritualizing of sexuality both
The specifically sorrowful feeling of the early orgies had to do with the sadness I felt, as I said earlier, of my friend’s possible death in relationship to HIV.
resonates within me and presents itself as way to speak symbolically about the layered quality of lived experience. It’s as if in SM the most primary drives are externalized, made visible to others but in a coded way. SM presents sexuality
In contrast to the oil paintings, the watercolors seem very light and
as a way to define oneself in the world, it describes the dramatic dimension and
eerie. Why did you make the choice of painting something so sexually
impact of sexual experience — which has been true for me. I enjoy the intensity
charged in such a delicate way?
of the visual nature of SM, both aesthetically and subjectively.
I wanted to expand on the philosophical aspects of my work. It became increasingly important to me to make the bigger issues that motivated my
The figures in the watercolors have no real features because of the
practice visible. My work has always been motivated by deeper issues of
hoods, but bodies are also generalized — they are merely contours. Why
consciousness for me. The removed, tonal palette and ethereal nature of wet-
is that? Did you feel the need to simplify the human form?
in-wet watercolor allowed this opening to occur. I attempted to recreate the
I wanted to communicate more directly – in a primal way – the contours provided
balance of the physical nature and the non-material aspect of being in the
enough information. I wanted to empty the vessel of the subject of its individuality,
body by choosing watercolor as a medium.
while allowing the edges to denote psychological complexity. I felt the need to
Also, I’ve tried throughout to avoid confrontation in the materialization
move away from form, which had dominated my practice for so long. I wanted the
of my ideas. The oil paintings, while extremely explicit, were small, really
challenge of creating enough form for the subject to be present, but, just barely.
miniature, in scale – in the realm of 12” x 12”. The watercolor provides a sort
The hoods also perform well in that they allowed the viewer to seek informa-
Rubberman Bound, 2007 watercolor and gouache on paper
tion that was unavailable – in this sense the image ultimately acts as a mirror.
dildos are about or has your outlook changed?
The denial of information creates a screen for projection of the self in the
The dildos, I’ve come to understand, fit into the impulse in my work to address
Rubberman works...
absence and desire. Dildos, while providing pleasure, also evoke feelings of lack or inadequacy. Maybe false power, to me. The dildo functions very differently
What have you learned about your own sexuality while painting, for
than the fist, for instance. The concept of absence has permeated every body of
example, a self portrait with a dildo in your mouth or from the paintings of
work I’ve made, including the one I’m presently engaged in. In the Rubbermen,
male SM scenes?
the absence became most directly stated, but, the sense of absence embodied
All the early works were from factual experience. So, the subject matter of the
in voyeurism was an element of the male scenes, and continued in the prop of
work was defined by actuality, not fantasy. It’s in the act of painting and expo-
the dildo in the autobiographical scenes. This preoccupation with doomed and
sure of the most personal parts of myself that I can’t say I’ve ever really found
disconnected encounters probably has to do with the absence of my father, whom
comfortable! Not even now, 20 years later. The works are incredibly revealing and
I’ve never met.
depict things one might haltingly display during sex when one loses all sense of propriety and control! Needless to say, I haven’t come to terms with the work on
What is next and where can we see your art on display?
many levels. I simply needed to make the images and so I did.
Currently I’m working on images inspired by the wall sized panels of black mirrors installed in my bedroom. I bought a house in Highland Park three years ago,
You made this statement in a letter to your audience about the earlier
and much of my fever in buying it was due to the master bedroom, which was
paintings from the 1990s: “I haven’t figured out why dildos are the cen-
remodeled in the 70s. Three of the four walls are covered with black mirrors!
tral ‘props’ in those paintings. I think it has to do with this false tool —
The room feels like a time/sex/death vortex, which has really captivated me. The
that the mind wants to make real. Using a fake device to try to commu-
images are not depicting mirrors per se but, rather, the effect of black mirror —
nicate with a lover or comfort oneself – so in a way this communication
reversals, absorption, removal. The dislocation of the body and disappearance of
or connection is ultimately doomed.” This last sentence interests me,
the subject is the focus. The work, when it’s completed, will be shown at Gago-
can you explain this sense of doom and have you figured out what the
sian Gallery. I’m shooting for next year!
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monica majoli / interview by paulina nowicka mcfarland
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Rubbermen (#2 of15) 2000-2001 watercolor and gouache on paper 14 x 10 inches
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mary coble / interview by paulina nowicka mcfarland
ISSUE 2
Mary Coble is undoubtedly one of the most extreme performance artists of our day. Using her body as both canvas and whipping post, she self – inflicts the physical and psychological pain of a sadistic society. Her work lacks pretension and it lacks subtlety. It is straightforward, raw and fearless. Interview by paulina nowicka mcfarland In 2005 you performed a piece “Note to Self”. You set out to get tat-
family and friends of victims. I began and ended this performance
tooed (without ink), with names of over 400 names of murder
by having the work “anonymous” tattooed on me to signify the fact
victims. This is a very powerful performance that deals with the
that this list is does not include every hate crime victim.
difficult and tragic subject of hate crimes of gay, lesbian and transgender people. What did this piece mean to you personally
Artists such as Marina Abramovic, Kaherine Opie, Valie Export,
as an artist and as a queer?
Carolee Schneemann, Ana Mendieta and others used their body
Being a part of the GLBT community, the violence and attitudes that
and often blood to speak of complexities of female biology,
lead to these behaviors are personal. I have a responsibility to stand
sexuality and mythology, or as means in depicting the atrocities
up and try to raise awareness. Although the basis of this piece is
of war, rape, and abuse done to human beings. Where do you see
very specific towards the GLBT community, I really feel like it
yourself in this long history of women’s art? Do you take inspira-
speaks to issue that everyone in the world can relate to and under-
tion from their work? Do you feel connected to other artist’s us-
stand. Persecution comes in many forms and for various reasons.
ing their body as a medium?
These behaviors, regardless of who you are and what communities
I don’t feel connected to all other artists using their bodies since we all
you identify with should be deemed as unacceptable by all of us.
do it for different reasons. I do look at many of the artists you mentioned above and others for inspiration, education and because I sim-
What was the hardest part of this performance? How did you deal
ply enjoy their work. There is a history of women artists who have
with the pain of being tattooed over 400 times?
fought to be recognized and have made amazing work. Avenues have
The hardest part of this piece was the understanding that every name
been opened for me. I benefit from their efforts and I hope I continue
being inklessly tattooed on my skin was literally another person who
to contribute to the history that is being written now.
had been murdered. I compiled this list of names so I knew this was the case, but at the time, physically experiencing each name and
In your piece ‘Aversion’ you dealt with the subject of shock “therapy”,
wrapping my mind around what had happened was difficult. Dealing
basically a form of torture done to gay people to turn them into
with the pain was a matter of focusing on the reasons I chose to do
straight members of society. Can you talk about this piece? Where
this performance. My temporary discomfort was minor compared to
did you get the idea for it and what did it signify?
what had happened to these victims and the need to let people know
For ‘Aversion’ I engaged in a thirty-minute shock therapy session where
that this is still an extremely pertinent issue.
I was connected to an electric shock device and was shown images of men and women. When the images of woman were shown I was
Where did you find the names of all the victims, was it accessible
shocked and when the images of men appeared nothing happened
information?
to me. This was to mirror therapy sessions that medical profession-
The information was not accessible and that became a very large
als supported to “cure” homosexuals until the mid 1970’s and that I
part of my research process for this piece. I was under the miscon-
believe are still occurring.
ception that this information would be out there for the public in a
I remember hearing about this treatment when I was younger, but
central location. Information is power and by pointing out that these
stories have resurfaced at various points in my life. When I started to
kind of crimes are still happening at an alarming frequency can
formulate this piece it stemmed from the connection I could see in the
help move people to action. I had to compile my own list of names
past therapy and the current claims by certain religious institutions that
by looking through various sources, many being websites made by
through prayer and support they can help gay individuals turn straight.
Untitled 1 (from Aversion) 2007 25X16, Chromira Print Edition: 10
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mary coble / interview by paulina nowicka mcfarland
Untitled 5 (from Blood Script Portfolio) 2008, 24X20, Chromira Print Portfolio Edition: 7
These claims are absurd and just like with past therapies to “cure”
ISSUE 2
Untitled 1 (from Blood Script Portfolio) 2008 24X20, Chromira Print Portfolio Edition: 7
Have you received any negative responses to your art?
homosexuality nothing comes from them except further harm to the
Not everyone is going to agree with how I choose to use my body within
individuals who are subjected or choose to undergo these treatments. I
my work nor are they going to agree with the ideas I’m dealing with.
wanted, again, to raise awareness and expose something that I find to
I really haven’t gotten a lot of negative criticism. The little I have had
be unjust and unacceptable.
typically has come from people who didn’t actually attend the performance itself. I find this to be interesting because you cannot read
These two very powerful performances, ‘Aversion’ and ‘Note to
about a performance and then give a full critique of the piece. You
Self’ deal with issues of sexual identity, otherness and how a certain
miss out on all that performance as to offer.—the smells, sounds and
fraction of straight society perceives homosexuality as either ab-
the opportunity to experience the piece as part of a community that
normal or even punishable by death. Do your performances seek to
is physically present.
explain the horrors of prejudice – what do you hope to achieve by putting your body and mind in states of extreme discomfort?
What will you explore next?
I don’t try to explain the horrors of prejudice. I don’t think that is some-
I enjoy making work based on concepts that are important to me. I
thing that I understand enough or am able to fully wrap my mind
have several ideas in mind but right now I can’t say for sure where
around. Using my body, many times as a metaphor or site for ques-
they will lead.
tioning, I do hope my art can help bring these issues to the forefront of people’s attention. The awareness and the perspective that I offer
What is your vision of a just world?
people through my work can make a difference in our world. If one
For me, right now, this seems like a very hard question to answer.
person sees this work and is affected then I count that as a success.
There are so many things, some on a massive scale and some much smaller, that seem unjust. I don’t know if I can sum up my vision of
How do you think your audiences reacts or relates to your perfor-
a just world but I do think there are a few things that could help us
mances? Are they shocked? Do you think they “get it”?
move towards something a little closer. A just world would involve
Audiences are sometimes shocked when they see my performances.
everyone having equal rights and being genuinely considered and
The physicality of my work can be tough to deal with at first. However,
treated as a deserving human being; where no one is hungry, home-
when an audience sticks with and opens themselves up to all the layers
less or without basic necessities and where everyone has the oppor-
within a piece I think many people absolutely “get it.” They can see that
tunities for an education and health care. And on a very basic level
form follows function and while the pieces may be shocking it’s because
I wish everyone could live with a feeling, reflecting the reality, of
the concepts that I’m dealing with are shocking.
safety and security.
Untitled 3 (from Blood Script Portfolio) 2008 24X20, Chromira Print Portfolio Edition: 7
Performance Documentation (from Aversion) 2007 Conner Contemporary Art, Washington, DC
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orly cogan / interview by jennifer darling
ISSUE 2
“A ‘feminist beauty queen’ is elusive because it is a concept that seems essentially diametrically opposed. I know I often walk the line between wanting to be both. It’s a struggle.” Interview by jennifer darling You were born in Israel, have studied in Europe, and now work in New
What is the process like when creating your stitchings? Do your ideas
York. How the differences of various cultures influence your work?
evolve around the existing designs on the fabrics?
I was born in Israel to American parents and moved back to NY at the age of five so
It’s really a combination. I usually work quite intuitively. With every piece it’s a
there is really not a “Middle Eastern cultural” experience that translates through
slightly different process. Sometimes I have an idea in mind and need to find a
the narratives of my work. I have lived and studied in Europe, but I’m not sure
fabric that fits into that. Other times the fabric brings out the story. Either way, it
if that’s really what influenced my visual language and the times and concepts
never turns out exactly how I imagine it to...which is wonderful actually.
that interest me either. The biggest influences are based in my childhood. I had very liberal, creatively
You have said that you are “searching for that odd thing: the Feminist
supportive, and eccentric parents. Both my parents are interested in the arts.
Beauty Queen.” Why do you think she continues to be so elusive?
My mother collected Folk Art and has a big collection of vintage “samplers,”
A “feminist beauty queen” is elusive because it is a concept that seems essentially
with moral lessons embroidered on them, and quilts. My father was drawn
diametrically opposed. I know I often walk the line between wanting to be
to more of the Renaissances style of painting work that tells stories through
both. It’s a struggle. Literally speaking — Perhaps, a feminist can be a beauty
symbolism and romantic scenes. I went to a Rudolf Steiner Waldorf School
queen if she also understands the exploitational aspects of women as “beauty
from second through 12Th grades. This kind of education puts a high value
queens” in the media, fashion, billboards, pin-ups and so forth. Particularly
on creativity, story telling and self expression. I went on to art school — The
in the literal sense of a “Miss America” or “Miss Universe”contest.Who really
Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art and The Maryland
believes it’s all about the scholarships for heaven’s sake?!.
Institute College of Art and majored in painting and drawing. Many of my in-
The “feminist” beauty queen, on the other hand, KNOWS and shows the
f luences come from my upbringing, the freedom to travel independently at a
world that it’s all a big joke — she’s playing a role, winning those awards and
young age and my interest in physiology – in particular pop culture in terms
can also thumb her nose at the conventions of press, marketeers and others
of gender roles and social dynamics.
who put on these “pageants” & those who watch them. Madonna could be an
Opposite page: Voicemail Vintage fabric stitching 10x10
Quantum Entanglement site specific mixed media 20’ long x 12’ high
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orly cogan / interview by jennifer darling
ISSUE 2
example of this — she constantly reinvents herself, plows into new & profit-
male figure lying passively in the corner — his face covered with wavy hair
able business ventures & struts her stuff onstage to ogling thousands while
from two fairies. Only his genitals will distinguish his identity. My work puts
still doing everything “her way” (the feminist aspect) and not depending on
me in a vulnerable yet powerful place at the same time. It’s my most honest
anyone other than herself — look how fast she got rid of the husband once she
expression. It’s a sort of public intimacy where you feel both comforted and
decided to do so.
voyeuristic, amused and bewildered. I’m mostly interested in how interpersonal relationships and sexuality play out in social dynamics. I’m expressing
Your stitchings mix a traditional medium (the embroidered patterns of
those concepts through the gaze of a child like point of view: Innocent, pure,
days gone by) with modernized versions of women in the nude (or nearly
light hearted and dreamy. My women are free to do as they will; they have
nude) doing housework, eating cake, using drugs, or frolicking amongst
little worry about how they will be judged by their male counterparts or even
men or animals. What can you tell us about the symbolism you use?
other women. They are responsible to themselves. They do what pleases them
There are some symbols that I borrow from fairy-tales and mythology. For example,
— whether it be gorging on sweets or doing a mundane task. Other characters
the “frog” is a symbol of the desire to find one’s “prince” It’s also about not
are on the brink of being unhinged. I personally see this duality in most people
“judging a book by its cover” and alludes to the irony of what an “ideal anything
I know.
ever could be.” The apple or pomegranate of course symbolize temptation and
The vintage fabrics and embroideries of the past mix with my existential
allure, rebellion and something secret, untouchable, possibly fatal and myste-
females as an homage to those women who were constricted to self expression by
rious. Many of my symbols are also personal — a lobster is decadence but also
simply stitching over patterns with colored thread and, perhaps, adding a
entrapment , a smaller figure inside another can be a miscarriage or a wish
shade here and there or an extra leaf to a f lower while at the same time, cook-
for new life. I like to leave things implied so the viewer can bring their own
ing, rearing children, “serving” her mate now play among my creations and
inf luences to read each piece.
finally harmonize together .
“Allegory,” for example is a mix of embroidery and paint on a pale, vintage
I like to imagine that the women who sat in a sewing circle with their emb-
tablecloth, a group of women are gathered like saints and angels in a ochre-
roidery hoops and stitched f lowers and borders are exclaiming joyously at
f lowered celestial-like realm where the night sky is dotted with deeply-pink
what I create and are smiling at me while I stitch and paint my sly sisters!
areolas and thick embroidered hair. The women simultaneously embrace,
I hope to eroticizes the very nature of linens and the act of sewing. Rather
fondle, and ignore each other to their own liking. The age and scale of each
than simply reusing a previous generation’s products for mere commentary,
woman varies, creating a seemingly randomized hierarchy that hints at a
I merely ref lect them like two-way mirrors into the like-minded fantasies of
state of constant f lux between each woman’s assertive and passive roles. The
competing generations.
Opposite page left: Bittersweet Obsession 48x48 Opposite page right: Quantum Entanglement detail, mixed media Below: Size Matters Vintage fabric stitching
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mia nakano / interview by shawn tamaribuchi
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“Mia Nakano happens to be one of my favorite humans, but I use the term loosely. I would actually classify her as a cyborg that captures images through lenses, reflected light, and pixels. She is a walking machine with at least two cameras and a laptop on her person or inside her solar powered backpack, like the Inspector Gadget of photography. Her knowledge of digital photography is tremendous, and her advice and consultation is solicited by some of the top photographic artists around. If I had to use two words to describe her and her work, they’d be meticulous and compassionate. The subjects of Mia’s photography contain a voice that is both clear, honest and a bit optimistic. Whether it be through feasts of cheese and chocolate or through the perfect f stop, she is able to bring out the best in people.” Interview by shawn tamaribuchi One of the ongoing subjects of your photography are pigeons. What
1. I got my first camera when I was 6-years old, and never stopped shooting
are five things that everyone should know about pigeons and five
2. I’ve completed one photo class, Beginning black and white Photogra-
things everyone should know about you?
phy in high school
1. They are monogamous, generally for life, and do not get another partner
3. I am incredibly disorganized, yet super OCD at the same time
unless theirs dies.
4. Cheese, chocolate, and coffee are vices I struggle with on a daily basis
2. Babies are born and raised almost until they are full grown, kinda like
5. The perspective I take of the world is that of a queer Japanese Ameri-
the humanoids.
can woman raised in an upper middle class family. My views on class
3. The now extinct passenger pigeon was the most populous bird in the
and race are heavily influenced by my mother and grandmother’s
world, and was considered a wonderful food source in North America.
history —the internment camps juxtaposed against my upbringing in a
4. When it became endangered due to over-hunting and westward ex-
very wealthy suburb in Southern California.
pansion, people hunted it even more. A species that was once 5 billion strong was reduced to nothing.
Have you ever thought about using Pigeons in the actual process of
5. People pay tons of money on one of the most important days of their
creating the work? Pigeon-cams?
lives to have homing pigeons released at weddings. They are not doves
I once helped a co-worker of mine, who shares my love and quasi-obse-
people, they are homing pigeons.
ssion of pigeons, launch a remote control, large format camera. The
Pigeons are inherently unafraid of humans, sadly the same cannot be
negative size of the film, yes I said film, is 4x5”, and it was tied to a 6’
said about humans being inherently unafraid of pigeons.
in dia-meter weather balloon, and triggered by a long distance remote
control. We started chatting about how it would be amazing to talk to
As the Co-Director of RayKo Photo, the printing process is obviously
and work with pigeon handlers to attach cameras to pigeons that were
a huge part of the work you do as an artist. Tell us about the space
on timers to literally get a birds eye view of the city. There seem to be a
you work at, and what techniques are you currently employing?
lot of kitschy things like that popping up: the DIY cat cam got made into
One of the key elements of the art I produce, is that I do everything. Shoot,
a digital camera for kitties. But birds are so light, there’s more design
process, print, mat, and frame, there isn’t one aspect of the artistic
work to actually make the cameras function. The dream of incorporating
process that I hand over to a lab to do. I’m currently the Co-Director and
pigeons as the photographers would cultivate a more intimate relation-
Digital Manager of one of the Bay Area’s largest photographic commu-
ship between myself and the birds. I would in essence become their
nity spaces, RayKo Photo Center.
printer and work for them to show the world what they see.
One of the best parts of my job is I get paid to do artwork. I have a vested interest in alternative processes of printing. I do this primarily in the
Pigeons seem to occupy a fraction of the work you produce. I would
digital world, but there is crossover to traditional darkrooms, and I
argue that there are some themes within both the pigeon pieces
have been working more and more with merging darkroom and digital
and the more macro photography work of yours I’ve seen, envi-
processes together. The work I do is always photographic based but can
ronmental impact and awareness, a fascination, abstraction and
incorporate elements of mixed-media. Also, I’m trying to increase the
slight dissociation of these spaces. Could you speak to this? Are
knowledge I have of printmaking to bring that broad art form in as
you aiming to documentthese spaces? Is there a narrative you are
well. However, over the past three years my primary interest has been
constructing?
creating prints on non-porous surfaces such as metal, plexi, and glass.
This is a really amusing question, because it can be a blanket statement
There is so much about printing on metal that is attractive to me, and I
about all of my work. If I take a look at myself just in the very specific
usually work with copper or aluminum. It takes about three days to pre-
role of being a photographer, and taking out the printmaker aspect of
pare a single sheet of metal to print on. First it must be sanded down to
what I do, it’s hard for me to dissociate or eliminate personal views of
eliminate any marks, and then it takes two days to coat the metal with a
social justice and environmental awareness from the work. I would
overcoat called inkaid – a digital liquid emulsion that turns any material
describe my shooting style as balanced compositions, combined with
into digital printing material. Well, any material that can fit through the
intimate perspectives of textures and realistic, yet saturated, color pal-
printer. After working with simple sheets of cut metal for a while, I be-
ates — regardless of the subject matter.
gan exploring other materials. Aluminum tape from the hardware store,
The environmental macro and landscape images I have are a result of
thin rice papers, and then stumbled upon a specialty paper that looked
my attempts to connect with nature in a very visceral manner. While I
almost like a mirror. It was a sheet of digital paper that was made for
agree that I do have an intense fascination with those spaces and have
inkjet printing, but was metallic looking. I’m enamored with the process
a tendency to present how I view them in an incredibly abstract way,
because the metallic surfaces lend such a 3-dimensional quality to the
I wouldn’t necessarily say I dissociate with the space. I’m actually
work, while creating prints that don’t look overtly digitized.
cultivating a relationship with the outdoors, which evokes a heightened
I participate in at least two art shows per year, Open Studios in October,
sense of awareness that humanity has on the environment. Logs fallen
and the 24 Hour Show. With both exhibitions, in the past, there are
in the rainforest that have been completely undisturbed for years, water
generally three different series of work, each printed using a different
running through a drought riddled area, a small fallen yet pristine leaf
technique. It’s my philosophy that 90% of the work in photography
laying on a calm beach, or inching closer to look at stones that will
resides in the printing and processing elements.
eventually be eroded into almost infinitesimal grains of sand. Each of these subjects, and perhaps pigeons above all, can be passed by without a single thought as to how humans impact their existence. I feel as if they’re all important enough, to stop, to think about, and to photograph. QUEER VISIBILITY PROJECT / QUESTIONS WE ASK: 1. What does being visible mean to you? 2. Do you yearn to see more images of individuals in our community to create a more powerful presence in our society? 3. How would being more visible empower our community? 4. Would you be willing to participate in a visibility project so that others can see themselves in your image? This is a diverse portrait series centered on Asian and Pacific Islander (API) queer women and API trans folks. The images created are paired with video and text installations from interviews of the participants. A comprehensive portraiture book is in the works with the intent of giving voice to those who chose to stand up, those who chose to be visible, and those who are continue to break gender, race, sexual, and ethnic stereotypes. The photographers and videographers continue to photograph the API Queer identified communities with a focus on lesbian, bi, mtf, ftm, and gender queer folk, and are looking to travel throughout the US to capture the broadest range of subjects possible.
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mia nakano / by shawn tamaribuchi
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mel kadel
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How did you begin? I drew a lot when I was a kid, and my older brother Greg would give me drawing assignments at home. He would pull album sleeves out, turn them upside down, and tell me to draw what I see. I was pretty young, and he was teaching me to see something that was true, without copying an image. I’m not sure if that’s where self-expression started, but drawing Hunky Dory upside down felt good. Do your dreams influence you? No, not like night time dreams. But, I do like to make simple ideas, dreamier. It seems as if we are following a story of sorts, but, not always, I love the idea of being in someone’s head, are we following a certain person? Does this person identify as male or female? (and if female, was that an intentional choice? Every drawing leads to the next with some back & forth, on the same idea. It’s surely a lady that I’m drawing, but this is a character who feels like some guys I know too. I don’t just think about just ladies when I work, and whatever story it is that i’m drawing out, has a lot of different people in mind. In many of your pieces, there seems to be a theme of struggle or entanglement? I think about these daily struggles, that every single person has, and like to imagine everyone gets through them okay. What is inspiring you lately? Getting small things done.
Hand Stand Mixed media on paper
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mel kadel
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Human Nature Mixed media on paper
photo credit mxc mncx mn cxmnxc mnxc mxc mxcn cxmmxcn m,xc jhbdsvjhbdsjvbsdjvbsdj
Loving the Sun mixed media on paper
Bottom Left: Falling in Line Mixed media on paper Bottom Right Swirl City Mixed media on paper
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the meat / pass it on...
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Issue 2
This is your magazine. We want it to stay in the community as well as venture beyond it. Pass this along to your friends, lovers, a stranger on the street... This space is here for you to write comments, wishes, sign your name or make some art, send us your finished spreads to: art xx magazine, po box 22474, oakland, ca, 94609.
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Issue 2