Sidney Rowe in performance
Sidney Rowe in performance
Sidney Rowe and 360 Degrees, August 31 2005
I had Sidney Rowe on the radio a couple of years back. She had a piece at Backspace and was doing a performance. I knew that she used to show at Augen Gallery and was a little surprised at the move.
But she told me that performing was important to her, and Augen just wasn’t the place to do it. So I am making sure she has the room for it at Chambers.
She calls it 360 Degrees Painting. A big panel is set up in the middle of the gallery, right on that old-growth beam, and it spins around as she paints live. At 7pm tomorrow she will perform.
I think it’s OK to say here that Sid has had a 2 year battle with cancer. I’ve gone through times with her when I could not recognize her, such is the result of modern medicine. But we decided to show hell or high water. Of her newest work (and some of the best), I have no images for you right now, but will post when I can.
Georgia, August 29 2005
Here is my next work in the Dead Artists series.
Agnes Field, August 28 2005
Although these tales could wait till the month of September, I thought I would tell you how I met the artists Chambers will show in next month.
I was working for Ferragamo in NYC when I got a phone call from a certain Agnes Field. She told me how our friend Colleen in Astoria, Oregon had two children. This I knew, as I was Godmother to one. Well, it turned out that she was Godmother to the other - “And so I think we should have a meeting of the Godmothers,” she says.
And I acquiesce, which is all it really was then. I was an exhausted working woman at this time in my life, but could handle it all if at least we met in one of my favorite bars, the Temple Bar on Lafayette.
There was a big circle of people involved and I was glad enough to meet them all, only they all paid a lot more attention to my handbag than to the fact that I was an artist. At this time, the mid-90s, it was a fact I held on to dearly in theory, if anything else. So that may explain why, Agnes aside, I do not recall another person at that table. Cause I spent day and after day talking handbags at this time and I did not do it for free or for pleasure.
But Agnes I remembered. She was an artist and we had something to say to each other. Who would have ever guessed that we would both thrive as artists on this other coast, in not only showing our work but also the work of others? Agnes Field is a big part of Astoria Visual Arts and AK Gallery in Seaside. She has done so much for so many artists and is curating and collecting all over the place.
She showed me at AVA and other Lovelake artists: Kenny Higdon, Timothy Scott Dalbow, John Brodie. She also showed my friend Bruce Conkle. I tried to return the favor by showing Darren Orange. But I am most excited about showing Agnes herself.
Drunk or Stoned, August 27 2005
Roberta Smith reviews a show called Drunk or Stoned 2.
I wasn’t really sure which camp I might belong to until she clarified it – and so well: do you repeat obsessively or do you ejaculate freely?
Then she then got down to brass tacks: Abstract Expressionism = drunk. Pop and Minimalism = stoned. Well, yeah then I am stoned! And it’s amazing how many Expressionists I know who love to get drunk!
But I should have been able to answer that on my own - I should have known instinctually, as I had to learn over time how to drink. It took me years and I could go to many gigs and concerts nursing one drink. All the while wondering how I might get some dope.
Even today I could never paint on drink but was really happy last summer to paint on all the painkillers they gave me while I recovered from a surgery. Like I said on Ultrapdx, better art through drugs. I painted all of Starry Night not really on this earth, which is probably just what it took, for nor is what that painting depicts.
As a makeup artist, I had to focus on the same one to two inch area of a human eye and make it marvelous. The best eyes I ever concocted, where the palette went smoothly a full 360, were made with the mesmerizing patience and the odd clarity from smoke. All the dullness that followed in that field, Bobby Brown and all of her brown makeup takeover in the 90s, was just another aspect of the war on drugs, where we're all ready to be dull, quiet, uniform and forgiven. (well, not all of us)
Learning, August 26 2005
Cut and Paste is almost over. Yesterday was jammed. There were phone calls in the AM asking me when we would open and people waiting at the door when I arrived. It was a stellar day in many ways. Mark Brandau of Portland Modern, Timothy Scott Dalbow, Walt Curtis, Carola Penn, Baby Smith and a lot of other artists visited.
The show also attracted many females over 40 in need of inspiration and a role model. And just some fun. Eunice, at 89, is still fresh. And she shows that a lot can still be ahead for you at any age.
I kept learning about both of the artists as I sat there the past 6 weeks. And that’s what I want, that kind of experience. I knew they had things in common, though decades apart. They both took materials important to their lives and generation and ripped them up and reassembled. They both interpreted travel and transport.
But I also saw how typical they are of any collage artist: we thrive upon the generosity of others. Work long enough like that and people know it. Eventually they think of you whenever they come across materials you use and then the gifts pile in. (For instance, people give me old magazines, even mail them to me.)
Eunice was a world traveler and to this day, friends and children of friends bring her all kinds of paper from their adventures. She told me she hasn’t bought any paper in years. As I looked at Paul Fujita’s pieces, it occurred to me that these can’t be all of his own skateboards. Sure, he works at Cal Skate, but it’s got to be more than that. Perhaps people know to bring their broken boards to him?
Unity, August 24 2005
In flowers you often see warm and cool tones collide beautifully. A combination to fascinate me was purple to orange and yellow to pink, seen in orchids and pansies. There is something about it which is very harmonious.
The harmonious factor is not generally a big concern with me. Overwhelming, even confrontational might be more to the point. But I was still curious - what created the harmony? And why was it so familiar, familiar beyond observations of the natural world.
Burgundy, purple, pink, yellow, orange: such was the palette I painted on faces in the 80s as a makeup artist. I put it on Asian skin, I put it on blondes, it played on everyone. It was wild but it worked.
As I worked on this piece above it dawned on me: you put purple and orange together and you get a brown. And you put yellow and pink together and what do you get – a brown. And this color, while interesting me not one iota out of the tube, became appealing. And on the human skin, it was what unified all that extravagance.
In painting, too, unification counts big time. It has to read as a whole, it functions as a whole.
No doubt certain elements of the art world would pay no heed to whatever a makeup artist might contribute. Fashion and beauty aside, I painted literally thousands of faces in that career. All it is, in the long run, is paint. You talk color all day long; at least I did – much more than I ever talked ‘product’.
Manifesto of maturity and the right to obsession, August 22 2005
Since my show in April I have gone through a bit internally as regards my own painting. I mentioned some new ideas I had here, but the fact is I really don’t want to stop what I had been working on. Works like Starry Night and Beam opened doors to me that I want to walk through.
In Portland, you have a small community where often all the same people go to the same shows. And that’s about as far as it gets really. As an artist it can compel you to move on sooner than maybe you should. People will ask you what you are going to do next. In fact, they asked me this right at my opening for Vive Chrome, quite a few times. I could not even bask for one moment; I was expected to move on.
Otherwise, it appears that the artist is stuck, showing the same ideas over and over again. I could name the artists here but won’t.
Much of the problem lies in the fact that it often all happens on the same walls, with the same crowd, same dealer, same collectors, the same wine. So the imagery may look the same too, even though there may be growth and differences.
And we as artists deserve to make our subtle differences, to grow our work at our own speed. I used to think that some people were stuck but I tend to think a little differently now, at least about some of them. Maybe it comes with age. You start to realize that life is long, that your own might be.
You’ve flittered around and tried many things, you’ve let no grass grow under your feet and maybe that was all as it should be. But as you did that, some minds had no real time to grasp what you were doing. Not only did you need some more time, but so did they.
Some of your ideas were (and still are) worth more than two minutes or two months or even two years. Some ideas followed you around like a dog, from childhood onward. And just because PDX saw them, doesn’t mean you are through with them.
I thought of all of the great artists, dead and living. The ones who mapped out their territories, their style, their obsessions, regardless of momentary marketing or audience. The ones whose obsession was worth it. I want to make sure that I paint what I paint because it is what interests me and not for some other reason – like expectations, or what it takes to keep in the news or to hopefully break into some local groove market.
Art Dreams, August 20 2005
Somewhere around 30, you start to see a different expression in the faces of some artists. I’ve been noticing it lately because I ran across several in one week.
It’s not turning out quite how they thought it would be. It’s just not all that glamorous. And even when they get shows and even when they get press and even when they sell some work, none of it really compensates for what they put into it.
I’ve observed it before in these pages: we are all hip to call it “work” but get in a real bind when it turns out to be just that. It doesn’t get any easier for most of us as the years go on (unless you are a lucky imp and maestro like Jean Arp, beautiful and productive and necessary to the end).
I could see how this was all just really dawning to this one young artist who spoke to me the other day. When was she ever going to get out of it what she put into it? Then I met up with another painter who told me passionately how all she wanted to do was paint. Sure, she was running this cool space but that was not what she really wanted to do.
I know the feeling. I’ve had it like a pendulum all of my adult life. You get close, then all of the sudden it all is far away. You’re revved, then you’re not. You’re important, then you’re not. It is very, very rare, the artist who gets up there and keeps it going.
But a turning point for me was the realization of what I just wrote an entry or two back: that it is up to every artist to make their own career and that a real engagement with art is on many levels. There are many ways to be an artist. Hanging out in your studio, resurfacing periodically with gifts for the world with price tags, is for the most part, not enough. Yes, you can live as an artist your whole life. It’s possible. But it may not be this cloistered vision which is all about you.
Flash Egon
Dead Artists, August 19 2005
In this house is a large, made-over attic. I sleep there and that is about all. There is plenty of room to form some kind of collage studio.
And so we bought a long table, hauled up my paper cutter. My mom gave me a paper cutter when I lived in SF – I’ve had it at least 20 years. Actually it does not cut straight but I still use it.
I lined up my old magazines and materials. And still it took me a long time to get into this kind of work.
I think I told you how I lost my stash-bag, but if not, I will briefly repeat the tale: in an old Bloomingdale’s bag I kept particular images which I loved most. Some I had had since the 70s and the images themselves dated to the turn of the century, though my favorites were from German magazines of the 1930s. I mean I had some hot shit.
But then nearly two years ago we moved into this house. The stash-bag somehow never made it with us. I was so traumatized that I have still made very little since we have been here.
Mind, I produced a big painting show and written like a fiend here. But photomontage holds a very special place in my heart, especially in the summer for some reason. Art making in general is easier for me during this time and in the case of collage, you can get on a roll and produce quite a bit within a short amount of time. I’m not saying all of it with be great, but it is the exercise that matters.
Bits and pieces I’ve laid out on the table two months ago. Then the night air moved through and scattered them to the floor. I have picked up these important bits and pieces many times and wonder if the wind will provide some necessary magic. This happened over and over.
I kept staring at the face of Egon Schiele, an artist I communed with at the Neue Galerie when I went to New York. It’s been an idea of mine to create a suite of artist portraits, mostly dead artists. Like I said before here, it was those dead artists who got me through my tough times in New York – in places like the Met or now, this Neue Galerie.
John Gutmann, August 15 2005
Anna Conti mentions that John Gutmann is very much in the news in San Francisco, what with exhibitions at SFMOMA and the Fraenkel Gallery. It is all apropos, as he had a huge presence in SF while he was alive. She provides links to a more historical bit of writing I did on him about five years ago, so I don’t need to go into that here, but maybe I can just give some more personal reflections.
John was gruff like any old man but also very kind. You saw him everywhere. We were introduced by the dealers at Modernism and I suppose all of us were into the same thing – contemporary art still mindful of art history. Not that any of us ever said so, but that’s just the way it was.
There were two owners of Modernism originally. I’ve told a bit of the tale of Jeffrey as he was how I got ahold of my R. Crumb (see April 2005) . But Martin I knew less well. We only hung out for one wild night and paid tribute to all things Russian. He took me to those Russian bars out on the avenues, palaces filed with red and gold and every flavor of vodka. This may be the norm these days, I don’t know, but this wild variety of vodkas was not so common in the early 80s.
And then he took me to his place, a flat in Pacific Heights filled with the Russian Avant-Garde, I kid you not. The whole place was a museum. The plates, the cups, the rugs, the lamps. He was a Malevich addict first and foremost but had all the rest of them on display too, plus a library of Soviet books and pamphlets – aids to the revolution -- to knock your socks off. I was completely smitten with him but I knew he was way out of my league.
But back to John Gutmann. If you went to the free night at the museum – I think it was Wednesday – you could always see him there. We would meet and make the rounds, looking at our favorite pictures. Imagine having a mind like that to take in art with! I knew I was lucky but not really how lucky, for I was initially unaware of his already assured place in art history. Pretty soon I got it though. When he came to my house, he got the prize seat. He was the maestro.
John could be the man too. One time at a party someone came up to me, rattling off. This someone had been stalking me for some time, a long story and none of it pretty. But John got right in his face, this old man with this long beard taking on this young buck. Everyone shut up too when this all came down; John turned chaos into a crystal clear situation. And that stalker never bothered me again.
Back to nature, No.2
Back to nature, August 14 2005
My mate told me that he could see me on a farm and that maybe that was where we were headed. Don’t know really, but I grew up out in the country. What a blissful way to be a child. I had a deep relationship with our chickens. We started with one rooster and 5 hens and ended up with 65 altogether.
Most of the year I don’t think about it, but there is something about warm weather that can take you there.
Do you recognize the stairway? Charles Sheeler was a great photographer, way ahead of his time.
Back to nature, No.1
detail from White Heat, Raven Schlossberg
Dangerous collage, August 14 2005
In PORT Jeff Jahn said that Eunice Parsons did not make an original work, but then again, in collage, did that matter? I got the feeling that he thought it might be somewhat of a stretch for collage to be innovative or original. But I think it is possible. I think Paul Fujita is on to something. And check out the work of Raven Schlossberg if you don’t think so.
This artist blows my mind. I’ve imagined a work like this without ever actually seeing much of it. I personally am more narrative and clean in style, so it isn’t in me to do it, but I sure do like it.
Porn is something that affects me nada, while many artists say it is this big influence in what they do. I am not fascinated by it at all. But what I find very interesting in this interview is how the artist links unhealthy ideas about our bodies with the everyday culture. She calls it dangerous and I agree.
Get involved to get a show, August 12 2005
A few sites have tips for getting a show at a gallery. As I sit at one all day long, plus make art myself, I know this subject from both sides. I can see mistakes I made in the past by where I sit right now.
One time I asked Mark Woolley what he thought of a certain artist whom I considered very talented. “Yeah, she came in her with slides one day,” he said, “But I had never seen her otherwise. She acted pretty confident and rightly so about her work, but she obviously was not that interested in what I was doing.” I remember this as it was very illuminating.
Lovelake was a little out of the way as far as galleries go and you had to be focused to get there. It was also just a small green room, unpretentious and authentic. So I didn’t have a hoard of artists knocking on my door.
But from the day we opened Chambers, artists walked right in with their slides and portfolios. As if I was there waiting just for them. I’ve never said an absolute no to just looking and I won’t, but that doesn’t mean that their approach is to my liking.
Where have you been? – that’s the first thing I want to ask them. I haven’t seen you at Lovelake and I haven’t really seen you anywhere. You don’t come to my shows but you want me to put on one of yours? I know that sounds harsh but what’s wrong with asking for some mutual interest?
For yes, they should be interested. Not just because they want a show somewhere but just because they want to be engaged, they want to share ideas, they know they live in a world bigger than themselves and their studio. They are out for themselves in a larger way, ambitious in a larger way.
When a gallery shows an artist, they are taking on much more than this work that goes in a room for a month. They are promoting specific ideas, mixing their lives and karma with that. You develop relationships that can go far beyond the artist, into their families and everything else. It’s happened on some level with everyone I have worked with. And I’m more than willing to be interested. I just want it back, that’s all.
One time an artist called me up about a show at Lovelake, telling me a specific curator had sent her. Not only had that curator never been to my space, but neither had the artist. When she told me, a half hour into the conversation, that she needed a big space, I asked: ever been here? When it was all sorted out, she said, “What was that curator thinking?” But I think no, what were you thinking? Because it is every artist’s responsibility to make their own career. A curator just helps, that’s all.
Costume, August 12 2005
From time to time I run across people who, in the course of conversation, call themselves artists. But I know them and I know that it's really not true.
They say that everyone in Portland is an artist these days. Guess what? Not!
I try to let it roll off my back, the aggravation, but once you been around the art block a few times, you can get very frustrated about who is taking on your costume. That is what it really is for some people, a costume.
I wouldn't mind if there were not some price to pay, and often not a lot of privileges, for being an artist – I mean in the long-term scheme of things.
Just recently I saw a female doing a number on a fellow. She was probably not even aware that she was making all of these moves as it is a major modus operandi with her. As the conversation pans out she tells him she's an artist. She slyly and mysteriously refers to ..."her work". Funny, I've never seen it and while the references to it have existed, I never hear of the activity or ideas or anything... besides the fact that she has "her work".
It's like a badge one can put on or off when the situation calls for it.
-- Yes, I know that there is an artist in every single person. I know it to be true because I have taught small children drawing and painting and it is remarkable how talented every 5 year old is. It's something that should be stressed in education much more than it is.
But later on Baby you got to pay your dues and walk the walk. For me that walk has taken precedence over so many things in my life. I might have ate much better, had better health, made a lot of money (in fact I did, when I put art on the painful screaming back burner) had I not been an artist.
This girl who referred to her "work" also once spoke of a local expensive gourmet market and asked 'now how many people walk into that place without buying something?' -- like of course everyone does. But I have been in that place many times looking at exotic olive oil and weird balsamic vinegars and I've not bought a one.
I'm not saying that this is some tragedy. It's not. But you can't claim your art "work" as easily as you can claim your olive oils.
Benches by
Stephen Walter and Randy Moe
Moe, August 9 2005
Lisa Radon had asked me if I had a favorite PDX designer. As to clothing, I am totally out of it, but what I often see (here and everywhere) is a sort of hippie soft style I would never adopt and saw way too much of 30 years ago. But when it comes to other kinds of design, I can at least name one team who I supported: Walter/ Moe. They make benches and we have one on our deck.
Randy Moe was the first person I ever met in Portland (1977). I always call him the first punk here and I’m sure it is true. He had a band so early on that none of them knew how to play any instruments. But they looked good:
He is also a great artist. His show of portraits in 2002 put Lovelake on the map:
Ultrapdx, August 8 2005
Last weekend I went to the opening of Bent, where I ran into Lisa Radon. She writes here and there, most notably as the creator of Ultrapdx. Ultrapdx covers PDX design and fashion. We lamented how the second so rarely gets the serious consideration it deserves in this town, as if surface and substance never marry. Or more simply put: you're a ditz if you're done.
I’ve written about it more than once here, so no need for long tirades now. If there has been little historical impetus or interest – and believe me, when it comes to Portland, there is zilch – then it is still a hard nut to crack. I’ll give you the story I gave Lisa the other night: when, a few years ago, I tried to pitch an article on Rudi Gernreich to the fashion editor of the Oregonian, she did not know who he was.
Viewpoint, August 7 2005
Recently I ran into the dancer and choreographer Gregg Bielemeier. I’ve known him for years and in fact he went to my first opening of my first show in San Francisco in 1980. He’s an inventive choreographer with his own very distinctive style.
He saw my show at Augen and told me that it would make great set design, if indeed it could be translated. He touched on something I have thought about for decades. Perhaps I can do it with this latest idea I am working on – make paintings large (yet light enough) to not only place in a gallery but on a stage.
Set design has been in the back of my mind since the 80s, when I saw a lot of experimental theatre and performance art in San Francisco. It was probably a golden era for that genre. SF was never really a great painting town but performance art was all over, especially at that time. The kind of music I loved was high theatre at its best too – Bauhaus, which seemed like a direct descendant of Low and Heroes, Bowie at his best.
Another really important factor for me at this time was a show I saw of David Hockney set designs for the opera. I saw that show many times and to this day, the feeling, the light, the colors and the lines are glued into my brain.
It’s possible that those five years I lived in San Francisco: 1981 – 86, were the most formative of my art life. I can’t really say it was my age so much as a place and a style and the light which is SF. It really is special.
The light varies from white to gray to Prussian blue, a palette which continues to fascinate me. It is always cool, a remarkable contrast to what I would later encounter in NY. It is so stark that it could stop you dead in your tracks and it did so to me, many times.
The physical makeup is really comprised of blocks – square after square, rectangle upon rectangle. From any distance this is really clear and that distance is easy to achieve there. You can always get a viewpoint, vistas are everywhere.
So over that five years I basically gathered a cool-tone Suprematist view to last a lifetime. I am only now in the past few years fully mining the vision and territory I (internally) mapped out for myself two decades ago. I kept it inside a long time and didn’t even use it, but thought about it from time to time.
Maid service, August 6 2005
Often I read in the local paper letters to the editor in which the writers have not only fled to the suburbs but stay there in every way. They hate shopping downtown, being downtown, all of it. This was in my mind recently when I got off a bus and made it across a few city blocks. In that time, 9 people asked me for money.
Not that that is so terrible. But people don’t come to Oregon to have themselves braced. They come here to be soft. They might not want to hear that, but it’s the truth.
I've had to take all kinds of jobs, especially as a young person and being a maid was one of them. My stories used to surprise my workmates at Saks or Chanel as they thought of me as quite the chic woman and couldn't see me with mop in hand. But I’ve cleaned 16 toilets a day.
The memories came back to me when I first returned to Portland in ’97 -- I would see that Hilton Hotel hovering in the skyline. Oh I know what the penthouse suites on the top floor look like alright! So you see it could bother me to be so continually harassed for handouts, like they have no choice. Because if the Hilton would hire me in 1978 looking like I did back then, they would surely hire these people now. That ‘too weird’ card doesn’t play.
Believe it or not, there are worse jobs than being a maid. In fact my esteemed friend (and writer) K. Dunn told me she would scrub toilets any day over working with the public. I understand that. At least the mind is free to roam.
That's how it was for Andrea and me in 1978. We just couldn't handle most jobs and so we took on maid service, going floor to floor with our little trolleys. We were at that time the only white girls. The black girls had a funny way of mooing the word as they knocked on doors, rather like a cow: "maaaaid" and we adopted that.Eventually the Hilton thought I was OK and gave me the top floors everyday, penthouses with big rooms and views. I spent all day on my own, turned on the music and it was such not a terrible job. Putting shoes on people's feet, a job I had later, is not so much better, though better paid.
Rachael Allen, August 6 2005
Rachael Allen is showing at Fix (811 East Burnside). I’m going to check out her work today. I had her work up at the Standard Arts Window. On the last night it was to be up it was stolen and from what I understand, it has never been returned or found. It seemed like an inside job, as the building isn’t even open all that often at night and the door was unlocked for what was 10 minutes. I have always felt really bad about that. It was a big painting too, a diptych: It couldn’t have been that easy to steal.
Birthday, August 4 2005
Yesterday I called up Eunice Parsons, just to check in and ask her if she would be coming to the gallery for First Thursday. Of course we are open tonight.
“Well I don’t know,” she demurred, “I hear it’s going to be 93.”
“And I hear you are going to be 89.”
We laughed. Yes, today is Eunice’s birthday. Stop by if you are out and about.
Drive, August 4 2005
About eleven years ago, while living in NYC, I began to get very jealous of all the bladers I would see racing through the city. At that time, roller-blading was the rage and I decided (at 37) to at least try it out.
No small feat as I grew up on dirt roads. I had never skated at all. At 8th Avenue was a well known skate rental shop. I checked in my shoes and left that store on blades. By the time I reached Central Park, I had already fallen four times.
But what a beautiful scene was Central Park. Over the years, that park just kept changing and transforming itself for me. Most of the time it was the path to and from the Met, my church. But it was also a place to develop a strange sort of relationship with trees and squirrels and this little bit of rarified, man-made nature. If you walk through it, you know it a certain way. And if you skate, you know it another way.
Not far from the band shell was ‘the circle’, where people set up a giant boom-box and skated around it all day long. This, plus dance class, gave me what I so needed but would no longer stay up till 1am for: dance, movement, socializing.
But I was never a great blader or skater. I still have my roller-skates and don’t use them here. At 40, I moved here and there was no similar skate culture, plus I was wary of all the falls I took.
The reason I am thinking of this now is because of driving. Again I am taking on this new thing. Life is always changing. Two days ago I took my friend (who recently moved here) all the way out to Multnomah Falls. We went along the old highway, which is the oldest highway in the United States.
She saw the Columbia River Gorge for the first time. It was such a pleasure to give her this and to take on all of those winding curves in the deep green of that highway. The whole thing blew my mind as less than a year ago I had never driven at all.
Tonight, First Wednesday, August 3 2005
On my mind is Jim Neidhardt, who is showing some paintings at Blackfish this month. He does a bit of everything and he means something to me because he came to me once for input.
Lovelake hadn't been open all that long and I was a complete stranger to the role of advisor or critic. Sure, privately I might be those things – aren’t we all? – but I had no idea what a club for the wayward artist my spot Lovelake would become. One day Jim asks me to look at his videos, brings in the monitor all lickety-split and we watch.
I have my own ideas, that is all they are. Still I was surprised that people came to me because as an artist, I had frequently felt like chopped liver. But why would you build your own house and not tell it like it is? --- When I saw him at his show last night, he reminded me of my frankness. "You're not too polite," he says.
His video had an ambiguous style that runs against my grain, though I’ve learned to appreciate it since. I told him: “When you’ve been to a whole biennial like that, you start to revolt.” But now I see that I am just a sucker for the statement, the balls, the commitment, the hate and the love. I’m just not an ambiguous girl, that’s all.
Then I saw he had a film (called The Pathologist, film still above) which was part of a film festival here in PDX. The image I saw, plus the text I read about it, intrigued me. Turns out he had a wild dad in San Francisco, during the days when SF was truly wild – and Jim documented all of this into a film. Mind, I haven’t seen it, but wish I had.
More recent entries: July 2005
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