With my post-death images of silver screen stars thesis project, I got sucked into research, and epically so.  It’s hard to ignore Marilyn Monroe with that subject matter, and unfortunately or fortunately, with art I am not someone who can jut gloss over something. When so many tackle her only on the surface, I decided if I was going to deal with her…I was going to it right.  So….60+ Marilyn books later (I started to lose count), and I am just starting to get a hook on her.  Dead people can be crazy confusing, but it’s fascinating how you can build a connection with someone post-mortem.  Digressing.  In my free time I am still occasionally working on the project.  I have the goal of it all coming into fruitation for the 50^th anniversary of her death in summer of 2012.  I like having symbolic dates, it’s how I get shit done.

Like the 90210 show, on…9/02/10.  It’s rockin.  It’s closer.  I am going hardcore.  I have watched all 10 seasons of Beverly Hills 90210 ore than once. I have hundreds of screen caps.  I have a critical theory book on the tv show.  I am getting my professional academic friend to make a pop culture and trauma/teens reading list for me.  I have expanded to analyzing Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Gossip Girl, new 90210, and My So Called Life. I started Freaks & Geeks, and thought about Dawson’s Creek, but I decided I needed to cap it there. Priorities!!  Enough is enough, and I have enough.  I tend to enjoy overloading my brain with more than enough information, and eventually wading through it to create something poignant…hopefully.  There comes a time when you just don’t need anymore, where you just work with what you have, and fill in any gaps that might come up.  If you were to add up the amount of hours of teen tv I have been watching and overanalyzing, I think it would spell “STOP”.

John Waters’ recent promotion for his new book Role Models has made me full on adore the man.  In the past week, I have read two books of his, and rewatched two of his films.  In one of his books, he is asked if he has any hobbies. He replies “Do I look like someone who has hobbies? I have obsessions”. I hear that John.

…and look at the large and brilliant body of work he has.  I think I’ve decided that it’s fine to obsess, if you possess it (and not vice versa) & you create with it.

You seem a lot less crazy if you make paintings of Shannen Doherty, rather than just have a studio wall of her

We know the basics of the story.  Jackie Kennedy (& that Bostonian husband of hers) changed the face of the White House and America’s image in the early 1960s.  In 1962, Jackie’s infamous televised broadcast A Tour of the White House with Mrs. John F Kennedy aired internationally…and impacted  generations globally within their very own homes.  With it’s initial airing, 56 million American’s tuned in to see the stylish First Lady give a public tour of her private/public home/museum.   In addition, the tour was then syndicated to over 50 countries.  Jackie revamped how we see our country,our history, the role of First Lady, as well as the changing role of women in the private and public spheres.

In 2008, “A Tour of the White House” came back into the homes and TVs of Americans once more,…. as well as through computers, dvd players and probably some ipods.  This time is wasn’t the full hour-long broadcast, but clips via the characters’ TVs of AMC’s hit series Mad Men.  We see Sal, closet gay ad artman, watching the tour with his wife while quietly sitting on their couch.  Meanwhile Joan, the saucy Monroe-Jackie combo, is attempting to watch the tour while engaging in a steamy make-out session with her beau.  The show’s main couple, Betty & Don have a failed lovemaking attempt on Valentines day. After they give up, they order room service and watch the Kennedy White House tour from the bed of their hotel room. We see these various couples’ degrees of sex and lack there of, intertwined together by the fact that Jacqueline Kennedy is giving a tour of the White House on all of their TV sets.

Sal & His Wife, Mad Men Season 2

If 3/4 of the country was watching this broadcast in 62, then Mad Men is pretty dead on with the fact that Joan, Betty & Don, Sal & his wife all probably would have been watching Ms Kennedy.  Sure, we’ve got that other 1/4…but those were probably just the characters we didn’t see.  Now thanks to Mad Men, the broadcast familiar once more, but with younger generations.  Folks who didn’t get to watch the original broadcast when it aired (for whatever reasons, such as…not being born) now watched the characters watch and react to this iconic broadcast.  Folks who did watch the original broadcast, now relived a moment in ’62 that they all connected to.

The Drapers

Joan & Her New Beau

In 2010, it’s impossible for one form of media to have as a great impact as specific televised broadcasts had when Mrs. Kennedy was First Lady.    Three damn quarters of the country…using the same appliance, at the same time, watching the same formal televised broadcast.  It wasn’t because it was a national state of emergency, or the end of a pivotal presidential election.  It also wasn’t a scandalous interview with one of the worlds most iconic and reclusive pop stars.   It was a beautiful yet quirky, elegant yet mechanical well-bred woman from the New England/New York social circles, giving the interviewer, the camera, and the country a formal tour of her home/museum/ideal image.

I did a couple of performances recently for the first time in ages. I  am getting my Beverly Hills, 90210 body of work rolling, and along with it comes a cultural fascination with TV.  I really haven’t done much performance in a gallery type setting, and finally had some opportunities to try it out.  Q: Why the media of performance? A: Because other medias aren’t as applicable for conveying the desired result.  The Kennedy White House Tour, as it existed in 1962 is clearly impossible almost 40 years later. We have too many forms of media, outlets, and accessible information as a whole.  So why not just avoid the media battle, and give the White House Tour as Jackie herself?  Maybe by having an interactive, one-on-one personal encounter with the Mrs. Kennedy and her tour of the White House….Mrs. Kennedy’s White House tour can still make a lasting impact on people’s cluttered memories.

@ the Cannytrophic Design Expo 2010, courtesy of Stripy Cat

At the Cannytrophic Design Expo earlier this year, I tried to put this into practice. I was Jackie.  I had my Mid-restoration White House.  I had my objects to show.  Sometimes I had tours. A lot of the time people kept walking. …and then after 6 hours Jackie got tired.   Clearly, it is not 1962…but at least these folks will probably remember that quirky Jackie trying to give some Whitehouse Tours in the corner of a gallery.

my fabulous new home.

The Distillery

ArtsyChica on etsy.com

Check it out:
Celebrity Prayer Candles on Etsy

I particularly liked this passage from “New York 1946″

Lunch today with M. Whatever is one to do about her? She says the money is gone finally, and unless she goes home, her family refuses absolutely to help . Cruel, I suppose, but I told her I did not see the alternative. On one level, to be sure, I do not think going home is possible for her. She belongs to the sect most swiftly, irrevocably trapped by New York, the talented untalented; too acute to accept a more provincial climate, yet not quite acute enough to breathe more freely in the one so desired, they go along neurotically feeding upon the fringes of the New York scene.

Only success, and that at a perilous peak, can give relief, but for artists without art, it is always tension without release, irritation with no resulting pearl.  Possibly there would be if the pressure to succeed were not so tremendous.  They feel compelled to prove something, because middle-class America, from which they mostly spring, has withering words for its men of feeling, for its young of experimental intelligence, who do not show immediately that these endeavors pay off on a cash basis.  But if a civilization falls, is it cash they find among the ruins? Or is it a statue, a poem, a play?

Which is not to say the world owes M., or anyone, a living; alas, the way things are with her, she most likely could not make a poem, a good one that is; still she is important, her values are balanced by more than the usual measure of truth, she deserves a finer destiny than to pass from belated adolescence to premature middle age, with no intervening period, and nothing to show.

-Truman Capote.

He sure knows how to tell it.

Perfume’s heaven scent: New ‘Antiquity’ fragrances based on DNA of dead celebs

Read more: http://www.nydailynews.com/money/2009/11/17/2009-11-17_perfumes_heaven_scent_new_fragrances_based_on_dna_of_dead_celebrities.html#ixzz0Zb9pg0HL

I’ve realized I primarily need to just organize and work with the oodles if information I have.  She is so overworked, discussed, and represented that it’s hard to actually separate from it all and deal with her image in a meaningful artist manner.  At times it seems impossible.  Organization, working, drawing, writing.  I need to keep at it.

I also need to not just isolate myself to the subject matter either.  It leads to my brain getting stuck.

So on the topic of unstucking brain/and organizing Marilyn images, I’m doing some quick photoshop studies, and will probably be posting them here.   As far as actual physical drawing, I am still working with doing studies of her  to get her image down straight and properly.  Then I will have the freedom to use her as please artistically.   These photoshop studies are simple ways to to play/organize with images of her and help articulate some thoughts.

Again, attempting to organize my brain and my at, and this blog helps.

"Is this thing on?"

]]> http://drawsomethingawful.com/2009/12/13/1-of-marilyn-photoshop-studies/feed/ 0 drawsomethingawful jfkmic http://drawsomethingawful.com/2009/11/18/my-college-artists-statement-2008/ http://drawsomethingawful.com/2009/11/18/my-college-artists-statement-2008/#comments Wed, 18 Nov 2009 23:48:28 +0000 drawsomethingawful http://drawsomethingawful.com/?p=55 ]]> I am still figuring my current body of work concerning MM, and this site is a great way to help verbalize and explore it. I thought I’d post my artist’s statement that served as the catalyst for my now intense Marilyn interest.

“Growing up, I used celebrity as an escape from dealing with the loss and mourning of recently passed-on family members. Not only did television, film, and celebrity culture serve as an escape at the time, but also loosely guided me through this turbulent period of my life. In a sense, celebrity served as ‘distanced parents’ to me, ones that I didn’t have to fear of losing. They were fabulously preserved in papers, magazines, and shiny moving images on screens. As actual people, these celebrities were no more real or fake than the people in my life that have passed on.

As years passed, I went back to immersing myself in celebrity culture, but in an investigative and nostalgic sense. The early stars of the silver screen in particular brought me a sense of comfort and identification. These stars also are physically deceased, yet there are thousands of images and sound bites of theirs preserved.

One of the particular icons I investigated was that of Marilyn Monroe, a figure that has become so engrained in pop culture that the actual person has become lost amongst the great public. Before Pop Art was launched, Marilyn was a contemporary sex and movie icon. During Pop Art, Marilyn’s role as an icon shifted into that of commodity and art, and into the painting world. After Pop Art, while some artists occasionally still continue to tackle her as subject matter here and there, for the most part photography and commodity is what remains. If you can name it, most likely Marilyn’s image and or name has been branded onto it.

Other celebrities’ images I dealt with were that of Judy Garland, Joan Crawford, and Cary Grant, each one dealt with aging publicly in a different manner. Judy Garland died at a low point from a drug overdose, looking worn and haggard. Joan Crawford left the public eye at the start of her decline to try to preserve some of her image, as well as dignity. Cary Grant did neither, he just left us with his image of the ideal male, and vacated from that image from the side door

All of these people are indeed just people, but people that have left a dent on pop culture well after their deaths. They are all still look, thought, and talked about today, yet the gap between their lives, and our post-mortem perception of them is left unacknowledged. With my thesis work, through a series of drawings, paintings, and research I sought to expand upon the question of this gap, and fill in some of that missing dialogue.”

More to come..but trying to partially use this blog to help out with some cohesion.

This isn’t art school anymore. This is the real world. While it’s a cafe rather than a gallery setting, it’s still setting my work out to the public. Not just the public, but an audience I previously hadn’t exposed my work to. Cape Cod folks….which is a hard culture to describe in itself.

The amazing part is, the show has been well received. There’s something redeeming about working at my cafe-customer-service job and having the customers compliment me as an artists. It’s comforting having pretty much all my coworkers come up to me and exclaim how much they love my work. It’s reassuring to have conversations about the work, and having people get it. People that aren’t just my best friends who understand my brain, but rather people I never knew I had much in common with.

That is the greatest and most exciting thing of all. Realizing that yes, my work can connect with people. It’s such a surreal feeling.

To top it off, I found out an artist I admire likes my work. Last fall, while interning at the Provincetown Art Association and Museum, there was one artist’s work that I really connected with. Selina Trieff. Her paintings captivated me. It turns out, she came into the show and said that I “have some talent’. This is one of the things I love about art, the connection. We both independently saw each other’s work and we both connected with it, oblivious that the other person had connected with our own work. I’ve had a similar thing happen while doing Marilyn Monroe research. I was reading the book “Life Among the Cannibals” by David Marshall, and while reading the book he contacted me saying he found my work very powerful. I’ve also now been in contact with another author who’s work I love, Tara Hanks. Turns out, she likes me Marilyn work as well.

The idea of the anti-social tortured artist is bullshit. Art is communication, and I think sometimes I bury myself in theory and overthinking and my own mind. It’s really extraordinairily simple. In the age of facebook, twitter, blogs, texts, and almost every possible form of nearly instant communication……sometimes we forget that a painting, performance, or a books aren’t at all an outdated form of communication. In fact, they still manage to trump all that shit.

For now, and for starters, here is one snitbit of one of the facets of Marilyns affect on me.

Marilyn Monroe is a constant. I’ve lost a mother, a brother, a cousin, friend, but Marilyn was never alive in my lifetime to lose. I have never had to deal with her image being removed from a household, and having to search deep emotional pockets in my brain to conjure up a memory of his/her image. Marilyn is everywhere. Forty-seven years and her ‘existence’ seems even more permanent. When life feels fleeting and chaotic, Marilyn’s image remains my glimmering constant….on t-shirts, purses, magazines, buildings, museums, on the tv, and most importantly…in my own mind.