Flaming ArtistThis drawing was part of a one man show I had in the summer of 1989, at the One Way, a levi/leather bar in Los Angeles, California, that I frequented in the late 80’s. The name of the exhibition was entitled “Recycled Erotica” because the majority of the works were executed on waste paper— the backs (or fronts) of photocopy fliers, or disassembled, then gessoed, grocery bags.
This is the original that I used for the flyer for the “Recycled Erotica” one man show I had at the One Way, back in mid ’89. You can see the flyer in the DAILY DERRIERE posting for May 4, 2016.
Drawn in Prismacolors, cut out of a sketchbook for some unremembered reason, perhaps for inclusion in the “Recycled Erotic” one man exhibition at the One Way in the summer of 1989.
Painted in gouache on re-used junk mail.
I call this drawing “Taste Test”. It is another sketch from the archive, possibly meant for inclusion in the “Recycled Erotica” exhibition at the ONE WAY, in the summer of ’89, though the date suggests it was meant for submission to “Secret Love” volume 2, number 4, but then cropped from 8.5″ x 11″ for inclusion in the ONE WAY exhibit.
This is the original artwork for the flyer I did to help hype my one man exhibition at the One Way in 1989. The bulk of the artwork was acrylic paintings I did on grocery bags that I broke apart and gessoed on one side. The rest of the pieces were these drawings done on the back or front of old leaflets or pages of junk mail. Those pieces that went into the show had to be cut down to 8″x10″ so they could fit into the plastic jewel boxes I chose as my agent of display. Any pieces still surviving at 8.5″ x 11″ must not have gone into the exhibition.
This drawing may have been intending for my one man exhibition at the ONE WAY, a leather bar I used to frequent in Silverlake back in the late 80’s. I wasn’t into leather per se, but I found some of the guys hot. But my show didn’t go up until summer 1989 and many of these drawings I’ll be posting over the next few days are dated 1988, so I’m guessing I did them for inclusion in “Secret Love” #4.
I purchased “Secret Love” #2 at A Different Light Bookstore (a LGBT specialty bookstore) in Silverlake, California. “Secret Love” was a limited (very limited) edition art folio where one could send in 100 copies of anything one wanted, along with 10 dollars, and be included in the next issue. So I sent 100 front and back xeroxes of 2 of my homoerotic drawings for issue #3 and was jazzed when I received my contributor’s copy. With issue #4, I got ambitious, as I recall. I figured, why not send in 100 original drawings, all done on the back (or front) of whatever pieces of throw-away paper I had lying around. All the drawings would be done super fast (I set my timer for 5 minutes). I don’t know why I still have these drawings. I do know I don’t have a copy of “Secret Love” #4, so either it never happened or I ran out of gas. I don’t think the latter is the case since I re-purposed many of those drawings for my one man exhibition at the ONE WAY, entitled “Recycled Erotica”, as all the art was executed on Trash Paper.
THE DAILY DICK
This is a first installment in a
daily blog (to be published daily going forward).
I started doing the work
last year around this time, late August 2012. My dear departed spouse, John
Callahan, http://www.ageofconsentrap.com/asked if I wanted his 2013 American Express Date Book. (He was still
alive at this point.) I accepted his kind offer. It occurred to me that it
would be a low-pressure way to do artistic play—I would be working on really
crappy paper already printed with clanedrical (is there such a word?) crap.
This would free me of worry about doing good art, and I could cut loose.
It was actually reminiscent
of my first one man show, at The One Way ( a leather bar in Silver Lake that
has since gone defunct after losing its liquor license toward the end of my
show’s run) in the summer/fall of 1989. That show was entitled “Recycled
Erotica”. All the art was drawn on the back (or front) of found Xerox copies,
or painted on grocery bags I disassembled and gesso’ed on one side for this
purpose.
This new project served the
same artistic purpose, except the new art would receive even less exposure than
“Recycled Erotica”. I was working in such a way as to make reproduction or
scanning difficult so as not to be tempted to do precisely what I’m doing now:
posting it on my blog. I simply couldn’t deal with it: I had too much going on
in my life, not the least of which was my spouse’s impending death from
metastasized prostate cancer.
Anyway, John died on
February 17 and I had my stroke on April 2. My beloved boyfriend, Richard R.
moved in with me upon my release from the hospital on May 18. The last 3 months
have been all about getting my life and my health (and my
drawing/painting/writing ability) back. Only now, on the eve of my September 2nd
resumption of paying work, do I feel the need/ability to start posting this
rather extensive archive of work. I’ve no doubt I’ll be kicking myself as I
start trying to reproduce scan… but what can you do?
This
is the cover of the volume. The black paper cut-out penis is glued down with
Elmer’s Glue. Last Saturday,when I took it off the shelf to show it to friends
(Joe Flazh! And Sid Lanier, of the now defunct Flazh! Alley Gallery, in San
Pedro), I found the penis was becoming unglued (“It’s hard to keep a good dick
down”, Sid quipped), I revisited the adhesion, this time (over) using Nuetral
PH Adhesive, by LineCo.
