text for an exhibition, for which i revived and
re-made some early work.
I have always been interested in the layers of image and identity, both what we chose to project and what is projected onto us, i.e. fantasy, prejudice, and cultural stereotypes. I am intrigued by how they are communicated, understood, and misunderstood by others.
One contributing factor to my interest in this was an accident that I had at the age of 21 which badly damaged my upper lip. It required 6 re-constructive surgical procedures over 6 years . During that time, I experienced people reacting to me differently and realized just how important it was for me to separate my physical appearance from my sense of self. This deepened my already deep appreciation for the playfully flamboyant culture of San Francisco, the wonderfully accepting city that had welcomed me at the age of 18.
I met one of these particularly extreme characters shortly after my accident, a time when I was experimenting with disguises and wigs to explore the different ways in which strangers reacted to me. I considered it a social experiment, not art. I met Carmel Sanger while working in café/bar across from her hair salon, The Pink Tarantula, in the South of Market district.
I liked her and enjoyed her friendly brutality. She was an extremely exaggerated personality but, at the same time, seemed to be absolutely real. She was 10 years older than I and I admired her. She had survived so much and made something good out of her life.
Five years later, I made my first video, trying to express the lack of attachment a person can have to their appearance. RETURN TO THE WIG, Berlin 2010, is a remake of that video from San Francisco, in 1996. RED HEADS, Berlin 2010, explores this further as well as considering specific prejudices throughout history in the traditions and superstitions of many cultures. The original video also included an interview with Carmel Sanger. A couple of months after the interview, Carmel was murdered. The second video I ever made was for/about her. It was very much an emotional reaction and more about a personal connection and loss. It contains the original interview footage and footage of the shrine left outside her doors after her death. The first part of the text was written in response to the news of her death and the second after the visit to her shrine. The quality of the video is quite deteriorated so here are some stills and the text, including my narration and what Carmel said in the original film.
In memory of carmel sanger,
who could have survived almost anything
San Francisco 1997
pink tarantula
the name suits you
like everything in this place
walls painted
in hard black and neon
crawling with images
a snake a fat lady with green hair
covered like your tattooed body
…”and hair dressing is a very delicate and intricate art form, where you are dealing with peoples emotions and psychosis .. and with a slip of the scissors, I can ruin their lives or their ears forever..” (Carmel)
fur
fake fur
fabulously fake on you
and covering the pillows and the bench
where people wait for your magic
God gave you natural, I give you supernatural
you said to me
“..not everyone can cut hair, it’s akin to surgery, to brain surgery actually, so I can go along with that, and Thank God, I was thinking about it this morning, for all the home coloring jobs and home hair cut jobs, if there were that many home surgery jobs walking around the streets, it would be a national epidemic..” (Carmel)
I’ve forgotten what natural is
red? blue? green? yellow?
like the wild-haired trolls that line you shelves
faithful troops
waiting for you to throw back your long black hair
and bark out an order with a playful brutality
orphaned fools are gonna wait forever
'cause you don’t have anything more to say
first time you didn’t make up your own mind
last time you threw back your mane
it was full
of what should have been inside
“…it’s not their hair, it IS their lives that’s a mess, we just have to trim them up and get rid of their dead ends and they can just go about their business..” (Carmel)
a bald man with no eyebrows came into the pink tarantula
He claimed to have an appointment with the owner Carmel Sanger
while she looked over the books, he shot her in the face
the woman driving the getaway car had blond hair
with roots
“..these psycho freaks want to have long hair for the night because they THINK they are going to get laid or something, and that the are going to find complete and utter happiness through long hair.. NOW THAT’s the kind of people you want to…” (Carmel)
some tourists were noticing
the flowers
that had been left for you
twisted and dying in the iron gate of your door
lifeless
I drive by slowly on my motorcycle and
I notice them noticing your dead flowers
and they notice me in black leather
noticing them
and they move on
I have driven a ways past your door
to park
so I can approach with caution
had I expected any less?
lots of flowers all dying
two doors both yours
locked
not intended to be opened
at least for a while
six people were in there
six people saw
six people watched you life explode
too quick to help it
behind these doors echo screams
a child's drawing confirms what I know
sad spider frowny face
I look on
a bible beside two burning candles
SO many pictures of you
little girl halloween angel wings
twisted up in the gate that holds the secret
for a moment I wonder
who made it look so clean?
behind the dying roses
there is no trace of the ugliness
so clean
so quiet
so empty
the name suits you
like everything in this place
walls painted
in hard black and neon
crawling with images
a snake a fat lady with green hair
covered like your tattooed body
…”and hair dressing is a very delicate and intricate art form, where you are dealing with peoples emotions and psychosis .. and with a slip of the scissors, I can ruin their lives or their ears forever..” (Carmel)
fur
fake fur
fabulously fake on you
and covering the pillows and the bench
where people wait for your magic
God gave you natural, I give you supernatural
you said to me
“..not everyone can cut hair, it’s akin to surgery, to brain surgery actually, so I can go along with that, and Thank God, I was thinking about it this morning, for all the home coloring jobs and home hair cut jobs, if there were that many home surgery jobs walking around the streets, it would be a national epidemic..” (Carmel)
I’ve forgotten what natural is
red? blue? green? yellow?
like the wild-haired trolls that line you shelves
faithful troops
waiting for you to throw back your long black hair
and bark out an order with a playful brutality
orphaned fools are gonna wait forever
'cause you don’t have anything more to say
first time you didn’t make up your own mind
last time you threw back your mane
it was full
of what should have been inside
“…it’s not their hair, it IS their lives that’s a mess, we just have to trim them up and get rid of their dead ends and they can just go about their business..” (Carmel)
a bald man with no eyebrows came into the pink tarantula
He claimed to have an appointment with the owner Carmel Sanger
while she looked over the books, he shot her in the face
the woman driving the getaway car had blond hair
with roots
“..these psycho freaks want to have long hair for the night because they THINK they are going to get laid or something, and that the are going to find complete and utter happiness through long hair.. NOW THAT’s the kind of people you want to…” (Carmel)
some tourists were noticing
the flowers
that had been left for you
twisted and dying in the iron gate of your door
lifeless
I drive by slowly on my motorcycle and
I notice them noticing your dead flowers
and they notice me in black leather
noticing them
and they move on
I have driven a ways past your door
to park
so I can approach with caution
had I expected any less?
lots of flowers all dying
two doors both yours
locked
not intended to be opened
at least for a while
six people were in there
six people saw
six people watched you life explode
too quick to help it
behind these doors echo screams
a child's drawing confirms what I know
sad spider frowny face
I look on
a bible beside two burning candles
SO many pictures of you
little girl halloween angel wings
twisted up in the gate that holds the secret
for a moment I wonder
who made it look so clean?
behind the dying roses
there is no trace of the ugliness
so clean
so quiet
so empty
film/video director, mixed-media installation artist, educator, event creator, writer, video/sound editor, 'voice'/narrator and accidental actor.
Focus
Since before I knew it could be considered an artistic practice, I have been working with any medium available to me to explore the human condition. In particular- gender roles, self, public, and cultural images, stereotypes, those who are misunderstood or ignored, interactions between strangers, mass identity defining behavior, and the constructs of social and religious identity. With very few exceptions, my work is built with elements collected from the real world- the streets, popular culture, local habits, etc. . While my documentary work may be influenced by my fine arts background, my tendency to document, observe, question, and turn my perspective of the "real" world upside down has always been at the root of my artistic practice. My work as an educator draws from my experience as an artist and is fueled by a desire to break down harmful misconceptions, prejudices, and mis-communications and to create possibilities for cross-cultural understanding and mutual respect.
Biography
born 1970, Stockton, California, USA
As a small child, I moved to Salt Lake City, Utah, which is particular with its dominant religious culture. At sixteen, I lived on an island dominated by a Navy Base near the Mexican border. I went to New York City at the age of seventeen and was exposed to a diverse culture of immigrants whom I was completely stimulated and inspired by. By 1989, I was living in San Francisco, California, where I began working with analogue film and then digital sound and video at the California College of Art. In 1998, I came to Berlin as an exchange student at the Universitat der Kuenst in the class of Rebecca Horn. I was fascinated by the unusually vibrant and rapidly changing situation in Berlin and decided to stay a bit longer. I received a degree as a Meister Schuelerin of Rebecca Horn in 2004. In 2005, a grant from the Berliner Senat (Department of Culture) enabled me to concentrate on a feature documentary film, which I had started in 2001. Finally finished in 2006 while living in Marseilles France for 3 years, it seemed to be a Iong-term project. However I intend to open it up and continue filming, so it will be quite long-term, indeed. Meanwhile, I continue to examine cultural perspectives and confused communication through my work as an artist and an educator, and to live as an immigrant/“ex-patriot” mother at home in Berlin.
Focus
Since before I knew it could be considered an artistic practice, I have been working with any medium available to me to explore the human condition. In particular- gender roles, self, public, and cultural images, stereotypes, those who are misunderstood or ignored, interactions between strangers, mass identity defining behavior, and the constructs of social and religious identity. With very few exceptions, my work is built with elements collected from the real world- the streets, popular culture, local habits, etc. . While my documentary work may be influenced by my fine arts background, my tendency to document, observe, question, and turn my perspective of the "real" world upside down has always been at the root of my artistic practice. My work as an educator draws from my experience as an artist and is fueled by a desire to break down harmful misconceptions, prejudices, and mis-communications and to create possibilities for cross-cultural understanding and mutual respect.
Biography
born 1970, Stockton, California, USA
As a small child, I moved to Salt Lake City, Utah, which is particular with its dominant religious culture. At sixteen, I lived on an island dominated by a Navy Base near the Mexican border. I went to New York City at the age of seventeen and was exposed to a diverse culture of immigrants whom I was completely stimulated and inspired by. By 1989, I was living in San Francisco, California, where I began working with analogue film and then digital sound and video at the California College of Art. In 1998, I came to Berlin as an exchange student at the Universitat der Kuenst in the class of Rebecca Horn. I was fascinated by the unusually vibrant and rapidly changing situation in Berlin and decided to stay a bit longer. I received a degree as a Meister Schuelerin of Rebecca Horn in 2004. In 2005, a grant from the Berliner Senat (Department of Culture) enabled me to concentrate on a feature documentary film, which I had started in 2001. Finally finished in 2006 while living in Marseilles France for 3 years, it seemed to be a Iong-term project. However I intend to open it up and continue filming, so it will be quite long-term, indeed. Meanwhile, I continue to examine cultural perspectives and confused communication through my work as an artist and an educator, and to live as an immigrant/“ex-patriot” mother at home in Berlin.