Book Launch

Launch of Pola-Reds

I am about to travel to San Francisco for the SF Punk Homecoming, a two-day event featuring punk bands from back in the day, performance and spoken word, and an art show. Pola-Reds will be for sale, while on view in the art show are digital prints of a triptych of images from the book and a triptych featuring friends Don Vinil, singer for the Offs, Debora Iyall, singer for Romeo Void, and boyfriend Martin. Pola-Reds: Confections from the Edge is currently being sold at Elliott Bay Book Company and Rare Medium Gallery in Seattle, WA and Nationale in Portland, OR. Look for more locations as the days roll on. I am planning my Seattle book launch for Oct. 29.

Two pics that Debora Iyall took of me on the floor of Christine "Teen" Anthony's apartment. In the second pic, the images that I took of Debora are up in the right corner. The Polaroids were taken in early 1978, not long after Debora and I met on the San Francisco Muni bus due to her interest in my at-that-time salmon hair color. I recall that Debora asked about how to go 'bout finding apartments in the City, as she was just moving to SF. I mentioned the one place I relied on, the student wallboard at the San Francisco Art Institute. "That's where I'm going, too!," she screamed, and so began Debora's role as muse and friend.

incentives in progress

for the Kickstarter incentives, I wanted to make an original work for anyone who posted even the lowest amount; I'd want something in return for a few bucks. I have a postcard collection that began in the Seventies in my travels across country, from Dallas to San Francisco initially, then SF to New York and to Massachusetts, from Dallas through Baltimore to Western Massachusetts, then back to San Francisco. Postcards have better views than my rudimentary photography capabilities could ever imagine. For a time I fantasized about doing my own American travel series, writing the texts on the back of the card, taking the pics.... So making a postcard for the incentives began as a way to use up some of the collected cards. I made the initial circle markings with water-based pen, then came upon the notion to spray paint the cards red. The use of a triangle came from a FaceBook posting of Edward of Nervous Gender's about the markings used to denote different types of degenerates. While I've marched under the pink triangle for decades, I liked that the red stood for general undesirables, as I recall.

A Huge Thank You to my Kickstarter Backers

Thanks to those who pledged support to my Kickstarter project: Will and the Durans, Nate Muller, Bruce Fugett Jillian & Jessica Johnston, Brian Machinski, Matt Embry & Nina, Robin McDaniel, Kelly Fultz, Suzanne Schlossberg, Mary Glassanos & George, Sally Bailey, Gay City Health Project, Gregory Kent, John Jenkins, Melissa Harris, Katrina Dance, Marie Thibeault, June Owens, Mark Johnson, Ben Johns, Bill Jacobson, Theresa Halsell, Adrian Duran, Julie Olsen, Harrison Evans, Matt Booth, Matt Heckert, Kent Young, Carrie Pickett, Jeanne Sickel, Keith Barland, David Webb, Liise Berre, Deb Bigelow, Judy Gittelsohn, Lucian Burg, Julia Shure, Candis Wheat, Don Waddington, Noel Geileghem, Ben & Deena Newton, Katerina Lamola, Andrew Colver, Larry & Judy Winne, Becky Smith, Liz, Jack Fischer, Ray-Mel Cornelius, Shelley Casper, Laurie Skildum, Ruth Johnston, Kathy Penick, Eric Walters, Terry Lindow, Jocelyn Muller, Debora Iyall, Douglas Kennedy, Jill Haddaway, Chris and Michael Villanueva, Sarah Muller, Heidi Gray, Jackie An, Duncan Scott Scrymgeour, Bjoern Gruetzmacher, Clint DeKoekkeok, Charlie Logan, Katherine Johnston, Jessica Logan & Ryan Hoffman, Judi Parks, Danny Sanchez, Bill Arnold, Mike Hays, Erik Walters, David Webb

So You Want That You Were a Rock and Roll Star

Adding a new incentive to the Kickstarter project: drawings on 45 paper protective sleeves, ink, paint and marker on paper, 18cm square (7.15" x 7.15"); insert: drawing, paint and ink on paper, size varies

Imposture

Reading in Picturing Ourselves: Photography and Autobiography (Linda Haverty Rugg, 1997) how attentive Samuel Clemens was to building the identity of Mark Twain through photographs--images that seem to supply the viewer w an uncensored look at the author,Twain writing, the viewer invited into the bedroom, an autobiography dictated to an employee, often with another assistant in attendance. Clemens/Twain was concerned about others passing themselves off as Mark Twain, fakes of an already imaginary character. The author notes the concept of 'imposture': "the act or practice of deceiving by means of an assumed character or name". I felt I was embarked on a level of imposture throughout this time, as I assumed the name Jack, my given middle name, moving away from the bland Jim but unwilling to go the route of most gay men I knew in San Francisco using full first names: James, Robert, and the like. I resonate with wanting to hold onto my creation--I kept these images of some stranger trying to be me beneath the bed in a box. Like Clemens, I purport to allow you to get to know me, inviting you into my bedroom where previously on the camera and myself engaged in conversation. By revealing my Polaroid images, I invite you to hang out in the flat after some great gig at 330 Grove or the Mabuhay Gardens. Imagine we talk about the events of the day: Anita Bryant and the Briggs Initiative, the sad end of Nancy Spungeon, or the sad state of punk rock and new wave in general.

Now I'm in a Fickle

An aspect of my personality revealed in the range of selves portrayed by the Polaroid self-portraits is how fickle I am. then as now, I am focused yet fickle. A boyfriend in 1978 pointed out that I was passive. I must have been a handful--fiery one moment with plans to move back to New York or to Toronto, talking up my plans to buy a rhythm machine to form a band, to provide sonic backdrop to a performance...yet the only pattern, the only consistent beat was in not following through on grandiose plans. http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/jackjohnston/pola-reds-confections-from-the-edge

Images from Kickstarter video

Shot the video for a Kickstarter campaign for my book, Pola-Reds.

Mark Massi's Polaroid Land Camera, 1977

1977 shopping in Florence Mass

Fall 1977, Tom and Mark's house, Peacock Blue hair

Self Portrait 78 and 83

1978 Berlin Boys

Tom Joslin and Mark Massi were on a bowling team with me in the fall of 1977, calling ourselves the Berlin Boys in homage to Iggy Pop's The Idiot and David Bowie's Low lps. We took the bowling league seriously, as did other teams--one of which bought the from-the-catalogue bowling outfits. The Berlin Boys went with hand silk-screen tees. One of my scars comes from a bowling competition, as I stubbed out onto the back of my left hand a cigarette, standing at the scoring desk of the bowling lane before my turn to bowl.

October 1978

The day of a performance planned for Marie Thibeault's studio party, I was practicing my poses, working throughout the day with at least two packs of Polaroid film. The white wall with black ties and tape allude to the photo documentation of actions by the the Viennese artist Rudolf Schwarzkogler. I'd bought a catalog the summer of 1977 at the gallery, Rene Block, which represented Joseph Beuys and Schwarzkogler.

First Half of 1978

Using a Polaroid camera to document myself, my actions, and my transformations, instead of a Kodak Instamatic or more rarely a 35mm camera, as i had used previously, began in the fall of 1977 in Florence, Massachusetts. Living with Mark Massi and Tom Joslin [see "Silverlake Life"] that fall, I first used a Polaroid Land camera then a One-Step SX-70 to capture my ManicPanic 'Peacock Blue' color hair. Mark shot the Land camera images and I took the One-Step shots, using a ten-second self-timer. the Land camera shots are the upper top left of the left-hand image. "Look, I was already a pillow biter!" These Land camera images began a year-plus of performances for the camera, steps for the One-Step, about two hundred in these four snaps.
The One-Step SX-70s continued with my move back to San Francisco, arriving "home" on New Year's Eve, 1977/78. While New Year's Eve was spent at a friend's apartment above 18th & Castro, by the end of January I was on Pierce Street, just off Duboce Park. 1978 is the first time in 4 or 5 years I live one full year in one place; not just one city, but one place, apartment...flats, as we call them in SF. One year + one flat = 1978.

One of my main causes of concern is that I feel I have no concise theories similar to Rudolf Schwarzkogler’s “Art as experience training and as the destruction of all established ideas about life... painting as therapy... Art is a cure against addiction... chains of experience.” [Nov. 22, 1978]

Identity Is the Crisis Can't You See

I honor the life of Poly Styrene, who passed away from breast cancer complications [http://www.spinner.com/2011/04/26/poly-styrene-dead/]. The performance piece of falling from a skateboard [see Jan. 7 entry] was preceded by my playing "Identity" by Poly's band X-Ray Spex while I changed into grey tights. I wore the tights under my jeans; I would later shred the tights from my body after the piece went south, interrupted by an audience member who didn't want to watch me throw myself from a skateboard agaisnt the concrete floor of Marie's studio.



In an entry of November 6, 1978, I write: "I ignore my role. I fall, consciously, into the Poly Styrene syndrome - basic paranoia...I need to look out for self. No, I need to be more conscious." Wrestling with whom I should be, much as Marianne Elliot-Said would more seriously be, as it turned out.

Stand Tall 'Cause You're An Art Student

The billboard paper-background series is early October, whereas the red t-shirt Polaroid is from a series shot in two packs on the day of a performance, described in an earlier post, at which I attempted to capture an image of my falling from a skateboard. The red t-shirt series resulted in about eight shots that remain, playing with the motif of 'tying off' and intravenous tubing, imitating images from Actions in the mid-sixties by Rudolf Schwarzkogler.




October 1978 "Nails in wall under board, similar to bondage wall, to hand ropes, objects for props for photos"

Two Characters--September 1978

Those are my two characters--
one has emotions, the other writes them down.
No need to guess which is the external character.