OPEN SPACE

………………………………………………..”Art is a collaboration between God and the artist, and the less the artist does the better.” - André Gide……………

Tony Labat, I WANT YOU, a project for Live Art at SFMOMA. Design by MendeDesign. Photography by George Westcot.

Performer, artist, ‘pleasure activist,’ and professional dominatrix Sadie Lune was the top-scoring I WANT YOU winner, with one of the most directly activist performances of the night. If you haven’t been watching the blog, back on September 11th,  Tony Labat staged an event in our Wattis Theater, riffing on the iconic “I Want You” army recruitment campaigns, asking Bay Area residents to make their own demands of the public in live performances, with the audience determining the five winners via scantron-style voting. The winners have had their slogans—and their likenesses—transformed into posters which are going up all over town this week.

Now of course SFMOMA can’t take an endorsement position on any local initiatives, but I’m glad to post Sadie’s video of her own winning performance, shot that night in the theater to a rowdy and supportive constituency:

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Sadie Lune is a multi-media artist, absurdist, sex worker and pleasure activist. She has performed with revolutionary sex artists Carol Queen, Annie Sprinkle, and Nina Hartley and is a co-founder of Paul Reubens Day. Sadie draws the comic series “Saturn Returns Komyx” for $pread magazine, and is working on an anthology of essays by the personal partners of sex workers. Her short film “Yum” won the People’s Choice award in the 2007 Good Vibrations Amateur Erotic Film Competition. Interactive interventionist social art totally gives Sadie a boner. She’s a recent convert to occasional blogging: writing sporadically for the comic blog BreakUp Girl as well as her own three (!) blogs: Sadie Wants a Wife, Whores in the Woods, and Working Hearts. Sadie identifies as a mermaid and is currently looking for collaborators, patrons, and a wife. She aspires to show more work in streets and museums. Sadie lives in the Mission District of San Francisco with her three snakes and her beloved roommate, Irene.

Posted by Suzanne under Live Art | Tags: AND THE WINNERS ARE, I WANT YOU, Sadie Lune, Tony Labat, YES ON PROP K

Tony Labat, I WANT YOU, a project for Live Art at SFMOMA. Design by MendeDesign. Photography by George Westcot.

If you recall, back in September Tony Labat staged an event in the Wattis Theater, riffing on the iconic “I Want You” army recruitment campaigns, asking Bay Area residents to make their own demands of the public in live performances, with the audience determining the five winners via scantron-style voting. The winners have had their slogans—and their likenesses—transformed into posters which are going up all over town next week. Congratulations Kali!

Kali Eichen has an extensive background in acting, dance, improvisation, and educational and technical theater. She is a writer who dabbles in short fiction, food blogging, and recipe development. Currently, she makes her living as a pastry chef – specializing in bacon desserts and caricature cakes.

Posted by Suzanne under Live Art | Tags: AND THE WINNERS ARE, I WANT YOU, Kali Eichen, my mother told me not to talk to strangers let alone, smile at them, Tony Labat

Tony Labat, I WANT YOU, a project for Live Art at SFMOMA. Design by MendeDesign. Photography by George Westcot.

Back on September 11th,  Tony Labat staged an event in the Wattis Theater, riffing on the iconic “I Want You” army recruitment campaigns, asking Bay Area residents to make their own demands of the public in live performances, with the audience determining the five winners via scantron-style voting. The winners have had their slogans—and their likenesses—transformed into posters which are going up all over town next week.

Hazel White is a poet, journalist, and author; most of her work addresses landscape and the poetics of habitation. More privately, until now—the mouse rushed to the email “send” button, next thing she was at the I Want You auditions—she’s a transracially adoptive parent, and a fledgling anti-racism activist. She thanks her partner, her son, and her son’s birthfamily, and The UNtraining organization for helping her to explore racism and to find her urgent new voice.

Posted by Suzanne under Live Art | Tags: AND THE WINNERS ARE, Hazel White, I WANT YOU, think before you speak, Tony Labat

Tony Labat, I WANT YOU, a project for Live Art at SFMOMA. Design by MendeDesign. Photography by George Westcot.

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Beth Lisick has published poems, essays, and a short fiction collection; she wrote a weekly nightlife column for SF Gate for eight years. Her stage and screen collaborations with writer/performer Tara Jepsen have yielded some uncomfortable moments, most recently the short film Diving for Pearls. Beth co-organizes the Porchlight Storytelling Series, a monthly show for amateur storytellers in San Francisco. Her book Everybody Into the Pool was a New York Times bestseller; her latest book about her adventures in the self-help biz is called Helping Me Help Myself: One Skeptic, 10 Self-Help Gurus, and a Year on the Brink of the Comfort Zone.

Tara Jepsen is a writer and performer from San Francisco. She’s toured extensively with the all-female cabaret Sister Spit’s Rambling Road Show, and the short film Diving for Pearls (in collaboration with Beth Lisick), won “Most Innovative Short”  at the Seattle Lesbian and Gay Film Festival (2004). She co-curates and co-hosts San Francisco’s longest running queer open mic, K’vetsh, with Kirk Read. Tara recently completed the first run of her live stage show, written and performed with Beth Lisick, Getting in on the Ground Floor and Staying There.

Don and Phil, or R. Donald Nash and Phil Spalding, hail from San Francisco’s Castro neighborhood, where they have been running their boutique design firm for over thirty years. They’ve worked with princes and princesses, real and figurative, and aren’t afraid to nudge a client toward a more adventurous chair. Though they’ve never fallen on the same side of the great Hummel vs. Lladro debate, they do agree on Italian opera, convertibles (preferably silver and Mercedes), and their shih tzus Betty and Veronica.

Posted by Suzanne under Live Art | Tags: AND THE WINNERS ARE, Beth Lisick, Don & Phil, I WANT YOU, Tara Jepsen, Tony Labat

Tony Labat, I WANT YOU, a project for Live Art at SFMOMA. Design by MendeDesign. Photography by George Westcot.

If you recall, back in September Tony Labat staged an event in the Wattis Theater, riffing on the iconic “I Want You” army recruitment campaigns, asking Bay Area residents to make their own demands of the public in live performances, with the audience determining the five winners via scantron-style voting. The winners have had their slogans—and their likenesses—transformed into posters which are going up all over town next week. And all over the blog in coming days.

This is Bird, a.k.a., Nicole Mills-Novoa:

“Hola, mi amo Nicole but my friends call me Bird.  I love making puppets, singing the blues, writing short plays, I love mayonaise, falling in love, drinking earl grey tea with honey from sweet tea cups, whales, pandas, the Giant Saterniid Moths, Jazz, creating my very own personal mythologies, lasagna, speaking my mind, watching old Italian movies such as The Bicycle Thief, I love playing records, big wicker baskets filled with yarn, old log cabins that smell of wood burning stoves, true social justice, living by the Girl Scout Law, reading books in my over stuffed chair, glasses of Makers Mark on the rocks, going to rock shows, saying and hearing the things that no one wants to say or hear, living on sailboats, old ladies holding hands in the park, compasses, old suit cases with secret lives, hearing and telling stories, and bicycles with baskets.”

Posted by Suzanne under Live Art | Tags: AND THE WINNERS ARE, Bird, handpuppets, I WANT YOU, Nicole Mills-Nova, Tony Labat