March 1, 2016
Hi!
May the above piece subtly illustrate my feelings about the beginning of my 2016. (It also happens to be a working sketch for my House of Larréon treatment of a costume in Neal Medlyn’s/Champagne Jerry’s upcoming show In the Champagne Room, but more on that later.)
On December 30, 2015 I got the news that my dear, lifelong friend Mamie Lane had suddenly died of heart failure while alone in her home in St. Louis. This website/newsletter is not usually about this sort of thing, but it would be impossible to relay my news of the day without factoring in my heartbreak, bewilderment, and disorganized mind of the past 2 months. Mamie was a rare friend who not only carried the history of our shared youth, but also remained completely present, active, and influential in my life up until the day she died. We knew each other so well and for so long – not by default but because we truly loved each other throughout all of the changes we went through in the almost 35 years we were friends.
I spent New Year’s Eve and Day in shock, then I’d already had a short residency at the Millay Colony scheduled, so I spent the first week of 2016 there. The first thing I did was write a song for Mamie, and then as I polished it up a little bit over the next few days, I got to work making new things in the studio for what seemed like the first time in ages!
The first thing I did was this:
Everything I did there felt like it was in honor of Mamie. We loved thrift shopping together, so I imagined her appreciating this “suitable for framing” print, especially the back with its 19 cent price tag on it.
I also finally got started on a series of Cowboy Hats of Many Colors that I have had in my head for ages. I was amazed that my idea of cutting up cowboy hats and reassembling them actually worked!
I went straight from The Millay Colony to St. Louis for Mamie’s funeral and a special memorial put together by and for her friends. I thought of it as the kids’ memorial even though most of us are in our 40’s.
I had the opportunity to sing my new song at the memorial. This is it here as recorded in my apartment once I got back to New York:
Damn, You Made Me Cry Again (for Mamie Lane)
When I was in St. Louis, I also had the chance to see my show The Best, Best Everything at the Sheldon Art Galleries right before it closed. It was nice to get the chance to see my masterpieces like this
before receiving the work back and seeing my masterpieces much less spectacularly and more intrusively presented in huge boxes overwhelming my overstuffed studio space in my apartment as they are now.
But life goes on, nature (and my many talented friends and collaborators, and life partners) calls, and I find myself busy again with all kinds of exciting projects. Would you like to hear about them? Of course you would!
The time has finally come! March 2-5 Neal Medlyn a.k.a. Champagne Jerry’s new show, In the Champagne Room will make its world debut at New York Live Arts! I’ve made some real special costumes and worked with Neal to design the whole lobby and performing space in my most ambitious and transformative theatrical design work yet. The show is going to be so great! I hope you can all come!
A nice little thing that happened while designing In the Champagne Room was that I connected with one of my favorite companies which produces one of my favorite products that exist in the world: RAIN CURTAINS!! I’ve been purchasing the rain curtains that I use to make my artworks like Where You’ll Find Me and Mean Vicious Wild from iWeiss for years, but I only got the nerve to tell them about what I do recently when I contacted them to order some curtains for the In the Champagne Room set. They were very excited, and posted a cool thing about me in their newsletter on their site:
Now as for my own Larry Krone performances, I have a couple of things coming up:
Tuesday, March 8 I have planned one of the strangest and potentially most thrilling performances of my illustrious career! The word “illustrious” is a clue: bring your drawing supplies to this one, because as Jim Andralis & I perform for you atop high pedestals, we will be taking turns posing in various states of Larréon draperage and undress for you to DRAW our Jewish/Greek god-like physiques! It’s BRIC House’s The Stoop Series: Drink & Draw with House of Larréon in Brooklyn near BAM! Sneaky secret tip: there will be a special female guest star with the initials “E. M.” and the rest of the letters in those names being respectively “rin” and “arkey”! This is FREE by the way, and there will be a cash bar with signature cocktails including the Kro-Jack and the Larréon Fruit Bowl.
I am also excited to report that I will be performing at the 12th Street Bar & Grill on Sunday, March 13 as part of singer/songwriter/supreme (well, she could have been a Supreme!) Terry Radigan’s weekly Radigan Roundup. This is a fun, casual, pass the hat music night that happens to bring out some extraordinary talent every Sunday night. Park Slope, Brooklyn! FREE!
I’m also working on setting a date for an alliterative Solo Chanteuring Session at Sid’s! Yes, I’m talking about the acclaimed The Amber Zone Presents series at Sid Gold’s Request Room curated by powerhouse singer/actor/performance artist Amber Martin. Details TBA!
And now I would like to take a moment to selflessly promote another artist whose work I admire. His name is Jim Andralis, and he has created the most beautifully written, gorgeously sung, and spectacularly packaged album that anyone has ever heard/seen: Your Dying Wish Come True.
OK, so I designed the CD cover, the vinyl album cover, and the t-shirt, and I can’t stop looking at the results with pride and self-love.
But this is not the point! The point is that you want this music in your life. Please, go to iTunes to listen to the single & purchase it in download form, OR go to Bandcamp and preorder the actual CD and/or vinyl record which will be mailed to you once it is released on March 25. (The full album will be available on iTunes for download on March 25, too.)
If you are in New York or its environs, please mark your calendars for March 30 with “The Best Concert I Will Ever Go To,” because that is when you will be attending the album release concert for Your Dying Wish Come True. It will be packed with special guest vocalists and musicians (including me), and you love it! Buy tickets here: Jim Andralis: Your Dying Wish Come True Release Show at Joe’s Pub.
As a special treat for the world, Jim Andralis has already released a bonus single that is not even on the album. It is a duet with the incomparable Bridget Everett, and it’s called Hit the Ground Fuckin’. He made a video for it starring many of the celebrity dogs in our lives. It is combination adorable/disturbing with an overwhelming kneeslapping/sidesplitting/hysterically funny slant to it. Watch it HERE. And buy the download on iTunes OR preorder the actual vinyl 45 with original drawings by Jim Andralis on the labels on Bandcamp!
photo by Jeff Jackson
OK!! Jim Andralis is my husband!! I need to disclose that before you watch the video we made of a song from the album, “Good News”. I’m sick of finding creative ways to say nice things, so just trust me: it’s great! It will be available to watch soon. When you see it, please make note of how wonderful the video work by Flatbush Pictures is!
photo by Judd Erlich
Oh my goddess, this is a long one, but I need to tell you a few more things!
Look Book came in with a bang!! The release party put on my Langfelder Presents at 42West was sensational with great performances by GOLD, DJ Duo Team Company LLC, and Bridget Everett. I got pre-release press from NY1’s Stephanie Simon, Metro, and broadwayworld.com, plus a wonderful feature in The Village Voice written by Julie Seabaugh! Plus I sold a bunch of books! Those sales combined with preorders and website sales brought in enough money for me to donate $500 to the Willie Mae Rock Camp for Girls!
Books are still selling, and I hope to deliver another similar check to them soon! You can purchase Look Book in my website SHOP or at Exit 9 Gift Emporium, Bureau of General Services – Queer Division, projects+gallery, or the Sheldon Art Galleries gift shop.
Other things:
Queer Threads: Crafting Identity and Community, a group exhibition curated by John Chaich and including my piece Then and Now (Rainbow Order) is on tour!! It is in Baltimore at MICA thru March 13 and then moves to Boston’s Mills Gallery at the Boston Center for the Arts April 22 – July 10. There is a gorgeous, BIG hardcover Queer Threads book made by John and Todd Oldham coming out soon to correspond with the exhibit, too, so look out!
The Purple Onion, a fantastic movie (that I happen to be in!) by the very talented Matt Symanowski was just shown in Seattle as part of the Seattle Asian American Film Festival.
Todd Oldham, my friend, hero, and collaborator on/photographer for Look Book, has a monumental exhibition of his runway fashions from the 1990s, All of Everything: Todd Oldham Fashion at the RISD Museum April 8 – September 11. If you have seen photographs of Todd’s clothes or even one or two garments in theme shows at museums like the Metropolitan Museum of Art, you might think you know how spectacular, detailed, obsessively crafted, complexly conceived, and thoroughly gorgeous these clothes are, but YOU DON’T! I had the luxury of looking through the clothes spread out all over the Todd Oldham Studio as Kate Irvin from the RISD Museum made her selections for the exhibit, and I am telling you, it is beyond comprehension what this man and his team have done! Please go see the show if you can! And while you are there, stop by the RISD WORKS Museum Store and pick up a Look Book with photographs in it by the master himself. I’m doing my best to get it stocked there!
This just in: my friend Olivia Laing wrote a book about me and is coming all the way to the United States from England to release it!
It’s called The Lonely City – Adventures in the Art of Being Alone, and it’s not really about me. There is, however, a beautiful passage that opens Chapter 8 in which Olivia describes staying in my apartment on one of her trips to New York to write the book. Olivia will be doing bookstore appearances in DC, New York, Boston, and LA March 14th – 23rd. Catch her if you can, or at least buy the book!
Thank you for reading this and for being at least a little bit interested my stuff. I appreciate it tons!
And by the way, this site was designed and made by Matt Fisher. Don’t you want one like it? Hire him!!