Hi!
It’s been 4 months since I last confessed – I mean wrote – to you all. As you may know I am a combination lazy bum/spaz-out overachiever, so in the past 4 months there has been a lot of watching of Turner Classic Movies and running my fingers through the beautiful, tastefully spotted coat of my dog Dory Lee Linda Andralis-Krone, but in between couch-sits and such, I did do a lot of things. I’m getting ready to tell you about them (plus some things I’m planning to do), and it could take a while, so if you’re not the type who likes to read things for long periods of time, this is your warning: HERE I GO AGAIN!
July 18th I debuted my new play Who or What I Am at Joe’s Pub in New York City.
I call Who or What I Am alternately a “play,” a “show,” a “performance,” or most accurately – when I have the time and breath, a “musical performance with talking and costumes”. I have incorporated performance as an important part of my so-called art for a long time, but this is the first actual script that I’ve written (thank you MacDowell Colony!), and this show is the closest thing to “theater” that I’ve ever attempted. I was very pleased with how the show went, and the audience was very miserable (in an uplifted sort of way- it’s a sad show), so I’m calling it a success, and I look forward to doing it again after I get the chance to revise it a little bit. Stay tuned for upcoming dates!
I am going to do something provocative here and skip to some upcoming events before returning to the report on what I’ve already done. The reason? A couple of things are happening really soon, and I want you to read about them before you’ve gone blind from getting to the end of this newsletter.
October 12 at 10pm Eastern Time, bidding closes on the Museum of Contemporary Art Detroit (MOCAD) benefit auction! Guess who has a masterpiece available for purchase? One hint:
At the time of this publication, there is one bid on it already, but you can still get it for less than you would pay normally. Or, if you want to donate tons of money to MOCAD, a great place that deserves it, you may choose to WAY OVERBID and take home my piece as a visual reminder of your extravagant generosity and support of the arts.
Something else: Repair and Design Futures, an exhibition of work from the RISD Museum’s permanent collection, brilliantly curated by Kate Irvin, Curator of Costume and Textiles, opened at the RISD Museum in Providence, Rhode Island October 5th. This show includes my piece Then and Now (Circles: Coreopsis Moonbeams, Irises, Poppies, Forest Road)
alongside other contemporary art from the RISD Museum’s collection as well as historic textiles and garments that “investigate mending as material intervention, metaphor, and as a call to action”. So exciting! And even more exciting: I’ll be doing a performance related to the exhibition sometime between now and when it closes June 30, 2019. Stay tuned for more information about that!
Do you live in London? Would you like to go there? Maybe in December/January? I ask, because I will have work in a group show, A Concentration of Power, curated by my pal, artist Alexander Gorlizki for the Joost van den Bergh Gallery in St. James, Piccadilly in London. I’m showing an old gem, one of my Underpants of Many Colors.
The exciting news for some is that I’ve decided to put a price tag on them this time! I usually don’t sell the clothing I make that is meant to be used in my shows, but this was one of those “what the heck?” moments. People often ask to buy these UMC’s, so I decided to see what would happen if I extended the opportunity. If you are interested or curious, please check in with the gallery once the show opens.
Other interesting news, objectively speaking, is that this February, I’ll be spending the month in Sisters, Oregon in residence at the Caldera Arts Center! I am so excited to spend a month working 3,500 feet above sea level on the shores of Blue Lake in the Cascade Mountain Range in the deep winter among a small group of 8 artists of various disciplines! (Excited and a little scared!)
At around that same time, Hand2Mouth Theatre Company’s newest production, Dream/Logic, will open in Portland, Oregon with all of the actors running around & doing their amazing things in sets created by ME! This will be my second time creating sets for this inspiringly brilliant company (the first time was for last year’s Psychic Utopia), and I can’t wait for every part of this experience. More soon on the actual dates and deets!
Now, let’s go back to the recent past, shall we? How about a little House of Larréon nouvelles (that means “news”)?
Besides creating a bunch of glamorous new looks for the cast of Who or What I Am,
I’ve been very busy in the Larréon laboratoire over the past several months for some very high profile clients! When Murray Hill needed glamorous wraps for his back-up singers, the Gold-diggers (Freida Williams and Frances Asher-Perrin), for his Joe’s Pub New Voices show About to Break, who did he call? (see below)
When Bridget Everett wanted something glamorous and appealing to wear on the Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon, who did she call? (see below)
And when Dawn Landes wanted something alluring but with a touch of Countrypolitan pizzaz to wear in People Magazine, who did she call? (see below)
I had a wonderful time taking the place of the legendary Bobby Bare, duet-ing with Dawn on her song “I Don’t Dance” when she performed at Joe’s Pub this past August! And I’ve had tons of fun performing everywhere I can like with the Bushwick Book Club recently at Café Barbès
and with rising star Jim Andralis at gigs large and small.
Jim is in the beginning stages of recording his third album, and I can’t wait to hear it… IN BED! Yes, full disclosure, we’re married!
In other news, I’m still trucking along, making new work in the art studio
and participating in the regular art world when it makes sense, like when I recently spoke at 2 different artists’ panels organized by the beloved New York Foundation for the Arts (NYFA) on the topics of marketing (I’m doing that RIGHT NOW!) and DIY/self producing.
I’ve also been making some elegant items to beef up the inventory here in my website SHOP. I still have some back to school handmade House of Larréon patchwork ties available
and I’m working on some more wintery items to be ready in time for holiday season! Check out what’s there now, if you like, and if you insist, BUY SOMETHING!
On a final note, U. City High to the day I die! I just returned from St. Louis where I attended my University City High School Class of 1988 30 year reunion, and it left me with the most wonderful feelings about my past and, believe it or not, the future at this most disgusting and terrifying present time in history. I went to school with mostly people who were different from me in many ways, mostly racially. We didn’t all hang out together all of the time, but we did create a community of support and good will that I think most of us didn’t even notice at the time. Going back to U. City, I felt that community still embracing me and existing for the kids and families growing up there now. Everybody is not the same, but everybody seems to agree that the world belongs to all of them, and they make room for each other in it. They also organize when they need to and fight against oppression and bigotry and for freedom and equal rights for everyone. I’m talking about the students, the parents, the faculty, everyone. It warms my heart and gives me a little bit of hope.
(I’m in the last row just right of center)
Now, if your eyes are still working after reading this, thank you for sticking it through. If you have gone blind from trying, please have somebody read this to you: I’m sorry about your eyes.
Good luck out there, everybody!
By the way, this site was designed and made by Matt Fisher. Don’t you want one like it? Hire him!!