Hi! Happy Summer!
Once again, time has gotten away from me. Almost five months have passed since my last newsletter/website update, and I apologize for that. I had intended to get on a more regular schedule, but the usual obstacles have stood in my way: travel, scheduling conflicts, time, energy, paralyzation due to being broke, Turner Classic Movies’ Gene Tierney month, etc. You know, the usuals. But now I hear that some people have actually been reading these things beginning to end, so I have a touch of stage fright/performance anxiety to add to that list.
Lord, will this informative piece of longwinded prose meet the expectations of my loyal readers who clearly have too much time on their hands and questionable taste in things they choose to read?? Don’t think about it, Krone. Just write!
OMG, stop reading my private prayers!!
Q. WHAT HAVE I BEEN DOING SINCE JANUARY?
A. A LOT AND NOT TOO MUCH.
Besides holding a delightful Fashion Club meeting at the beginning of the month where we all received our custom hand-screened Fashion Club Logo hoodies
(Fashion Club logo t-shirts coming soon for the masses!)
and performing with my darling Jim Andralis in Champagne Jerry’s Clubhouse at Joe’s Pub on January 22nd,
much of January was spent working on the preliminary scenic design for Portland Oregon’s Hand2Mouth Theater Company’s ambitious, immersive, all ages theatrical experience, Dream|Logic which would open at Alberta Abbey on February 23rd. That project was insane, partially because of the sprawling physical nature of the production – the thing was that the actors would guide audiences through Alberta Abby’s many rooms and hallways peripheral to its actual sanctuary and conventional stage for an elaborate series of experiences. This map that I created for the show should clarify things:
What, that didn’t help?? You’re weird.
The other main thing that made it insane for me was that I would be spending the most intense rehearsals/workshops/planning periods and load-in times not on site, but either in New York or away in beautiful central Oregon in residence at the Caldera Arts Center. Designing for this show would turn out to require a particularly hands-on and site-specific approach as well as the need for clever design and by-the-minute spontaneous problem-solving in order to have everything feel deliberate and immersive for the performances while also being removable between shows. Amazingly, though, with a dedicated team of builders, designers, production assistants, interns, and volunteers, we did it! Although I never did see the show performed, by all accounts and the wild photos taken by my comrade, the brilliant and unflappable Sarah Marguier (also the costume and prop designer), Portland’s audiences experienced something very unique and wonderful in Dream|Logic.
You can find more photos of Dream|Logic in my COSTUME & SET AND GRAPHIC DESIGN PROJECTS department here on the website.
Caldera was a very picturesque place
at which to wring my hands and draw a zillion sketches for Dream|Logic
plus meet some very talented artists and writers from around the country, and even get some work done on my Who or What I Am script and some of my FINE ART MASTERPIECES, as my art objects have come to be known around the world [by me]. Oh, and I got some nice press corresponding with the open studios in Sisters, OR’s The Nugget Newspaper. T. Lee Brown did me right with a little feature all about moi and my merde!
It wasn’t, however, until an extreme snowstorm, complete with avalanches and everything, had me stranded for 2 days in Redmond on my way home, that I was really able to hunker down and dedicate the uninterrupted time I had been craving in order to complete this FAM, as it were, in my hotel room:
When I got home, I reconnected with my husband and dog in the mornings and nights and spent my days expelling my remaining pent up sittin’ & sewin’ energy on this victim, until I finally got back in the swing of a more balanced life,
which meant rehearsing and sewing up some cute House of Larréon stage-wear for my bandmates to wear at Joe’s Pub for the Jim Andralis and the Syntonics gig there that was on on March 25th .
The evening was a triumph of tears and laughter as well as a tempting teaser for the new songs that will be on the latest JAATS album we have been recording at Nuthouse Recording, which is almost in the can!!
Fashion Club picked up where we left off with 2 more meetings. In March we invited Digital Media expert, Erin Rech to come and advise us on using social media to promote the club. Erin helped us set up our new Instagram account, and she posed for this picture with us:
At our April meeting we worked to get our dress to a state where we could invite our muse, Bridget Everett to the atelier for a fitting, then in May it all came together for a great afternoon with Bridget and a productive time figuring out the hem length, slit height, and all that. Plus we had some fun with snacks, selfies,
and went live on Instagram for a hard-hitting Q&A session with our followers (and a one or two of Bridget’s).
Follow us at @fashionclubnyc, won’t you?
“And what of Larry’s music?” you ask. Well, if you are that curious about it I just recorded one of my original songs for the first time in over 10 years, Nosey. I wrote “I Miss You,” inspired by Julia Gray’s novel, Little Liar, for Bushwick Book Club a little while ago, and recorded it last month to be released with theBushwick Book Club Ice Cream Release Vol. 1: Coconut Milk Black Sesame. I’m very pleased with how it came out, thanks largely to the help of producer/engineer/guitarist Charlie Nieland at his recording studio in Greenpoint, Brooklyn and singer/shaker Susan Hwang. Why not give it a listen?
OK, there are only 2 more things that I want to tell you about that I already did, and then I will tell you what I am about to do!
1) House of Larréon went to town! The world doesn’t stop just because someone writes a glorious, embarrassingly flattering profile in the New York Times about your design house and muse relations. We keep working over here at the HOL, and we design your standard Grand Dames, your basic USAOK, and your run of the mill convertible Sensuous Sensations (pictured below).
It’s like our motto states: “As long as there are titties in the world, we will be there to help our clients almost expose them.” Stay tuned for the “Neo CEO” and more, coming as soon as I can sew them!
2) I recently performed a short set of my original songs at Sid Gold’s Request Room as part of an evening put together by Jessie Kilguss. Each of the performers that night was a member of Jim Andralis and the Syntonics, but for this show, we each sang three of our own original songs. I had a wonderful time harmonizing with those angels. For my set, I dug out an old and a newish love song with a brand new super sad breakup song, Beyond Repair, sandwiched in the middle, it’s severity buffered (or enhanced) by the stylings of my singing partner Julie DeLano.
If you want to read the lyrics, they are HERE.
WHAT IS NEXT? Well, “Beyond Repair” was a clue…
This is exciting [for me]!! Thursday, June 20 at 7:00 I will be performing my brand new piece, Beyond Repair at the RISD Museum in Providence, Rhode Island in the Contemporary Art Gallery there which is currently the home for Repair and Design Futures, curated by Kate Irvin and including my piece Then and Now (Circles: Coreopsis Moonbeams, Irises, Poppies, Forest Road) which is in their permanent collection.
Beyond Repair approaches the idea of “repair” from the point of view of an emotional middle-aged singing cowboy’s struggle to understand and deal with the effect of time on his relationships and life. It also features a very special supporting cast of two: Jim Andralis and Julie DeLano AND a special first-time-ever stage appearance by my pride and joy 2 ½ years in the making, my big-ass Then and Now (Cape Collaboration)!
There are a couple of other things that I’m sort of at liberty to talk about that are in store for the semi- and not so semi-distant future. One of them is a group exhibition this Fall at The Sheldon Galleries in St. Louis called It’s Not You, It’s Me: A Declaration of Independence. The show is curated by fashion designer Michael Drummond and features the work of “fashion designers who are working outside traditional fashion idioms to create works that speak to individuality and identity.” I, of course, will be showing underpants. And corresponding with them will be this photo taken by Todd Oldham of some very professional models wearing them:
The other thing that it’s really too early to mention is something that technically isn’t official but I’m so excited about it and nobody reads this anyway, so it’s a group show at The 8th Floor curated by their director, the brilliant and wonderful Sara Reisman. I won’t say what its theme is, but it feels like it was made for me, and I can’t wait to participate in that dialogue among the other artists in the show and with the rest of the world! Now not another peep about it!
And almost no other peeps about anything else, either, except to ask you to please shop in my SHOP where there is a 20% off handmade patchwork necktie sale going on thru Father’s Day
and probably other sales happening after that. The Larréon Label tees, of course, modeled below by Michael, are a bargain at any price all year round!
This newsletter is too long. I know that. But just because I’m self-aware, doesn’t mean that I’m going to stop doing it. (You can quote me on that!) Speaking of quotes, here is one from one of my favorite writers, Peg Bracken, author of the I Hate to Cook Book:
Let me say this about learning experiences: they’re weird. Or put it this way: what you learn from a learning experience is generally something else.
And my goodness if I haven’t learned that lesson the hard way! Am I right? Anyone else out there? Is this thing on??
(Thank you for reading this.)
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