(lively music) - [Announcer] Welcome everyone to the Penny Stamps Distinguished Speaker Series.

(lively music) (audience clapping) - Welcome everyone to the Penny Stamps Distinguished Speaker Series.

My name's Chrisstina Hamilton, the series director, and today we bring you someone who pushes conceptual boundaries with material and fabric, a textile artist and fashion designer, Gary Graham.

A big thank you to our partners for their support of today's program.

We have Design Core Detroit, which just wrapped up its Detroit Month of Design, which hopefully you took something in.

The UofM Arts Initiative, Detroit PBS, PBS Books, WNET's All Arts, and Michigan Public 91.7 FM.

Just one announcement for you all today.

Next week on Thursday, we will be presenting the multidisciplinary Indigenous artist Emilie Monnet here, and she's already in town, as a matter of fact, starting this evening and continuing daily up through next Wednesday, she is presenting a production of nigamon/tunai which is an immersive performance ritual, which is rooted in the natural world on the Power Center stage.

So if you do not already have a ticket, you should get one.

Students, remember you get discounted tickets that you can get your tickets at ums.org.

So see the show before we get to hear from Emilie next week.

Please do remember to silence your cell phones.

We are not going to have our regular Q&A in here today due to time constraints.

However, instead, Gary will be happy to meet with folks for a meet and greet in the lobby directly following the stage presentation here.

So it might take him a moment to get out there, but if everybody wants to gather in the lobby that wants to say hello, we will do that.

So who is Gary Graham?

First I just wanna mention Liz Collins.

For some of you in the audience, you may remember another extraordinary textile artist who spoke in the series actually one year ago today.

Liz is the one that we have to thank for introducing Gary to the series, and meeting Gary, and for bringing us all together today.

So keep your eye on Liz Collins.

She's a hot one.

Gary Graham is an American fashion designer and artist.

He founded his Eponymous women's wear line in 1999, gating notice for its exquisite detailing and fine craftsmanship.

And for 20 years his designs were sold in Tribeca at his flagship store and through luxury retailers worldwide.

He now produces small batch collections under the moniker GaryGraham422, drawing inspiration from historical figures and antique textiles to create visionary 21st century fashion.

Alongside his design work, he maintains a robust artistic practice.

He's collaborated with artists such as Kara Walker and Meredith Monk.

He also works with institutions such as the Hancock Shaker Village and Rhode Island School of Design Museum, Peabody Essex Museum, and the American Folk Art Museum where he creates installations, clothing collections, drawings, and sculpture that are inspired by these site's histories, architecture, and curated objects.

Many of you in the audience may recall, Gary Graham made a foray into reality TV not so long ago.

He was a finalist on season two of the design competition series, "Making the Cut".

Gary Graham went and earned his BFA at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago just over the road.

He's also a member of the Council of Fashion Designers of America.

After finishing school at the SAIC in Chicago, he took off for New York City and he began working in costuming for the inimitable, Julie Taymor of "Lion King" fame, and also for J. Morgan Puett, who became a mentor and introduced Gary to garment dyeing, which led to his very first collection.

Gary, I just have to say, is really the epitome of our current series theme this year, Echo and Flux, Bringing History Forward.

Please welcome to the stage Gary Graham.

(audience clapping) - Thank you.

Thanks.

Thanks for having me, Ann Arbor.

Thank you, Chrisstina.

In 1999, I started my first collection, and it was inspired by this time-traveling character who traveled time collecting dust.

So she was known as the Dust Collector.

I think it's a great omen for me that an hour from now the film "Army of Darkness" is playing in this very building by one of my heroes, Sam Raimi.

And when I started this collection and during this time, Sam was also producing TV shows, like "Xena: Warrior Princess" and "Hercules", and I just loved the way he was recontextualizing mythology.

And so all of my early collections were really about this traveling person, this hero's journey.

My materials were grazed goods.

You know, at the time I had limited resources, so I was taking grazed goods fabrics and garment dyeing them and transforming them, and really the idea was that these garments kind of came from the past.

And I was simultaneously building, you know, my retail and wholesale clients.

So about 10 years, I was building these textile techniques and garment dyeing and these different characters.

And it was this moment too where, you know, I made a decision not to go into costume, to go into fashion.

And a lot of that had to do with working for different fashion designers, but also kind of loving the idea of creating work that goes out into the world.

So in terms of performance art, and also most importantly, I wanted to write my own stories.

I didn't really want to costume other narratives as the narrative is really important.

This collection in particular is when I really started writing my own stories.

This was inspired by the 1920s portrait photographer, Mike Disfarmer.

And he was this amazing character.

Not a lot is known about him, but what I wanted to do is take his style, the way he posed people and write a story.

And so I went, I was working next to The Odeon which is this restaurant on West Broadway in New York City.

And this is also the first time where I kind of had this parafictional relationship with a real person.

So I saw this waitress, Cynthia and Cynthia, you know, I have this idea and you know, and she's like, "What is this?"

The idea was I, these two sisters.

And the idea was simple because this farmer would photograph people in town over the years.

And so Cynthia was like, "Well, I have a sister, she's studying law in Boston."

And she came down.

And so this kind of, you know, this interaction, this conversation with the actual person.

And then also my process in terms of being inspired and doing research.

My favorite thing is to go somewhere and just do a cold study.

So this was an abandoned water slide in Honesdale, Pennsylvania.

And it was just in this stark frozen field.

And you know, it just shouted like this story.

And so for me, with garment dyeing and doing my custom colors, it's like, "How do I approach this as form and color?

And how do we turn a structure into fabric and then into a garment?"

And this is also where I really started developing the cocoon shape.

And then my textile, you know, the distressing and the traveler.

And the other thing about the traveler is I love the ideas, you never know where someone just came from.

So when they cross that threshold, when they walk into the door, it's like, where?

You just never know what happened, you know, five seconds before.

And with this, my textiles and my resources, as they grew, because I was simultaneously growing my business, I started designing engineered jacquards and working with historic textiles.

And this really allowed me to really like literally weave the past into the fabric.

And from this, I was invited to work with the American Folk Art Museum in New York.

And another thing I love to do is just go into archives and see how it speaks and see what happens.

I had gone in really like thinking I would do something about Henry Darger 'cause they have a huge Darger collection.

But I saw this coverlet and this was also when I was like, "What are these symbols?

What are these motifs?

Who made this?"

This was the Ann Carll coverlet.

It was woven in Long Island, New York.

And so I applied the engineered jacquard technique and played with the scale.

So this was a play on scale and character.

Then I was invited by the Peabody Essex Museum in Salem, Massachusetts to again, kind of open their archives to me and I immediately was drawn to these two chairs.

To the left is a chair, it's called Chair of Power from Zanzibar.

And to the right is a chair from what was then called Visakhapatnam, India.

So it's a ebony and ivory inlay design.

And so it's also when I started questioning what being the attraction, the grasp, what does it mean to grab something, to desire it, to be interested in it, and then what is kind of your responsibility to it?

This is me there studying.

And what I did is I started just hand drawing the symbols that were in the chair, kind of trying to figure out what the meaning was and that kind of exploration.

And then also taking it to a garment.

And with the two chairs I was thinking of Chair of Power, the other chair was made for the western market.

And just thinking about our seats of power.

And I imagine two women in power in conversation.

And I shot this look book in my friend E.V.

Day's studio next to her fire escape strand of DNA on the model, Jamie Bochert.

And so these were just showing, this was really a study for an installation.

I did an installation at the Peabody Essex Museum where I asked Meredith Monk to contribute the vocals.

I love this piece she did, it's called "Bird Code" from 1979, where she recorded her voice inside of a silo.

And so I had the idea of instead of heads, they would have speaker heads.

And so you would get to hear, we went into the studio together and we separated her voice into two channels.

And so you would hear this kind of conversation.

And so this is just a rough idea of how I could see two actresses possibly playing these and even lip syncing.

And it's just a short sound.

(Meredith singing in scales) (Meredith singing in scales continues) (Meredith singing in scales) (Meredith singing in scales continues) (Meredith singing in scales continues) (Meredith singing in scales continues) So then- (audience clapping) Oh, thank you.

Thank you Meredith.

So again, all of these conceits and these projects were also, you know, I was running a business and selling clothes.

And this image in particular was Jamie wearing a dress.

So you can see it's the jacquard, that's not the garment that's using actually the three dimensional pattern as the two dimensional pattern and on and on, and to infinity.

And continuing the idea of replacing the patriarchy.

I, there was a show at the Met called "Interwoven Globe", and it was just this landmark show that really showed the trade of textiles and the history of textiles and all the interconnectedness of it.

This was an Indian embroidery that was produced for the Portuguese market, and in the center is the goddess of Discordia.

So I started to kind of put my parafictional desires to, into play and asked, you know, friends and good customers of mine who I knew, some I knew better, some I knew less.

But I asked them to participate in a project called Palacetor.

Palacetor is an anagram for Cleopatra.

And the idea is that the seven archetypes, like this was Alexandra Marzella as the poet, and then Kara Walker was the general, and then this is Sunrise Ruffalo as a seeker.

And this is also like with her, she was relating to a chair to another object.

So a lot of that props and the objects become characters as well.

And again, just kind of the pattern, the sleeve pattern becomes part of the chair.

This is also, this is Parker Posey the magician.

This is also when streaming was really taking off and everyone had ideas for TV shows, you know, and with "Game of Thrones" and "House of Cards".

But the idea was that these women worked and operated in a subterranean, you know, a canal underneath the Pentagon.

So what ever was happening on top, we knew they were gonna work it out.

So they were kind of like the new A Team in a way.

This is musician Naomi Yang as the archivist.

And so I wanted to create kind of a faux trailer.

(suspenseful music) (floor creaking) (dramatic music) (liquid splashing) (paper rustling) (dramatic music continues) (leaves rustling) (dramatic music continues) (dramatic music continues) (audience clapping) Yeah.

And again, we were, this is, you know, selling.

It was after, you know, so many years.

I finally got into Barneys.

And so, I mean, I just wanted to kind of show you the context of also the gowns.

This is a gown worn by Parker and a gown worn by the poet in the Barneys catalog.

So, you know, at the same time, we're also operating a manufacturing company and we're producing things all over the world at this point in terms of all of our resources.

And I'm continuing to make collections.

So during this time I made over 38 collections, biannual collections.

And then I was approached by a interior textile company called Pollack in New York City to create an textile collection.

And so for me, I was like, "Okay, there's like the TV show now, now this is really our location scouting project."

And really what this was, is for me, a research trip.

And so I call it, you know, when you go somewhere and you just respond to the space and you start extracting inspiration and the extracting, the grasp, the taking, the being attracted to, the taking, you know, how does that exchange translate and what is our responsibility to it?

So these were all historical locations.

This is the Block Island Lighthouse.

I worked with the Rhode Island Historical Society in terms of securing the locations and just how architecture and texture can really start also being part of the design process.

And so all of my research boards were, you know, it was always about kind of quote unquote original or grafted content.

This is the actual textile collection and development.

I also met my partner Sean Scherer, and he had to shop up in upstate New York.

So I started going up there, and this is when I decided to do, I also was starting, interested in installation work.

So this is the beginnings and also another character.

This character, I started thinking after all of these kind of, after all of this, I was thinking about this installation and also about queer characters in history and parafictional characters and the queer migration story.

And that's how this started.

This was a Jacob from Warwick.

And also I was doing the, also simultaneously everything kind of had to fit into my ready to wear.

So this print was taken from a wallpaper in a mansion in Warwick.

So that was also, it also then became a tapestry within the textile collection.

And this is the installation in progress and also the idea of camouflage and how, you know, we hide and how we take on motifs and how our memory plays into this.

And so this is just another visual study for a character study.

Again, kind of thinking, you know about, this is when I started really thinking about shopping and shopping within TVs and narratives and building characters.

This is my friend Rebecca Purcell, who was doing, during the opening, she was doing live object readings from a security camera upstairs.

And I always have this kind of Cassandra figure, usually in all my work.

And now this was my final collection before closing Gary Graham in Tribeca.

This is just a show, like my collage process, you know, after I develop the fabrics, my favorite thing is to play with them and collage them before they get turned into a garment.

You know, just to note also, knitwear was a big part of my company.

I love designing knitwear because there's just, again, a lot of story you can put within the textile.

And then, you know, I closed the store, I closed my business after 20 years.

And you know, if you've never closed a business, it's pretty, like, it's kind of an incredible experience.

But at the same time, I was dating Sean and not knowing what to do.

I just got this great apartment in the village and I just like, I needed a break.

And Sean asked me like, "Well, what do you want to do?"

And I was like, "I don't know what to do, but I don't want to pay rent anymore and I just wanna be in a place that I own and I wanna make stuff.

You know, I just wanna work with my hands."

I just, that's what I want to do.

That's what I always wanted to do when I was little, I just like made stuff.

And you know, the older you get, it kind of just, everything gets really complicated as you build your dream, right?

So we looked around and we found this building that we could afford.

422 Main Street in a town called Franklin, New York.

This is the building in 1909.

And Sean found this on eBay and I had it kind of blown up.

So originally it was a bank and of post office.

It was always a commercial building.

But of course, like this photo of these three women who I completely just stole ownership of in terms of the narrative, Lily and Marian and Esther.

And started creating this parafictional story of them in terms of like, well, okay, they just went into the bank, they asked for a business loan.

And of course being who they were, they were denied and all the drama that then ensues after that.

And their idea was to start, they were gonna start the first wheat free grist mill, and they were gonna have, you know, daycare.

I mean, I'm totally, it's like a revision of nine to five, I mean, which was a huge, huge influence on me.

Like that, the trio of those women.

I get emotional 'cause it really like saved my life.

Watching them on screen, you know, Dolly, Lily, and Jane just completely rewired my brain.

So I'm in this town and I'm just making stuff up.

I can shoot, there's sunlight, there's room, nobody cares if you take photos of their house.

Nobody, you know, there's no permits, there's no, you know, there's a lot that's not there that, there's a lot there that is, you know, it kind of allows you to breathe.

I also at the same time was making clothes.

So I had this idea of the labor card and what I wanted to do is just show who worked on your garment, how long it took, and then leave it to the customer to kind of do the math.

You know, I go in and out of this conversation with myself, but basically I just thought, "I'm just gonna show the hours.

You can decide what I get paid an hour, or you can decide, you know, all of that."

But it's kind of a conversation.

Actually, the gentleman's name Derek, who's on the card, just by pure coincidence, his grandmother owned the building that we're in during the eighties.

It was a department store.

And again, being attracted to objects and characters and the characters and the objects kind of melding.

So this was a transferware plate of Sean's that I turned into a print.

And again, like my last group therapy, I said, they were like, "What are you gonna do?"

And I was like, "I'm going upstate.

I'm gonna start a narrative driven home shopping network on YouTube.

And you're gonna be able to like, watch these videos and, you know, buy stuff from them and it's just gonna be great."

You know, it's gonna be like "Outlander", "Finding your Roots", "Antiques Road Show".

It's gonna be all this stuff, you know?

It's like the other name of this talk is how grandiosity can destroy you.

So I made these videos and there are a lot of, you know, I learned that I'm not a filmmaker, but I did it.

And some of them are better than others, but really the idea, to the left is I, you know, Black Friday is kind of a nightmare.

So I wanted to do this film, a battle between the Muse of Capitalism and the Fisher King.

And so that was that idea.

And then just like, you know, you can then buy it.

So that was the plan.

Again, objects, this is a ginger jar with decoupage and just thinking about it.

Just the desire to be being attracted to certain things and why, and why we're attracted to things.

And kind of dissecting that and extracting meaning from it.

I was also, there's this incredible mill upstate called Thistle Hill Weavers, owned by a woman named Rabbit Goody.

And so I was working with her, you know, this is a jacquard that was woven for the parlor at the Lincoln home.

And what was great is she would allow me to go up there and just throw wefts, you know, just pick yarns and play with the weft colors.

So again, I'm just making collections, kind of back to what I was doing in terms of making clothes.

But this time my resources were limited.

Sometimes I would just cut into antique fabric.

I also like started continuing my knitwear.

This is a grafted chiffon.

So I learned knit grafting from my friend Liz Collins.

Liz worked on some of my early collections.

And so I've just been, I love that technique of felting and grafting that she invented, really.

Also, you know, it's just so great because there's all these historical homes up there that you can make up stories and get inspired.

When I first moved upstate, I always heard about the Merrickville tunnel.

And so this is an abandoned train tunnel and you know, I just am really interested in the history of the railroad in this country, is so fascinating, but this is a completely abandoned train tunnel.

So these become stories and the pattern of a jacket becomes a pattern in itself.

This is a bargello jacket.

And I was approached by this amazing store called Joyce, Joyce Hong Kong.

They're an incredible boutique department store in Hong Kong, all over China.

And they asked me to do a special collection with this amazing assistant, Vera Powley who I said, "Can you embroider?"

And she just started doing these incredible embroideries over these tourist tapestries.

And then, you know, with all of this, you know, I've decided to go on this adventure of going on TV and being part of a competition.

I'm not a competition show person.

I have, they make, they give me so much anxiety, but I was like, "Okay, this is kind of like what I'm trying to do."

It's like this, like you're buying clothes and seeing the story.

And it was COVID.

So, you know, I hadn't been on a plane in a long time and I kind of like, you know, assessing it out and I was like, "I'm just gonna do this.

I'm just gonna do it."

And so immediately, so the first challenge was we had three days to build two pieces, one off of runway, one wearable, whatever, however they defined it.

And so I was just like, "Okay, this is so I'm gonna tell my story.

And a lot of people, they're gonna be able to, this is it, this is what I've been waiting for and this is really the ticket."

And so this, I went to Rabbit, I was like, "Rabbit, I need, you know, I need, I want a large motif.

I want a ingrain carpet."

This is all she had.

So these were the remnants.

I was like, "Okay, how can I build something out of this?"

Then I went to my favorite army surplus and I was like, "Yeah, you know, I need this.

What's going on, can I get it, you know?"

Also when you're doing these things, you have to get releases from everybody, you know?

So they're like, "Well, what is it you're doing?"

Like, to get the release for that, that tombstone was like, it took forever.

'Cause as soon as they see like Amazon, they're like, no, you know?

So it's just all this and just the drama of producing something, you know, I really just enjoyed the whole experience.

So this is before I get on the plane, I'm doing all this.

And what happened was as I'm building these pieces, I'm like, "I gotta do like the, you know, the basic piece."

And I was like, "Okay, I'll take this motif.

I'll make a print out of it, I'll screen print it."

The only screen printer I could find up there was this amazing guy, Tyler, who runs this company in Oneonta, a university town, and called Stoneonta.

And he did this for me.

And I was like, I just kind of grabbed it and then I was like, "Why did I choose this?

Like, what is this?

You know, like, who's gonna wanna buy this?"

Is it, it's not a flower, it's kind of female looking and what is it?

So then I tried to like over dye it to kind of disguise it.

And then it was just so late I had to kind of go with it.

And then I went on TV and I did the whole thing.

It was an amazing experience.

And then post-production, a year later it comes out and I was like, "No, no one's gonna buy this thing."

And the amazing thing about this experience was, you know, my whole career I was told, you know, you're not scalable, you know?

And when you're talking to people about your business and you're selling ideas, in your head, everyone's gonna want it.

You know, you're like, "Why wouldn't they want this?

Why wouldn't they want this story," you know?

And so being told that, you know, talking about the House of the Seven Gables to some like business consultant and him like, "You're not scalable.

You know, this is way too esoteric."

And what was so amazing for the first time, I had this opportunity to see these ideas converge, you know, and to come to life and for people to respond to them.

And so basically this was this moment where I like got to connect to people and I was like blown away.

And all these people were, you know?

I, you know, this dress sold in the thousands and it was produced in India and it was a silk screen print.

And they did an amazing job and it sold and people loved it.

And for like this moment, I was like, "Okay, I'm definitely gonna have my own TV show now."

And so like, I was like, I gotta do a deck.

You know, the production company was bought by Reese Witherspoon's company.

I was like, "Okay, I did a great job on the show.

I worked really hard.

You know, I was really easy to work with.

I'm gonna have this pitch meeting."

and you know, I just kind of waiting around for the email.

And you know, I waited and waited and I'm just like, this is gonna be so great.

Where I'm gonna live, I'm going live in LA and I could also live in Franklin, but then I'm probably gonna have somewhere in Asia."

Anyway, this kind of faded and I kind of took a break from the whole TV thing and even just making videos, and things just kind of settled.

But what was also great about having a lot of people see your work is a lot of made, you know, people really connected.

And that was just something that I was never able to do on my own.

You know, it takes an army.

But I was approached by the Trustees of Massachusetts to, you know, "Gary, we would love for you to choose one of homes."

So the Trustees of Massachusetts is much like the National Trust in England.

And they're a land trust in Massachusetts and on some of the land they have these historic homes that they're the stewards for.

And this is, I chose as a challenge the old man's because, you know, it's not a gilded age home.

It's very simple in a way, but the history is so loaded.

That's where Ralph Waldo Emerson wrote "Nature".

It's where Nathaniel Hawthorne and Sophia Peabody first married.

And again, I kind of focused on the women who lived there, like Emerson's, Mary Moody Emerson, who was Emerson's aunt.

That was a huge influence on his writing and his way of thinking.

And so I was thinking also about installation and about the different motifs.

This is the bullseye transom in the door and taking these objects and creating them, remaking them into object lessons and the women of the home creating these object lessons with the actual home.

This is also in conquered, it's also in the land where the Revolutionary War started.

It's where the shot heard around the world, around the world was out the window, out, you know, it was on this property.

And so I was thinking about playing with these ideas in terms of analog, in terms of a silk screen, and also digital.

And I was also thinking from a child's perspective how they would interpret these.

And the idea of these phantoms, these house phantoms kind of started to evolve.

And then also always then taking it and then making it into real, quote unquote real life.

This was taken from the attic wallpaper.

And this challenge of really like taking anything and making it into, giving it new meaning, and really studying it.

This was a bracket that, you know, I just kind of made into this motif and this is the bracket sweater.

So the idea of a bracket.

And in the card the bracket was, you know, what do you put on your shelf?

You know, what do you deem worthy of putting on a shelf?

And who's holding up that shelf?

So these were these lessons.

And then I was approached by Kara Walker to collaborate with her on the costumes for her next installation.

This is a photograph of the San Francisco earthquake in 1906.

And so I started this journey of working with her on the costumes.

So to the right is her drawing of one of her characters, Water Bearer.

And it was such an honor to see how she developed these characters and see them in process and kind of respond to their coming like literally to life.

These are my sketches next to her kind of sketches and her doodles of like us communicating and just like the back and forth and kind of trying to understand what she wanted and what was right for it.

So this was a character, Levitator, and she was being, she would go up 30 feet into the air and come down.

And so this is kind of me trying to work it out, thinking about the print artwork and then the complex, you know, these weren't human sized figures.

These were larger than life.

So the pattern making and then all the technical, you know, challenges that went along with it.

This is in Hypersonic who built all of these figures and turned Kara's drawings and sculptures into these moving automatons.

And so again, just trying to work it out.

And so for this character, I was thinking about, well, what is she wearing and what could we do with the textile on this particular character?

And these were quilt, these were textiles that Kara had in her, you know, in her large inspiration research files, she had this amazing cabinet of just files.

And so I was looking at the textile one, and so I said, "You know, Kara, we could kind of do anything."

And she's like, "Well, I have some X-rays, I have some MRIs."

I was like, "Oh, that would be amazing.

Let's, you know?"

So I started playing around with her X-rays and her scans and thinking about them in terms of a quilt.

And so this is where I, you know, Levitator's gown was like over four yards long.

And there's like three panels.

To the left is Belltoller's pants and corset.

Again, taking the digital print and really bringing out, you know, there's a lot of things that go into it.

Again, I worked with this woman, Gina Gregorio, who teaches at Pratt.

And she, we really worked on getting the tones right and it was just, you know, it was just an amazing experience.

At one point I almost had to move in to Hypersonic and then the Navy Yard to really work with the robots and the technicians.

This is the finished installation.

This is a Water Bearer, and Levitator, and then Belltoller.

Harpy was this gown with images of cotton fields.

And she had this gaping hole in the side of her.

All of these also made noise.

This is Levitator's corset using a X-ray of Kara's spine.

This is the main character Fortuna, who had fortunes coming out of her mouth.

The installation will still, it's up for another year.

It closes next July.

So if anyone's in San Francisco, you should see it.

So thinking about the grasp, this is like the grasp.

And trying to weasel my way back into Hollywood.

I had this relationship with Alex Bovaird, who's the costume designer for "White Lotus".

And you know, she was talking about the Wallace collection and I knew she was working on season three.

So I was like, "Well, maybe I should just like think of something."

So I looked at the Wallace collection and I came across this Egyptian lantern and I just kind of worked with Gina on lifting something from that.

And you know, I like to have a lot of transparency where things come from.

I think it's just part of the research and part of the story.

It's still a grasp.

I'm still taking it, but it was really to build this character.

And so the character was the owner of the White Lotus, and I just thought, "Oh, okay, this Egyptian lamp."

I know that Buddhism is a big part of the story.

And so that's this kind of combination.

So it's taking two things and mixing them together, for better or worse.

And so now, like where I'm at is I have this studio practice.

I like to do things where I, not making a garment, where I can set up things, where I explore.

This is just an exploration of different formations of rope and rope combinations.

This is also like a Morse code.

This is like every one, every one of these has a different kind of body movement in terms of like martial arts.

And then also in terms of exploring, again, this idea, this installation of a queer migration, a queer character.

This is a character that came out of the old man's research.

He's wearing a bullseye helmet.

So he's taken the glass from the door and he's wearing that to see the world.

And I also saw this as kind of like the origins of psychedelia.

This is post William Blake, you know, it's like you know, before Timothy Leary, you know, this time of what is the other, you know, in terms of how we see things and the idea that transom was like another person's distortion, could be another's clarity.

So I'm developing this.

This is a show I did where I, it's called Escape Suit.

You know, escape is always kind of a theme for me.

So you get somewhere you want to be, but then you kind of just want to escape.

So this is literally, I just, I took a suit and this transferware object, that was, his name's Erastus.

And Erastus, this is his traveling companion.

And so I drew the transferware onto the panels.

And then this is the shedding the skin of the escape suit.

These are the, you know, negative, these are the cutouts of the suit.

And then also, like, one thing that's happening now with me is where it's like 2D extract, you know, 2D from 3D and then reanimated.

And I recently taught a class at RISD.

This is one of the locations I brought the class in developing this research methodology worksheet in terms of how we approach a space and how we approach the other and how we relate.

Like the grasp.

I love that shirt.

Oh my God, give it to me.

Or, I love that.

I'm gonna take that.

You know, it's like we all, it's all part of it.

So like this parking garage for me is the first time I taught.

So it became this kind of sanctuary because I know I could find a parking space there.

I'm really neurotic about parking.

So I was like, I would always go there and it's this kind of brutalist architecture.

But you know, kind of asking these questions, what do I see?

What am I projecting?

And kind of this nonjudgmental relationship between the two.

And so to the left is a paper study for jacquard design.

And then this is just, this is the current project I'm working on.

And also years and years of taking from historic textiles and motifs and always wondering, you know, who made them, where do they come from?

Then just thinking, working in a more abstract way.

I mean, I'm still relating to the world.

I'm still taking something.

And so, you know, I was thinking, you know, about the theater and I was, I haven't really, I grew up in Newark, Delaware, which is also, it's also a university town.

And this is the state theater where I grew up.

And the state theater was just a really amazing place to go to, to see films that weren't on TV, or films I wasn't able to see.

And I have this memory of, they did this thing every year called the 24 hour movie marathon.

And you could literally like stay in the theater for 24 hours.

So this one experience, I got to see, you know, "Road Warrior", "Evil Dead", you know, Sam Raimi again, all these films that kind of, again, kinda rewired and allowed freedom, you know?

'Cause you're seeing this other world, the original "Blade Runner".

You know, the costumes in "Road Warrior" really just had a huge influence on me.

So.

Where did you go?

In 1984, the British post-punk band, The Cure played here on November 10th.

The same night three teenagers went missing.

They were attending the concert, the stage right Pipe Organ.

Ben Levy, the organist died.

(dramatic music) What are you trying to show me?

(dramatic music) Yeah, I don't believe you.

(dramatic music) Oh, I see you.

(dramatic music) Your pagan ways.

(dramatic music) Your pagan ways won't, they won't fool me this time.

(dramatic music) That's where you live.

(dramatic music) That's who you are.

(dramatic music) What did you do?

What did you do with them?

(dramatic music) (dramatic music continues) - Can you believe they just throw this away?

How long have we been living on this?

- Our sustenance?

Well, I've learned if I take two of the popcorn kernels and sandwich them with a Jujy.

- From the confession stand?

we promise we won't take them.

- I have discovered that the combination of the four grams of sugar in one Jujy, along with the high sodium content of the kernels, when taken on the hour, every hour can create continuous flow of energy and focus.

I've been away for, I've been away for three days.

See, the idea is to keep the maximum level of sodium and sugar in my bloodstream at all times.

And the red ones, they seem more powerful for some reason.

- What are you eating?

- Yesterday I got so old, I felt like I could die.

Yesterday I got so old, I felt like I could cry.

Why don't we live backwards?

Like instead of living towards something, why can't we move away from it?

- That's impossible.

You can't move towards something in reverse.

- Yes, you can.

See, we already know what's wrong with us.

- What do you mean by wrong?

- Our challenges.

You know, the things that could potentially get in our way of our dreams, of our hopes.

- Oh, you mean like how we ended up here?

How you sold this, sold us on this idea how you're hiding.

How we're hiding.

- I'm not hiding.

I want to be here.

See, we all know how, how much space he can take up.

He can be- But that's also how we ended up here, right?

So if you just accept this about yourself, you can accept it and then use it as an obstacle to work towards things.

So you're not totally surprised when things don't go your way.

It's like you factor it in like any other obstacle or challenge or restraint.

It's like, okay, this is the part where I'm totally going to freak out.

So you can just use it as strategy.

- Yes, yes.

Like take the three, no two, no 1.5% of you and get rid of it.

Like redo it.

- But no, that's not what I'm saying.

- I got it.

It's, it's like this.

How you never ask for any help and you think you know everything.

Let's start backwards.

Oh, I'm all alone in my geo dome, in the Redwood forest.

I wish I had been more vulnerable and accepted the love of another human.

- I am open to love.

- Not really, but now you know.

- You need someone to tell you objective things about yourself, to counter the subjective fantasies that you create to build your desire.

It's like, like having a shrink.

Hardwired your subconscious, a filter.

- Oh, just turn it off.

- Well, the objective observation is, I'm awesome.

And my subjective view is, I'm a little more awesome.

They aren't that far apart.

- Light years apart, actually.

(dramatic music) - What was that?

- That's where he died - Yesterday I got so cold, it shivered down my spine.

Yesterday I got so cold, I couldn't leave it behind.

- How do we get out of here?

- Look, are you ready now?

- Go on, go on, just walk away.

Go on, go on, go take the stage.

Go on, go on, just disappear.

Go on, go on, away from here.

- Are you coming?

- And I know I was wrong when I said it was true that it couldn't be me.

Be her in between without you.

Without you.

(dramatic music) (lively music) (lively music continues) (lively music continues) (audience talking indistinctly) (audience talking indistinctly continues)