GALLERY

Featuring this month:
Little Annie Anxiety

curated by Geraldine Baum

Interview   11.23.02

GB: When did you start painting?
LA: I painted a little bit in the 80's because somebody gave me some tempera paints, but I picked it up in the early 90's because my ex-husband had some paints. I was so poor through most of the 80's I couldn't even think of painting, you know, so I pillaged his paints. I seriously only started painting in 1998 and I did 50 paintings in my first year. What happened was, I moved to Brooklyn and I was sharing a loft with some people and there was this huge metal drafters desk and I would make a pot of Bustelo coffee and turn on Curtis Sliwa talk radio and paint all day long and smoke.  So it was really only recently that I started.

So was it also that you had room to paint in a loft?
Well yes but it was really this desk - it was a big metal printers desk - it was about 6 feet long with big metal drawers - it was beautiful and just thought "Oh I've got to paint now - I've got to justify having this desk", you know, it was so beautiful.

What was the first series you started working on?
I started painting these women and they started looking like saints so...a few are up on the website...with cityscapes in the background and women sitting at tables. Those were the early ones.

I've seen those, they're really beautiful...it looked like they were on fabric.
They're on paper also.  I was mixing tempera and watercolor and acrylic. Because I never had any training I never found out what you're not supposed to do, so it was kind of good for me.

When you were in Mexico before September 11 and this series, you were working on a "God and Science" series. Did you go there to work on that?
I had been there a few times before and had tired to paint, but I was using the wrong kind of paper because it was damp where I was nothing would ever dry right, so this time I used a rougher kind of paper. Part of it was to take a vacation. Me and my friend drove into Chiapas and I'm not very good at vacationing and I thought well, let me do some work down here. I don't stand still, once I'm up in the morning, until I'm in bed again, I'm working. So I thought at least I'd be working outside in the fresh air. But also in Mexico they've got the whole tradition of The Day of the Dead and the rest of it and Nature...and I like the idea of mixing certain kinds of patterns in Nature, they're so beautiful.   Things like viruses, slides of viruses, they're actually really beautiful and they remind me of solar systems, so I was trying to mix that all up.

So is there an area of science that you're most interested in?
Well, I love epidemiology. I LOVE epidemiology. I'm fascinated by how viruses spread and how they can lay dormant in your body for years. I was studying Ebola this summer and about how it's been dormant for almost 100 years and all of a sudden, because somebody goes in the wrong cave its back. But really just about any kind of science. I love all that stuff. And the thing is with religion and God and Sciecne, it's just a language difference. It's just semantics. It's a different way of getting to the same place. Even Einstein had a quote...something like "Scientists are looking for a way to describe God" and I love that.

So how does New York feel to you now after this much time has passed sine September 11 and the start of this series?
It's harder now. Last night I was up at September Space which is - they set it up a kind of this place to go after the site closed. I was doing so work up there and I went up out on the ledge to smoke and it was so beautiful last night because it was raining and I was up on the 20th floor and instead of looking down I was looking across at the skyline. But just the just the general vibe of things, it feels like we've got this huge wound, open wound and personally for me, I'm finding harder to deal with than I did a year ago. I was talking to bunch of people who were involved in all that and they say the same thing. I live near the corner of 6th Avenue so I used to look straight down at the towers and it's more haunting now them not being there than when there was a cloud of smoke over them. As long as the recovery effort was going on Ñ you didn't have to think about it. Now there's just a horrible silence.

How did the collaboration with your mother come about? Have you done it before?
She said she wanted to do it and I thought it would be a wonderful idea. I adore her stuff. I was actually surprised how well they fit together considering the styles are so different. Her color is unbelievable, it kills me they way she puts them together. So that's kind of how it came about. It was just a thing that we wanted to do and La MaMa (gallery) is really supportive of me. So it's been terrific.

What visual artists are you inspired by?
Oh gosh, I love Otto Dix, Frida Khalo of course, a lot of the Latin painters, like Diego Rivera but also a lot of the lesser known ones. Kadinsky, I had a Klimt phase a while ago. But Otto Dix is probably my favorite. I like the German edgy stuff.

Do you go to galleries and museums?
No - I'm so bad about using this city. For a while this summer I was getting around. I'm always working now, but it is good to see what people are doing.

What the working process like - you kind of described it before with making a big pot of coffee and working all day.
Well I've got a tiny apartment and I've got an easel that I've set up on my bookshelf. I sleep in my studio, basically and I just listen to the news or throw some music on and work and smoke- but I'm trying to cut down on the smoking.

How long is a stretch of work for you?
Hours, hours and hours. Lately I've been working two hour increments and breaking. I used to work on more than one painting and I'd go back and forth. Sometimes I've gone 8 hours without stopping. That what I ideally try to do - it's just I get physically tired because I'm standing the whole time. I'm going to try to do it sitting upright. Frida Khalo used to paint in bed so I've got that to look forward to. I think in every painting I kind of do what you're not supposed to.   I never trained in anything - I left school when I was 14.  As far as composition, you know, it's down to when it works and I'm lucky and I don't know why. All my hands in my paintings used to be on backwards because I didn't know anatomy and it really used to bug my ex-husband.  One morning I woke up with my hand all crooked and I said "How did my hand get like this? " and he said "You must have painted it." because it was all twisted around. (laughs)

So when you were 16 you fronted the Asexuals and were performing at places like Max's Kansas City. What was that like?
Well it was so much fun down here because I lived in this neighborhood on 5th Street and you couldn't pay anybody to live down here then - in the 70's, so it was cheap and it was funky and you had Max's Kansas City up the street and it was all the leftover Warhol crew and the Belmore Cafeteria at night and it was funky, dangerous - but funky, and I was little kid, so it was wonderfully glamorous. That was until the 80's came and everyone dropped dead, you know what I mean?

When you were 17 you met Steve ignorant of Crass and you moved to England - how did that come about?
Well we started writing and I was just going to go to London to visit. Basically I was here - I was dancing - you know none of us were really doing anything - we were just running around being fabulous.  We weren't making living, but it was good then in New York because you didn't have to make much to get by. So I went to visit and then right away started working with them and it just seemed like the place I should be because I was working. It wasn't even a question or deciding it was just - I was working.

Did you make your first album there?
Yes. It was great. I did a single with Crass and that was interesting, but I did my first album with Adrian Sherwood and with all the Jamaicans and we'd be up for 2 or 3 days and there'd be different people coming in they'd leave and we'd take one multi track off and then we'd work on a Prince Faraz multi track and Sherwood was around - there so many characters in those days.  We'd be living on Guinness and cheese sandwiches. I learned a lot. I learned a lot and it was also a lot of fun.

Do you like the process of recording?
Well they're all a lot of fun, but out of everything to do, being in the studio is my least favorite, because you're locked in. I've worked on albums where I've gone in in the spring and then come out and the leaves were changing and I'm like what the hell happened? No so much on this one I'm working on now because we recorded everything live and it was very fast and weÕre mixing it really slowly. I really like playing live.

Tell me about the album you're recording now.
Well, Antony of Antony and the Johnsons and Joe Budenholzer from Backworld are producing it. We've got three more songs to mix and will hopefully get it done by the end of the year. I was supposed to start recording this album when I got back from Mexico - the week of September 11, 2001 and at first we were going to go into the studio and first of all the studio was on Canal Street and plus we were like "who the fuck wants to make a record, fuck making a record" you know, no one was in the mood for it, so it got delayed a little bit.

Do you have a title for the album yet?
No not yet, because it keeps changing.

What was the last album you did?
Well I've done a lot of collaborations with people like Coil and Current 93 and this hip hop band from London called Collapsed Lung - we had a single out together. I had an EP of my own out last year called "Diamonds are Made of Glass" out on Drag City Records.

Do you have any plans to release your first album Soul Possession on CD?
I would love to - the problem is this guy John Loder from Southern Studios has it held hostage right now. I was making these records at 17 years old - I didn't know anything so I was sort of an easy mark. He's got the tapes, which is a shame because it's kind of sitting there rotting. I think he's waiting for me to die. (laughs) Because then he wonÕt have to pay royalties and I think he thinks that it will help sell, so he's waiting for me to die, but he's going to have to wait. He can just wait. But I'd love to have that one back. I've had so many companies approach me for that album its silly for it just sit there like it's in the Smithsonian.

He wonÕt sell it back?
Well he wants to sell it for a lot of money. It's a shame because it's just sitting there deteriorating. But that's life. That's the record business.

So you do a lot. You're currently writing your autobiography.
I wrote it and what happened was Virgin was supposed to put it out and they didn't, which I'm kind of glad about because so much has happened since then. The covers were printed and everything and they wrote me week of September 11 2001, and said "We hope you are OK, we hope your friends are OK. And given the current economy we don't feel this is the right time to release this book." So I've got it back, which is good. I haven't been shopping it because so much has happened since I finished it, it wouldn't be honest to put it out as it is right now. Also - I started writing at 40 and it felt like someone was trying to get me to cash my chips in early. It's something I really want to do when IÕm 80, not 40. Its kind of strange to be telling your life story when you don't know what your life is yet.

Did the act of writing your autobiography help you figure out things from the past?
No (laughs) Actually in a way it did because what it gives you perspective. When you're going through things you think "OK this is it, my life is finished. I canÕt survive this. ThereÕs no way out. My life is over." And when you see you've done that already 10 or 15 times in your life and you've got a whole new life again, it's nice to be able to look back and see that - you've got this future reference and you see that you can survive things. So in that respect it did sort stuff out, but as far a big sort of psychological catharsis, no. I've been blessed to have a forum to express myself and if I want to sort myself out, I'll go to a therapist or a priest. I don't want to use the audience as free therapy. I've seen artists who do that. You know - everyone's life is hard. We're born into a struggle...we struggle our whole lives...and then we die and then well, whatever your belief system is. So to go and pay 15 or 25 dollars to hear an artist say, "Oh, woe is me"...get the fuck out of here. Unless it's entertaining...I'm all about entertaining. So with the book the publishers and I had some artistic differences because on the book jacket they wanted to write "She survived heroin, guns, knives, crime, grief, sickness"...and I was like c'mon - it's like tomorrow on Oprah, we came to a happy median by the end. But the whole process was interesting in terms of what you are able to survive.

That idea ties into this series (September 11). Do you see survival as a major point here?
OhÉsurvival is everything. Everything. It's like death and rebirth...you keep constantly going through that in life. Which is not always pleasant, but necessary because you can't have new without discarding your old self continually, which is usually not a gentle, loving, "Hallmark" kind of process, you know it's usually really agonizing. Then I think you come out being reborn. With September 11 - the beauty I saw in that was how people responded, but there's no way it's ever not going to be a hideous wound for people to bear. We're all going to bear that. Like everybody wears their wounds. But you learn to incorporate those wounds. And this city came back really amazingly. I thought we were finished...I though that was it. I thought, "It looks like World War I. This is it forever." And it's hard here now. We se how many businesses are closing, all the cutbacks. It's going to be rotten here for a long time, but you survive.

Are you going to stay in New York?
Oh yes, I love it here. I'm glad I did my time somewhere else, but I just love it here. I won't go anywhere else. When you love something, it's about loving it in the tough times too. And to me it's about loyalty. The people that chose to leave, I have no problem with...if they're scared or they can't make a living here or if it's too sad for them, I can't criticize that. For me personally, I haven't even wanted to travel since this happened. I don't want to leave because I want be here to love it. I mean New York is a survivor. If you look back in the history of this city, we've always had troubles and we've bounced back, so hopefully we will again.

Lttle Annie will be performing at LaMaMA December 19-29. See "Peformances" for details.