Pin ups
So art stuck with me and I decided very early on that I wanted to have an art and acting career which was very taboo, because you were only allowed to have one career or you were considered a dilettante so I was fighting that, but I knew inherently that I had to do both that my art would save me with the acting when things were difficult and then back and forth.
And I would go to Fredericks of Hollywood and I fell in love with the catalogues of the sexy girls that wore negligees and they were nude underneath and also sexy corsets and bras so that stuck with me. And then years later. I found myself – many years later starting to make the pinups with animal rescue drawings cause I’ve always loved animals of all kinds but I wasn’t allowed to have a pet at home. Neither was my brother and I had a deep deep love for animals, which I carry to this day and I feel that they’re the best part of us.
I pair the pinups with the animals and they protect each other and the pin ups like they start off from circa 1850’s to 1970’s, which includes some of my self portraits with the polaroids – some of which are over here. That’s one of them with the red parrot and then there’s a couple of others there’s an “Airways” with a black bunny
[…] I love bunnies too and I hate that they’re being experimented on with these farming cages, it’s really nightmarish, so I’ve been making more bunny drawings too to go with the pinups […]
I did a collaboration with the late John Schroeder in the 70’s and Joe and Rick Potts at Otis. I was modeling at that time and showing my work I was starting to show my work at museums and galleries cause I had to make a living and I hadn’t decided to go back to acting until later in life in my forties and then when I got back into acting, I decided to stick with it and do both careers for the rest of my life.
Track 16
So I met Laurie [Steelink] in 2010. Actually, I met her way early a lot in years before that. I always loved Track 16 and I had a feeling – a strong feeling that I could connect with this venue and then I was in touch with Laurie for a long time. Then she invited me to lunch in Chinatown and she asked me to bring this new series of pinups with animals and I was working with Sharpies at that time.
So then Laurie told me that she wanted to include me in Track 16 for the punk show and she gave me a beautiful installation and they’re here, some of them The gallery kept the early ones, which are at the bottom […] which is really great. And then Sean [Meredith] invited me to do a two or three person show here so – which was really thrilling for me and then I worked on the rest of the series.
It’s a combination of French lesbian pinups from the 40’s and 50’s that Pierre Picot sent me from Paris in a magazine, so I cut up the whole magazine to make that series there, I including all of them here and then Elmer Batters who was a sailor in the 40’s during World War II. Then he formed a club, a photography club of amateur photographers and started taking photographs of models from the 50’s, 60’s, and 70’s and he had a big foot fetish so I included.. they’re included here too. He loved feet and shoes and stockings so and then he’d work up higher and higher to the rest of the body.
Video: Cesar Delgadillo, Photos: Track 16, Sean Meredith