Hey, who likes to read? I ask that question, because as I begin this newsletter/website installment/text piece, I’m frightened by how much I want to write. So, if you like to read, you are in the right place! If you don’t, maybe just look at the colorful pictures. Like this one:
This is a picture of my fine art masterpiece Then and Now (Circles: Coreopsis Moonbeams, Irises, Poppies, Forest Road). I completed it just this past September, it is very sparkly, and as of now it is in the final stages of being acquired for THE PERMANENT COLLECTION AT THE RISD MUSEUM! Now this might sound like bragging, boasting, gloating, or possibly bloatgragsting, but won’t you please allow me this indulgence for once in my life in consideration of the fact that at the ripe old age of 46 and almost 25 years into my professional art career, this is the first time a museum has purchased my work? Please??
I’m very excited, and so proud to have this milestone in my life forever linked to the wonderful RISD Museum who is known for their impeccable preservation and archiving, their hands-on educational programs and accessibility to students, their smart curation of the RISD Museum collections and rotating exhibitions, and as an institution on the forefront of challenging boundaries and classifications between and among fine art, craft, design, and fashion!
While we’re on the topic, they also bought one of these:
It’s one of my Stranger in my Mirror (Inspirational Shirt Kit) limited edition silkscreen prints, and you can buy one, too, right here in the website SHOP!
Also, if you would like to see my new companion pieces to the one the RISD Museum is purchasing, please visit the THEN AND NOW department in my FINE ART MASTERPIECES galleries. Prices available on request!
I’ve been doing a little bit of graphic design work lately, guys! I’m very proud of the cover I designed for Lauren Hilger’s new book of gorgeous poetry, Lady Be Good published by Civil Coping Mechanisms:
Information about the book and links to sellers can be found HERE!
Speaking of design, you probably already know that I designed the CD & vinyl record covers and packaging for Jim Andralis’ masterpiece of music and one of the Miami Herald’s “best solo debut discs of the year”, Your Dying Wish Come True, but did you know that I was nominated for an Independent Music Award for my cover art?
I didn’t win, but now I understand what people mean when they say that it is enough to just be nominated, because that is really how I felt! In honor of my humble modesty and good sportsmanship, I have added Jim’s CD’s, records, and t-shirts
to my SHOP! Here’s a special perk that you get by having a stitch queen running the operation: if you prefer a scoop – or ballet, as I like to call it – neck on your t-shirt rather than a crew neck, I will alter the neckline for you FOR FREE!
Something else about this Jim Andralis, whoever he may be (he’s my husband, OK?), he will be performing at Mercury Lounge on January 4 at 9pm with an assembled band that includes Susan Hwang, Leslie Graves, Jessie Kilguss, and Larry Krone (he’s my singing partner, too, OK?)! Our plan and pledge to you present and future Jim Andralis fans is to sing beautifully, wonderfully, and gorgeously in a way that makes you both laugh and cry. Please come!
Now, back to my fine-ass art:
I took this picture in the bathroom of the Howl! Happening space in New York. I’d heard that the installation I made there in 2011 had been preserved, but I wasn’t prepared to have my heart warmed to quite the degree that it was when I visited recently. I tell the story here in their blog.
Hi!
I hope you readers enjoy the above photo depicting my fantasy family! It was gleaned from one of my favorite Instagram procrastination aids, poodlelove, not to drop names.
I show it to you to illustrate the complete opposite of what my family looks like to me these days, the theme of which has been creeping into my acclaimed interdisciplinary art practice! It is new for me to speak so directly in my work about the details of my personal life, so I feel like it is worth announcing: I wrote some songs that I have been keeping mostly to myself until now. They are about how pissed off, hurt, heartbroken, and confused I am by my interactions with my parents over the past few years. I suppose that comedians, novelists, poets, and we songwriters deal with this issue all of the time—how to use the truth in our work without hurting the people who are in our stories and destroying those relationships. My relationship with my parents couldn’t be much worse, so that is not my concern, but it is still worth asserting my standard disclaimer so you don’t assume the worst of the real people who I write about: my songs are often about fleeting moments of intense—sometimes embarrassing, often surprising to me—emotion that I might otherwise forget. Usually, long before the song is written, I have already dealt with the feelings and situations, and everything is fine. But I remember them, and those moments are powerful and telling and good for expressing what I want to say about myself and the world in my songs. (Disclaimer to the disclaimer: sometimes they aren’t that fleeting, and I still feel that way!) Please enjoy the following lyrics with my compliments:
“Sh#t, Motherf*@ker, G!dd%m” (Do any kids read this??)
“Breaks My Heart” (This one is a good example of writing about a moment. Don’t worry about my brother & me. We are fine!)
On the lighter side: “What,” you may ask, “is going on in the House of Larréon??” Answer: “Um, some stuff…” (That was said with an affectedly ambivalent Valley Girl accented fashion sneer)
Well, this is more him than me, but Kevin Yatarola, the virtuosic concert photographer who happens to be one of the 2 photographers of Look Book, has a great rotating collection of his photographs on permanent exhibit at Joe’s Pub! Needless to say, House of Larréon is well represented there in a version of this photo of Champagne Jerry
…as well as in other photos. Please go check out the exhibit which is on the wall in the lobby of the Public Theater opposite the entrance to Joe’s Pub.
In other news, since I last wrote, we fulfilled the “Todd Oldham Experience” Look Book benefit auction item, purchased by Studio Sofield and modeled by the beautiful and talented designer & Vice President of the firm, Emma O’Neill. Thank you, guys!! Without you, we couldn’t have printed Look Book! For the shoot, we brought back the original team including Todd, Frances Sorensen doing hair and makeup, and House of Larréon (me) providing the clothes accessories and styling. Here is ONE of the incredible photos that resulted. It features one of House of Larréon’s newest items, a Dr. Larréonstein patchwork cowboy hat!
In other Larréon news: Bridget Everett!!
The House of Larréon muse has been on fire, and fueling the flame has been her Larréons!! No, she hasn’t been literally burning her gowns, though some of the more refined tastemakers in fashion might advise it. What I mean is, those titties have been glittering, frittering, teasing, and achieving all over the world, barely draped by the luxury of Larréon. Of note recently was Bridget’s solo debut at New York City’s Town Hall as a headliner of the New York Comedy Festival. It was a thrill to see her in some classic Larréons like Zig Zags, East Meets Breast, and Zebra Mama, but nothing made this mama prouder than when she opened the show with the debut of ALISP or At Least It’s Still Pink and it’s matching Itsy Bitsy Bikini top later in the show.
Bridget has also been getting a ton of press with many House of Larréon shout outs and gown modelings. Some highlights: Elle Magazine, Time Out New York, and Grub Street.
Coming up for House of Larréon: some new looks for Bridget, of course, a continuing effort to bring affordable fashion to my online store (Right now check out our hot-selling Dr. Larréonstein Patchwork Ski Hats and Dr. Larréonstein Monster Tees. They are cheap and chic, and made with high design sensibilities with my own hands!), and I am most excited right now to be working on some diaphanous, elegant, space age, sexy, flowy, stage gowns for my favorite new singer/songwriter electronic soul sensation sister act, The Curry Puffs! They will debut the looks at a special gig on January 13th at Ladies, Wine & Design. I hope you all can go!
Something extra: I’ve been spreading the Larréon love and sharing the expertise with our children at FASHION CLUB!
This is more of a creative activity than an art project, but lately my life has been enriched by Fashion Club, which was founded and is now directed by my niece, Iris, and me. We get together with 3 other members, talk, draw, design, drape, and sew. This is not an afterschool camp or babysitting venture, we are for real!
Other things coming up:
Look out for the new Howth video coming out sometime in 2017. It’s about the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, the music is excellent, and I am ACTING in the video in the role of Policeman #2. The music is by Carl Creighton & the video was filmed & edited by Alex Aaron.
I will be spending all of February in residence at Yaddo working on a new, very ambitious interdisciplinary art project. I can’t wait!
I am in preliminary talks with my favorites, the Hand2Mouth Theatre, about collaborating with them on the design of a new theatrical piece they are doing. This collaboration is 10 years in the making- if it happens it will be my dream come true!
Last but not least, don’t forget about Look Book! It’s still a gorgeous, groundbreaking work of laboriously wrought love, style, sexiness, and fashion, and it is still for sale in my SHOP! Don’t forget, 25% of all sales go to the Willie Mae Rock Camp for Girls. So far, that has added up to $800 for them to use toward scholarships and programing! Also, I am looking for LGBTQ or women’s reading rooms or lending libraries that might like a copy. If anybody out there would like to recommend one, please pass on the information to me, and I would love to send them one for free.
If you are still reading this, thank you! Happy New Year to you. I hope 2017 is as good to you as you have been to me in 2016.
By the way, this site was designed and made by Matt Fisher. Don’t you want one like it? Hire him!!