Part one...a little fact and a lot of fiction:
I am thinking about Rachel's prom dress...the dress itself and also its portrait, which I painted a few years ago.... A vintage dress with tulle and daisies can really make my head spin!
Rachel's prom dress had its own story, before she bought it in an LA thrift store circa ...Hmmm.....
Maybe.........
Maybe, maybe, maybe..the dress was from 1961...maybe it had belonged to a starlet, a lemon cake frosting blond who spent hours in the morning working on her hair so it flipped up just like Marilyn Monroe's! Maybe her name was Betty (but actually Doreen)...
Maybe she had bought the dress with the good tips she earned while serving rhubarb pies and cherry cokes at Schwab's Pharmacy.. Maybe she had hoped to wear that dress for opportunity…hoped she would be taken out by the important movie people who she waited on at Schwab's. MAYBE this had been the promise she had made to her mother when she made her big move away from Bakersfield...Maybe she could be just like Lana Turner.
But really she was too smart for that. These customers were THE MOST rude ring-around the collar-has-beens. The casting couch that they directed her towards was far too dingy for that pretty dress with daisies! And so…Betty returned the dress to the store that it came from.
Pretty soon after she stopped working at Schwabs.... moved on to The Brown Derby…. Anyway…she started wearing black. Mini-skirts, with white go-go boots. She cut off all her hair like Mia Farrow…. and she never thought about that daisy dress again.
Part two-prom is stupid...teenage betrayal...etc.
In highschool, I thought that I was way too cool for prom. Now I meet guys I wish I had known back then....I can imagine us...breaking all the highschool rules. It could have still been cool...painting beautiful graffiti on the gym lockers...
I adopted Rachel's prom dress...she gave it to me because she didn't go to prom that year either....because her boyfriend was pretty cute. But spineless. He asked another girl to prom..I'm sure that girl had a boring dress too.
So...even though I have often said that prom was stupid, prom was lame...I took this whole thing very seriously... I felt terrible for Rachel....and for the dress. I packed it up in tissue and kept it in a hat box. On the highest shelf in my teenage closet. And I didn't even open that box until about three years ago when I was visiting my family in Los Angeles....
Part 3 (process) ...the flashing neon sign above my head said *flirt with me because I am a sad girl * and I didn't want to be that girl....and so I switched the sign. And I stopped painting sad paintings. And then I started doing this dress series. Actually there is more to it.....
It was after a long series on wooden panels that I had made in tribute to my mom...57 paintings all about her based on photo album rejects. Photos that came from a box that I found hidden in her closet..these paintings were personal but not private...bittersweet but not immediately...and how often I was told that I had a flair for the psychological. The series was successful...but I needed a new project...
My boyfriend at the time had advised me to be controversial...The post-mom paintings should have a political slant. So I tried that. I made lifesize paintings of George and Laura Bush, in their underpants. It was fun! But mostly because I loved painting the gaudy flowers on Laura's slip...and even better...collage-ing vintage comic book cowboys and bomber planes to George W's tighty whiteys. SO fun!
I made about 6 political paintings...the last ones were probably 25% political and 75% textile, collage and patterns....And this was when i began painting dresses...
Listening to Roy Orbison an awful lot in my studio...I bought a craigs list dress dummy..dressed it up in Rachel's prom dress...and voila...
A Mysterious Dress
with complicated stories...obsessive broken hearts, lonely hearts, Broken California dreaming hearts. Who really knew all the stories, but the dress itself? This is one reason why I painted Rachel's Prom dress from the back...
Part Four
Self Portraits in the daisy dress..
I had never even thought of wearing it...and I havent worn it outside of a photograph.
I took those self portraits (last october?) just to lift my spirits...pure fantasy and escape on a day when i was feeling romantically miserable.
This dress is the most romantic piece of clothing that I have ever worn...even if it didnt get worn to a prom...it is something so timeless that it transcends me I guess. And taking the time to paint the dress, to wear the dress, photograph or write about it? The inspiration that comes from Rachel's prom dress has distracted me from....see? I must have have already forgotten about him! XX
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