Credits for Sexecology Exhibit

Credits for Sexecology Exhibit

GREEN WEDDING

Sustainable Green Wedding Couture Design and Creation: Kaytea Petro
Silk Bras and Corsets:
Ms. Antionette’s Versatile Fashions
Bob the Dog’s leather costume:
Kaytea Petro and others
Costume Assistance:
Vanessa Brunet, and 30 other helpers at two sewing bees. Feminist Kraft Corner, Lindsay Kelley and Nada Miljkovic, and others.
Beth’s Staff:
Lindsay Winslow and her mom, Mrs. Winslow
Photos
: Lydia Daniller
Set Design:
Shannon Walsh with Alan Tollefson & Assistants
Dangling Balls with recycled glass, parachute:
Shannon Walsh
Butterfly Bridal Bouquet and Boutonnier Scupltures:
Angela Ellsworth
Wedding Cake:
Suzanne Geneste Besme and the Cake Gallery
Other credits in the programs on the small table.

GREEN WEDDING VIDEO

Performers in order of appearance: Veronica Hart, Linda Montano, Geoffrey Hendricks, Camille Norton, Greg Archer with Tobin Keller and Rose, Joseph Kramer, Emma McNairy, Nolan Plant with Nina Chase, Cynthia Wehr: Sadie Lune with Lady Monster, Jennier Gonzales, Ms. Antionette, Alessandro Rumie, Alan Tollefson, Victoria Singh, Danielle Abrams, Isabelle Reichert and Sean Fletcher, Madions Young, Tirza Latimer, Helen and Newton Harrison, Guillermo Gómez-Peña, Elizabeth Stephens and Annie Sprinkle, Glen Navarra Domingo, Tina Takemoto.
Video Edit:
Adam Harms
Videographers:
Max Cirigliano, Christina McFee, David Fine, Kari Nevil, Ghristopher Guerrero, Jordon Tynes, Evan Wilson, Marc Loriston, Joshua McVeigh-Shultz
Wedding production Director:
Janna Barnes
Wedding production Manager:
Alicia Relles

GREEN DISPLAY CASE: Wedding Performance Ephemera
Display case design created by Ruby Pearl
Display case on loan from
Industrialists.biz (next door)
Green Wedding Rings:
Ruby Pearl

Bridal Jewelry: Augusta Szego
Pillow:
Anna Fock
Custom Made Bridal Scents:
Libby Paterson
Earth Bags:
Emilia Katkov
Hair extensions:
Deena Davenport of Glama Rama!
Stuffed frog on case:
Linda Montano
Hawaiian Shirt:
Tony Debone
Green toy box:
Philo Northrup
Green pot of dirt performance ephemera:
Madison Young
Annie’s Shoes:
Nolan Plant
Headstand Toe Words:
Geoffrey Hendrichs
Bull Dog Photo:
King Eric and Cecile
Wood Sculptures:
Mike Rhienhart
Good Times Magazine Cover Story:
Greg Archer
Zagreb Ring box and rings:
Sasa Sekoranja
Beth’s Zagreb Crown on top of case:
Irena Rickovic
Love Art Lab Spoken Word CD:
Guttersaint (Tom Garretson)

BLUE DISPLAY CASE: Wedding Performance Ephemera

Annie’s Shoes, Beth’s Boots, purse: Sarah Stolar with Jeff Medinas
Dildo Performance Ephemera:
Sadie Lune & Lian Suffuentes
Believer magazine article about Wedding to Sea:
Michelle Tea
Carved Sky Ring:
Ariel Moss
Beth’s Staff:
Sarah Stolar
Cake topper:
Luke Dixon
Fans:
Shelly Marlo

Printing of the blue program in Venice: Pia Covre

BLUE WEDDING SLIDE SHOW
BLUE WEDDING TO THE SEA, VENICE BIENNALE, ITALY

Photographers: Gigi Gatewood, Tom Garretson, Tony and Golden Debone, Mark Snyder, Graham Bell Tornado
ANTI-PRIEST:
Beatriz Preciado,
MASTER OF CEREMONIES:
Jota Castro
PLEASURE PRIESTESS:
Dr. Carol Queen,

HOMILY: Michelle Tea

KUM: Zvonimir Dobrovic
CERULEAN BEARDED SEAMALES:
Lian Amaris & Sadie Lune
GODFATHER & GODMOTHER
Tony & Golden De Bone
FRENCH ROYALTY:
King Erik et Mamita de K-bull
BRIDES’ MAID & GROOMSMAN:
Sarah Stolar and Jeff Medinas
VIRTUAL MAID OF HONOR:
Virginie Despentes (In Absentia)
BLOWER GIRL: Merlene Schain,
RING BEARER:
Simona Homorodean
WATER GIRL:
Dominique Deyber
SM-oke:
Fred Marciniak,
ALL CHANT AMORE:
Beatriz Preciado
BURNING LIGHTS:
Guttersaint
HIDDEN DELIGHTS DELFT BLUE OCEAN UNDERWARE:

Harry Ruhe’ with Hugo Kaagman and Jeanette Dekeukeleire

HOOP/STAFF PARTNER WAVE DANCE: Starlight and Neptune
THE FUN OF CASTRATION--BLUE VERSION:
Tim Stüttgen aka Timi Mei Monigatti
SWISS MERMAIDS:
Maggie Tapert, Bettina, Esther-Maria, Daggi
POEM BY VENICIAN CORTESAN VERONICA FRANCO:
Pia Covre
INSPIRA L'AMORE:
Rolf Baltromejus
A FLOWER OF THE SEA:
Kyrahm + Julius Kaiser
WHAT HAVE WE DONE TO DESERVE THIS?
tR(ans)evolutionary eCoterrorists Graham Bell Tornado & Glamereuse Gay Bait.
26 LOVE LETTERS TO THE SEA:
Adrienne O’Hanlon
BLUE WRAP:
Natalie LovelessAMERICAN BURLESQUE SENSATION: Lady Monster
WATER INTO WINE PRIEST:
John Mueller
KEVLAR CHADOR FOR NEDA:
Jane Sullivan
ALTAR BOY:
Bernard Thimonnier
BLUE SQUIRTING FONTANA:
Diana Pornoterrorista
BLUE WEDDING TO THE SKY, OXFORD ENGLAND
Wedding Produced by
Luke Dixon

Hosted by Polly McLean & Grove House in Oxford, England
Slide show edited by
Adam Harms
Oxford photographers:
Del LaGrace Volcano, Eleanor Lindsay-Fynn, Sarah Ainslie, Petra Joy
Performers/artists pictured:
The Contessanessa, Veronica Hart, Sean Bruno, Violetta Storm, Polly ClLean & Rose McCaffee, Alexandria Lewis, Jamie Russel, Samanta Goodlet, Scottish Weirdos, Clare Cochrane & Sushila Dhall, Rolf Batromejus, Alex Glave, Luke Dixon, Ariel Moss, Del La Grace Volcano, Mithu Sunyal, Amber Hickey, Morticia Cahterine, Uri Baruchin, Cici Blumstein, Tessa Willis, Lexi Bradburn, and others. (See program.)

BLUE WEDDING

Vegan Bridal Couture Head to Toe: Sarah Stolar
Bridal Costume Making assistants:
Jamie Farrell and Jeff Medinas
Telephone Communication Bridal Bouquet Sculptures:
Angella Ellsworth
Venetian masks:
Sarah Stolar
Framed Wedding Photographs:
Gigi Gatewood
Headstand Toe Words:
Geoffrey Hendricks
Kite above the Shop:
Stephanie Lady Monster

 

In the desk display case:
Wedding Album:
Tony & Golden DeBone,
Butterfly wings gift:
Unknown.

TULIPS & PENIS polaroid transfer with text by MARCO VASSI
From the COLLECTION OF JOSEPH KRAMER
SEXECOLOGICAL COLLAGES

Top Left: Stephens/Sprinkle with Adam Harms
Bottom Left: Stephens/Sprinkle with Tessa Wills
Top center: Stephens/Sprinkle with Camille Norton
Bottom center: Stephens/Sprinkle with Camille Norton
Right Top: Stephens/Sprinkle with Camille Norton
Right Bottom: Stephens/Sprinkle with Camille Norton

WATER & CLOUD PHOTOGRAPHS BY ELIZABETH STEPHENS

ANNIE SPRINKLE & ELIZABETH STEPHENS WISH TO THANK

Madison Young for curating our show at Femina Potens, all the Femina Potens. Thanks to ALL the wonderful, delightful and generous Femina Potens staff and volunteers—especially Malia Schlaefer. We could not have done this exhibit if not for the grant writing help of Jeff Jones and Beth Pickens of the Queer Cultural Center.Thanks to the San Francisco Arts Commission for a generous grant from their cultural equity program. And a grant from the UCSC Arts Research Councel. Thanks Katharine Gates for designing the post card.Industrial.biz we love you for loaning us the glass display case. Special thanks to our Love Art Lab volunteers, Stephanie Lady Monster, Tessa Wills for installation help.

Additional Sexecological Collages (in the tub) by Ruby Pearl, Lady Monster, Tessa Wills, Haley McConlogue, and Adam Harms

Green Year Gallery Installation

Green Year Gallery Installation

We installed our green and blue year projects together, in an exhibit at Femina Potens Gallery in San Francisco. We called the show SEXECOLOGY: Making Love with the Earth, Sky and Sea. Exhibited were collages, drawings, photographs, texts, our wedding costumes and ephemera. The opening reception was packed when we performed some of our research about Sexecology and ecosexuality.

It takes a village to install an art exhibit, and we couldn’t have done it without the wonderful Femina Potens volunteers, and our generous and talented friends, Lady Monster, Tessa Willis, Ruby Pearl (who designed the glass case display and made the green wedding rings), Adam Harms, Hallie McConlogue, and others. Katharine Gates designed some.

This exhibit was supported in part by grants from the San Francisco Arts Commission’s Cultural Equity Grants Program, UCSC Arts Research Institute, and generous support from the Queer Cultural Center. We especially want to thank Madison Young, who is the woman behind Femina Potens, for her continued support of the Love Art Laboratory project. Click Here for the Exhibition Credits

End of Year Summary

End of Year Summary

A 15-minute stream-of-consciousness writing by Elizabeth Stephens

Year of love. Compassion was hard to come by at times. At other times it flowed like honey on the comb. This has been my favorite year so far. Lush and natural, in nature, love of nature. Sexecology was the perfect way to end the year. Being buried in the earth, in the dirt. Getting dirtier and dirtier. Formulating the Mountain Top Removal project. Trying to save the green, green mountains. The beautiful green mountains that are being blown away so that we can have our electronic toys, our mountain killing toys. Meeting the people who are living in the mountains. Risking their lives to save the mountains. This year seemed to come easy, the work came easily. Lots of love, lots of fun. Green is my favorite color, the color of my eyes. Especially when I am near green. The heart, compassion and love. Environmentalism. The formulation of the graduate program. It is coming along. Working with the Harrisons has been wonderful. Amazing minds and amazing art. I can’t say I feel that way about so many. The Interventionist Festival was wonderful. Interrupt!! Intervene!! Rethinking Art as Social Practice. This event brought together a gathering of powerful artists trying to change the world. If our program could be activated and actually help artists to learn to do this then I would get some satisfaction at my job. Hopefully the future will be more interesting than the past. This chakra does make me feel hopeful. As if there is a huge green world to explore. Mother earth to marry to take as a lover and to be taken as fertilizer. It all goes round. I wish Diane were here. She would have enjoyed this eclectic journey. Green. I wonder why it is also the color of jealousy. I seem to be getting over that in some small ways. Perhaps being in the green year has made that possible. That would be a relief. We also made the worst piece of our work together. It is so bad it is almost somehow good. Hilarious. This is the year that is going to launch this project. I’m not certain what that means but I can feel in in my bones. The green weddings. Santa Cruz could not have been better. Beautiful ritual, beautiful collaboration. Love fest extraordianary. New friends. Zagreb. Different culture. Had to catch up a bit. It’s good to have to catch up everyone should have to. Green means go signifies growth, the color of money. This is the year that all the money disappeared. As bad as it might get it may be a good thing to have to reassess global capitalism. Reassess and grow. Grow into blue.

A 15-minute stream-of-consciousness writing by Annie Sprinkle

Ahhhh, green. How I love you, how I love you… Wish I could stay with, and in you, forever. But I’m off and running to dive into the blue deep throat. I’m told there are more shades of green than any other color. I think its true. Feel like we saw and experienced many shades. Each morning looking out from our Boulder Creek windows at the mountains full of redwood trees was so fitting. Doing green year in green environment. It was indeed a year of love and compassion. Green is delicious, ecstatic and I am fulfilled by the love of green. And love of Beth, with whom I had many green adventures in embrace and dance of compassion. Marrying the Earth, with fabulous Guillermo Gómez-Peña as our High Aztec Priest—was the climax highlight of the year. Our big fat Green wedding big fat love fest all around. After vows we definitely felt more connected and bonded with our generous Earth lover, and continue to carry on this three-way relationship with her. Fecund. Fecund. Dirty, earthy, wet green grass, mushrooms growing in moss. Scent of pine. My nipples squirt green love. Wow, a mature relationship with my baby Beth. She’s so good to me, and I feel more loved than ever. It was a happy year. Travels across green globe, people all so kind and generous. We entered the environmental movement with glee, and it feels so right. It’s time. Maybe I’m becoming a green witch at last. Less of a red witch. Sexuality moves up to heart; red libido low, green libido high. Our doggy Bob’s love so pleasurable too. He is shiny, silky from flax seed oil in his food. Handsome and buff--a love sponge that drips back on me. Earth is great. Earth is good. Good-bye green. Fare well green. Hello Earth, blue sea, blue sky. Hello deep throat. This Love Art Lab project is feeling like a fairy tale. Green frogs. Thank you GREEN.

Performance Karaoke Meets The Love Art Lab

Performance Karaoke Meets The Love Art Lab

Performance art living treasure, Guillermo Gómez-Peña, invited us to join him for some “performance karaoke” at SF Camerawork Gallery. How could we say no? We adore Guillermo, love his work, and it sounded like fun. We were to be part of his art project, “exploring the interface between performance and photography.” In October, 2008, Guillermo and photographer RJ Muna did a series of photo shoots involving audience members and “special guests” from the San Francisco community. Guillermo had a bunch of props, costumes, set pieces, and the members of his performance troop, Pocha Nostra, at hand to pose/perform with us. Nothing was scripted, it simply unfolded.

As Guillermo had recently been our High Aztec Priest at our Green Wedding, we decided to explore the wedding themes a little further. We brought along our wedding costumes and scribbled “Just married” on our behinds, then exhibited some honeymoon activity. Loud music played, tequila flowed, inhibitions melted, and a good, productive time was had by all.

To view more of Guillermo’s Performance Karaoke project visit pochanostra.com/karaoke/

Photos by RJ Muna.

Love Art Lab Spoken Word CD

Love Art Lab Spoken Word CD

PERFORMANCE ART FOR THE CANVAS BETWEEN YOUR EARS LOVE ART LAB (the sound CD) is the collaborative performance artwork in sound by us in collaboration with producer/musician GUTTERSAINT. Recorded in San Francisco, USA and Norway, the album explores love in abstractions, in tableau musical pieces, poetry, soundscapes and audio sculptures. Both melodic and rough, sophisticated and nasty – just like love. Released by Provocateur Media. Click Here to View the Press Release

Chakra Targets

Chakra Targets

We explored our own and each other's chakras by making these paintings together. We got targets from our local shooting range, some mean acrylics, and took turns taking 'shots' at each chakra. It was fun.

Museum Kunst Palast

Museum Kunst Palast

We were invited to participate in a performance evening at one of the world’s finest museums, Museum Kunst Palast in Dusseldorf, Germany. The evening would be part of a magnificent, huge art exhibition, “Diana and Actaeon: The Forbidden Glimpse of the Naked Body.” With a title like that of course we had to get naked and we did!

First, Annie performed her signature piece, “A Public Cervix Announcement.” This is only the second time in fifteen years that she has done that. Second, we did a one-hour “Naked Kiss” in an intimate gallery where drawings of nudes by Joseph Beuys, Picasso, Gustav Klimt, Egon Schiele, Emile Nolde, Rodin and others. It was amazing to kiss among these masters. Thirdly we did a new work called “Nude Spoons” in the lobby of the museum. We entered, removed our elegant evening attire, and spooned naked on a black leather couch during the last hour of the evening as people were leaving the space. People could see us from the two floors above as well. The museum gave us the most beautiful flower bouquets in the world. Photos by Dr. Joerg Weule.

Dirty Sexecology – 25 Ways To Make Love To The Earth

Dirty Sexecology - 25 Ways To Make Love To The Earth

We presented our performance piece, Dirty Sexecology, for the first time in Berne, Switzerland. This work explores our relationship with the earth as our lover. Beth sang a song about mountain top removal strip mining, while Annie is exchanging energy with the earth; we do a ballet strip tease earth dance; literally get down and dirty with potted plants and then have ourselves buried while reciting our green wedding vows to the earth. The work is autobiographical and political. We hope to show how sexy the earth really is and how we artists must start trying to save her. This two woman show is directed by Patty Gallagher.

25 Ways to Make Love to the Earth

1. Tell the Earth, “I love you. I can’t live without you.”
2. At first you may feel embarrassed to be lovers with the Earth. Let it go. It’s OK.
3. Spend time with her.
4. Ask her what she likes, wants, and needs-- then try to give it to her.
5. Massage the Earth with your feet. 6. Admire her views often.
7. Circulate erotic energy with her.
8. Smell her.
9. Taste her.
10. Touch all her all over.
11. Hug and stroke her trees.
12. Talk dirty to her plants.
13. Swim naked in her waters.
14. Lay on top of her, or let her get on top of you.
15. Do a nude dance for her.
16. Sing to her.
17. Kiss and lick her.
18. Bury parts of your body deep inside her soil.
19. Plant your seeds in her.
20. Love her unconditionally even when she’s angry or cruel.
21. Keep her clean. Please recycle.
22. Work for peace. Bombs hurt.
23. If you see her being abused, raped, exploited, protect her as best you can.
24. Protect her mountains. Stop mountaintop removal mining.
25. Vow to love, honor and cherish the Earth until death brings you closer together forever.

Sidewalk Sex Clinic – Norway

Sidewalk Sex Clinic - Norway

Our “Free Sidewalk Sex Clinic” in Stavanger, Norway turned out to be the Love Art Lab’s most challenging and inadvertently provocative project to date. Commissioned by the art organization Tao Scene, it went down on June 14, 2008. [read more below]

For the Sidewalk Clinic our plan was to have five sex educators generously offer the public free expert sex advice from various kinds of sex experts on Pedersgata Street for four hours (June 14, 2008.) As it turned out, we landed smack dab in the middle of a heated anti-porn battle being waged by a small but very vocal group of local “feminists.” Even though our event was not porn related the press did numerous headline stories about us, which were ridiculously sensational, and extremely erroneous. For example they said we were “offering free sex” leaving off the word “advice.” True, we were scheduled to hold our Clinic in front of the “Love Shop,” the city’s only adult film and sex toy shop. The shop is owned and run by a very nice, rather shy guy for over twenty years. The anti-porn feminists (their group is called OTTAR) said they were opposed to our clinic project because it is funded by an art organization, which they felt gave cultural credibility to the Love Shop. The Love Shop, they exclaimed, “sells porn that exploits and victimizes women some of whom are trafficked.”

Another odd thing the press did was to call me, Annie Sprinkle, a “fallen porn star.” True, I used to be a porn star, and I am proud of it. But if “fallen” is having a Ph.D., traveling the world doing art commissioned by excellent art organizations, being in a great relationship, owning two houses on prime real estate, being an educator, and feeling good about myself is “fallen,” then what is success? Perhaps they were referring to my being older and rounder as “failure.” Then many people have fallen lower than porn star status.

A day before our scheduled event, we met with the leaders of OTTAR and a concerned local church group. They urged us to cancel our Free Sidewalk Sex Clinic or at least move it away from the Love Shop. We thought long and hard about how to move our Clinic without it seeming like we were caving in to the pressures of OTTAR, whose political approach and ideology we simply don’t agree with. We created a perfect solution-- we moved our Clinic a block away to the old location of the Love Shop, now an storefront with only a sign hanging above the door that says Love Shop. The artist group SVOP/T who had set up shop there, generously agreed to share the storefront with us. Just perfect!

After all the insane sensational press, and the threats of protest, we couldn’t find a single Stavanger sex educator that would sit with us at our Clinic and offer sex advice. This has never happened to us before—we have done a good dozen Free Sidewalk Sex Clinics. So we had to fly in our friend, sexpert and artist, Tom Garretson from Oslo. He could also double as a bodyguard. Right when we opened our Clinic thirty or so angry “feminists” marched up the street carrying picket signs while screaming into bullhorns. For about an hour we just tried to ignore them. Some brave souls came inside to greet us, and get some sex advice. More people stopped by just to lend us some support, and some others wanted to discuss the controversy.

Finally we decided to try an art/life experiment. The three of us, Beth, Annie and Tom, would go outside and join the group of angry “feminists” while wearing our white lab coats and holding little flowers. (We are feminists too.)This totally confused everyone. It was really exciting but also nerve-wracking! Soon after, they dispersed. The irony is that the women of OTTAR claim they want to help women. Shutting down a performance art piece that offers women free expert sex advice seems counter productive.

We never expected what happened next. A tall man wearing a scary black ski mask walked up to our windows and spay painted a star of David and the word “JUDE” (Jew) in blood red spray pain. This was Beth’s first personal encounter with what we think was Neo-Nazi hatred and it happened fast and was upsetting. Some people around us were stunned and others seemed to pay it no mind. The only person who did anything was a beautiful young Italian architect (and new mother) Simona Ferrari who ran down the street after the guy, then called the police who said they were “too busy” to come. They were probably a bit intimidated by the TV cameras in front of our Clinic. Simona’s partner Trond Kasper Mikkelsen was kind enough to scrape the evil graffiti from the window with his knife while Sigrun Vik Olsen babysat their newborn. We half expected other extremist groups to attack us any moment. It was a crazy, scary, witch-hunt kind of a day, which made for a hell of an exciting performance art piece.

The next day we did our tour of Pedersgata. About 35 people showed up for what was became a two-hour tour. We pointed out phallic and vulvu-like shapes everywhere, and as our tour-goers caught on, they chimed in as well. We pointed out voluptuous clouds, trees in bondage, extraordinarily sexy pink flowers. Beth highlighted a crack in the cement she felt was super erotic. There was the bad replica of Michelangelo’s David statue with a price tag stuck to his penis in a shop window. The only truly obscene thing on the street was the price of gas. We told made up stories of the sexual history of the street; of jealous lovers, wife abusers, secret lesbian romances, gay cruising spots. We pointed out the best places to kiss and demonstrated. There was the mysterious building #69. We invited our touristas to sniff and lick a grassy knoll, to savor an apricot from a Lebanese food shop, and take in the scent of an ancient public toilet, which had been closed to the public for decades. We stood for a moment of silence at a spot where an actual rape had recently taken place.

One of our tour’s highlights was taking people into the Love Shop, all of whom said they had never dared to go in before. Among the usual blow up dolls, dildos and porn DVDS we pointed out some romantic Chinese vases, hand carved African masks, and kitsch masturbating clay statuettes from Latvia. The Love Shop has been a big bone of contention for some of the townspeople. So we presented a special award to the owner of the shop for hanging in there in spite of the unreasonable, misguided (we feel) attacks he’s endured. Hey, its only sex.

Towards the end of our tour it started to rain, so we gave everyone white plastic hooded ponchos, which made us all look like a load of sperm swimming down the street. Our tour climaxed with a lovely woman architect showing us a model of the city and speaking proudly of the future city plans. We then said our goodbyes.

On our last night in Stavanger, Tao Scene hosted a gala reception party with an incredible gourmet dinner feast for all the artists who had created tours of Pedersgata and for the community. The talented chef created a desert in our honor that was absolutely orgasmic. It was a dripping wet pudding, chocolaty with strawberry compote, absolutely mouth watering, to be eaten with our fingers. We were delighted that we inspired the best desert ever made. (Our highest compliments to the chef.) During the eating of the desert, the curators played the Beatles song, All You Need Is Love, which was very moving. We needed some love.

Throughout the evening people came up to us to apologize for the rude behavior of Stavanger’s press, the neo-Nazis and OTTAR. We didn’t know what to say except that we hoped that other artists would further the conversation about the important issues that surfaced after we were gone. Because Pedergasta is for lovers. At least it was for us, and we hope it will be for lovers in the future.