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Lisa Anita Wegner

“I make stuff and sometimes write about it”

Tag Archives: transformation

July 20, 2014 Whole Milk and Cocaine: Making Spectacle of Stardust at The Black Cat

During the makeup test for my upcoming performance/ live art making/ projection show STARDUST: Life on Jupiter? makeup artist Wanda MacRae and I created a universe we both wanted to play in.  We talked about the elements that we had in place and with that created a very simple performance based around the haircut, makeup and styling which transforms me into David Bowie’s character Ziggy Stardust in 3.5 hours, covered by entertainment reporter Katie Uhlmann, three go pro cameras and two art video interns that are “Stardust Technicians”.
Soundtrack by Wanda MacRae based on our mutual love of Bowie, Gaga, Boy George and a few other inspirations. My projected Stardust Video Studies will loop on the back wall of the gallery for the entire event.
I enter the gallery at 7pm with my wet hair in a towel, wearing a white lab coat. While my hair is pre dyed under the towel and my eyebrows are pre waxed and drawn on, I look essentially like myself. Wanda, the makeup artist is the “STARDUST Surgeon” as she is responsible for my transformation of my head. Wanda and I met performing with Erotic Nightmare a Rocky Horror Picture Show cast (I was Brad she was Janet) so we inserting a Rocky Horror feel. Our all female surgical crew will be dressed fashionably yet medically and have Wanda’s implements on silver trays. Both STARDUST Technicians are art video interns, they will have matching Canon Cameras and their second job is to record the event as creatively as they see fit. They will have the Stardust Lightning bolt on their faces.
I will sit in a hairdressers chair in the window of the Black Cat Gallery and absorb the feeling of the transformation while Wanda works. Once my hair is cut and styled I will put on one blue contact lens and partially dress under the lab coat, for the makeup portion.
lifeonjupiter?final
To build toward the ending, the white face powder will be brought out on a mirror by one STARDUST Technician while the second technician brings be a carton of whole milk. During the time Bowie was Stardust he imbibed only cocaine and whole milk. My white powder is face powder but that doesn’t mean we can’t cut it with a credit card. And I will be handed the whole milk, a treat for me once I’m STARDUST complete. I’m hoping Maha Richi, a stylist I’ve known since high school who is dressing me will be able to be there to put jacket/  the final touches on me for the cameras.
The STARDUST Technicians will countdown and pop glitter canons to signify the transformation is complete. I will mingle for the rest of the evening enjoying my milk after my Stardust Surgery.
Off all the wonderful work I have had the privilege of doing in recent years, this is what I’m most excited for. To see how it feels and how the world treats me when I have an orange mullet and no eyebrows.
The rest of the week I’ll be pulling my art practise from The Haus of Dada into The Black Cat gallery 2-6pm. Also by appointment in the evenings. I invite to come watch, play, interact, co- create or just look through the window while I play, shoot, edit, score and project as I work.
Wanda and I doing makeup test.

Wanda and I doing makeup test.

Closing party I’ll be Ten Foot Tall Queen of Stardust, with glorious rainbow gown by Vanessa Lee Wishart and video legs by Forever Epic Films.

Sneak peek at Vanessa Lee Wishart’s glorious rainbow gown for closing party

Thanks everyone who has helped me bring this to life.
Cheers and as always thanks to David Bowie himself, the quintessential artist mentor.
xo Lisa Anita Wegner

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December 31, 2013 37 Cable Cars of Readers: I want to Find Freedom In My Own Skin

A message I got from WordPress: “A San Francisco cable car holds 60 people. This blog was viewed about 2,200 times in 2013. If it were a cable car, it would take about 37 trips to carry that many people. In 2013, there were 7 new posts, 9 pictures uploaded.” I felt like I blogged more than seven times last year. This Churchill quote about the Battle of Britain makes me chuckle when I think about it in terms of blogging: “Never Has So Much Been Said About So Little (and read) by So Few”. I’m going to blog more often and more thoroughly from now on. The shape of my art practise is to document my days and my experiences in pictures, moving pictures and installation art. I think for 2014 I’m going to add words to that mix more deliberately. There was an interest from Cormorant Books last year in the story of how art saved my life, but it didn’t flow yet. Perhaps a few years premature. I won’t be writing it myself, however, blogging gets the words out of me for a writer to shape down the road.

Finding a performing persona is on my mind: I never thought something like this would ever be of interest to me- I’m such an authenticity junkie. I realized the type of persona I am looking for it something brought forth from a part of me that I am comfortable with, something I am authentic within. And then blow that aspect up larger than life, into a persona to play with and have access to for use in my installations. This persona quest is working toward a specific performance in October, but now I want to find it for myself. I have dropped into my body very deeply in the last few months. And I realized that while I am very physical and thought I was in tune with my body, I never use my physicality as part of my storytelling. I started to free that part of me, and I’m looking forward what might grow out of it. I remember being a bear mascot years ago and when I was completely unrecognizable I was dancing hard and audience was responding. I want to find that freedom in a less heated less furry suit. I want to find that freedom in my own skin. Then I can really do something. Now that I’ve spent an intensive five years of truthful self investigation, and the last several months amping up the listening, I feel ready to transform this authenticity and comfort into a real story telling tool. I love performance installations and realize I will probably do these for the rest of my life.

Steps toward finding this: Research by trying on other personas that I find fascinating. Personas that helped artist come into themselves. My first live transformation in a gallery will be LAW of TRANSFORMATION: Research: Ziggy Stardust. Transformation by yours truly and hair and makeup by Wanda McRae. I am shockingly stoked to have no eyebrows and an orange mullet. Or Moulet as I will call it when it’s on my head.

My brain is so deep into my next year of art and film production- and it fulfills me and clarifies what’s important. I don’t know what I ever did when I was just making films and had no daily creative output. I could never go back. And I could never go back to not meditating either, I can’t stop listening. I have never been healthier,  happier, more certain, more calm and more sure I am doing things in life that are best for me. Two thousand and fourteen, bring it on. I am ready for you with open arms.

Blogs: Never before have so many written so much to be read by so few. Amen.

Happy New Year

LAWthe law of ziggy

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