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Lisa Anita Wegner

“I make stuff and sometimes write about it”

Tag Archives: ziggy stardust

January 2, 2015 a little stardust can change the way i see things now

on a two week holiday break from full time trauma therapy, i had a profound experience today when i was meditating in the tub. i talked in an earlier posting about meeting ziggy stardust in my meditations (read the post here) and being compelled to do a live transformation at the black cat gallery in toronto in july 2014 called STARDUST: Life on Jupiter (see official site here).

since christmas i had come through a time of feeling super exhausted and my cognition has been dropping out mixed with bouts of very hard sleeping and inspired art making. even when i could barely move, i was compelled to draw with pencils. and then shoot and edit video in my lap:

so today i decided to meditate and consider what if this comfort, confidence and compunction inside my creativity would have come out as a child? and i got a clear vision of myself in public school getting my ziggy on and while this picture is not me, it totally could pass (like the fake puppy pictures of my rescue dogs).

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i did dress up and start young creative ventures: but i stuck to playing girls. orphans, pioneers and magic nannies were my childhood specialties. and now i feel free to play anything, human or otherwise, on or off the space time continuum. and i’m having way more fun.

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if i would have found my ziggy then, my current experience would be remarkably different. and just by imagining it, i feel everything opening up. i think i will add being a childhood ziggy stardust: rockstar alien to my fictitious history, and I’d cut a mullet without hesitation. that is when i finally give birth to my artist self in “The Fictitious History of The Haus of Dada” here is a taste of that multi year project. i’m just at the beginning of it.

happy 2015 everyone!

lisa anita wegner

 

 

 

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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.
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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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May 15, 2014 Life on Jupiter? Me & Ziggy

I tell people all the time that I meditate but so far I’ve laid pretty low about my meditation buddy Ziggy Stardust.  It sheds light on my fascination, for those interested in such shedding.

Lately in my meditations when I look in a mirror I see a mashup of myself as/and Ziggy Stardust. It feels like the most natural thing in the world to have him lounging emanating pure pleasure and joy. This is in a meditation space where usually there is blank slate. I have a wild imagination but have tamed it diligently over the years- I’m pretty good at clearing my mind and creating a blank scene.  When outside chatter quiets and I’m able to hear myself Stardust is there I let him sit. Sometimes he offers a comment but often is silent looking at me knowingly.
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I’ve been compelled into creative action by this character more than an I ever expected.  I dig Bowie but it’s his 1973 spaceman rock god that has my imagination hostage recently. I started to get a sense that somehow I was seeing an unexplored aspect of myself.  I became compelled to try him on for size.
At Andrew Williamson’s gallery The Black Cat on July 31st 2014  I will perform a live transformation. Wanda MacRae hair and makeup artist will make the magic while I experience it. She will dye, cut and make me up replicating the Life on Mars video. Ouchy eyebrow removal also onsite. Of all the awesome  upcoming work, I am the most excited about his.
After we have some matching footage of the LOM video I’m going to figure out the next step. The rest of the week I’m editing live and filming in the gallery basically moving my art practise into a public space. Want to know how I make what I do, here’s your chance.  I just now realized I want to set up a go pro all week. I also have a second Stardust transformation happening on a lovely fellow in my life who looks like Bowie thus we will shoot Stardust on Stardust, the crescendo of the ultimate creative wank. Incidentally one of my dogs looks like the canine from Diamond Dogs album over so some half dog half human action is terrifyingly in order.
In 1973, the year that I was born David Bowie lived as Stardust for one year. I love that he knew the perfect length for an alien rockstar to live and killed him off in his prime. So somehow in 73 that poked into my imagination’s DNA.  I  have no idea where this is going to go, but I can’t wait to see the world treats me sporting the Stardust.

I declare myself officially part of the huge pool of artists inspired by the space man himself. Thanks Zig. Thanks Bowie. I am so excited to see where this door takes me and I’ll see you on the other side.
Now back to prepping video content for a group show UNDER NEW MANAGEMENT and then dodging raindrops with the diamond dogs.
LalalalaLisa
LAW of Transformation:
Stardust:
Life on Jupiter
the law of ziggy

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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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