#killworthy

What if I told you that the picture above was not of Courtney Love but of Candy Darling, a transgender actress from the sixties? Would you believe me? Well, I hope you do because that is Candy Darling dancing in a VERY Courtney Love fashion.

Who was Candy Darling you ask? She was one of Andy Warhol's Superstars, like Edie Sedgwick. Candy spent a lot of time in Warhol's company both socially and at the Warhol's infamous Factory. The song Take a Walk on the Wild side by Lou Reed was partially written about Candy. The Smiths cover art for Sheila Take a Bow was an image of Candy's face. The song Candy Says by The Velvet Underground was written about her and how she felt betrayed by the gender she was born with.

She was in fact before her time and taken from this world too soon (in 1974).

I like to tell people that it was Candy Darling that invented the "kinderwhore" style of fashion popularized by Courtney Love. In the sixties short dresses were already the modern style. However, Candy wanted to have a more classy and sometimes innocently girly look than what was popular with  her peers. Unfortunately (or fortunately), Candy was quiet tall giving her dresses the almost doll-like look that is synonymous with kinderwhore.

I also like to take it one step further and postulate that Courtney Love modeled a lot of her early persona after Candy Darling (and Nancy Spungen but I will get to that in a minute). In the following images you can see pictures of Candy wearing a heart shaped locket.

The icon of a heart was also used predominantly by Courtney Love in much of her early years. I always felt like this was another nod to Candy Darling's look. (Yes, I am aware of the connection of hearts to her surname and Nirvana's Heart Shaped Box.)

What is interesting is that Nancy Spungen also wore a heart shaped locket seen in these photos.

Nancy Spunge was dubbed, "Nauseating Nancy" by the press. She was famous for being Sid Vicious's (from the Sex Pistols) other half. She was also a prostitute and a drug dealer -- and not shy about it. Nancy was known for being blunt, loud, and out of control. Yet, somehow Sid and Nancy were in love. Unfortunately, their romance came to a tragic end.

On October 12, 1978, Nancy was found dead under sink with a stab wound in her hotel. Sid was arrested for her murder. The case never went to court because he soon thereafter overdosed and died.

I can't help seeing Sid and Nancy's demented love story, far too similar to that of Courtney Love's and Kurt Cobain's (from Nirvana). Obviously, they did not have the same narrative or ending. Courtney Love is still alive and kicking. However, their lives had similar chaos and acts of self destructive behavior to Sid and Nancy.

Courtney Love's own love-story ended in gruesome death of Kurt Cobain. But before that, the comparison of her image to the image of Nancy Spungen was lost on no one. Kurt Cobain himself said, "She looked like Nancy Spungen [when he first met Courtney] and I probably could have fucked her that night." And when Courtney Love auditioned for a part in the movie Sid and Nancy she exclaimed, "I am Nancy!"

I find that I have to agree. 

In fact, I have always seen the public image of Courtney Love (in the nineties at least) as a weird mashup of Candy Darling and Nancy Spungen. It is as if she idolized these two characters and formed a temporary identity around them. Leaving her core identity untouched. Maybe it is just a coincidence. Maybe not. I just can't help think that Courtney Love took what she needed and came out the other side.

I'll leave you with these two quotes from Courtney Love and let you decide.

"Drag queens taught me how to be a rock star." - Courtney Love

Moon Goddess of the Divine Feminine

St. Francis of Assisi in His Tomb, painted by Francisco de Zurbarán, is a striking dominant piece that stands at six feet of dark Baroque intensity. Yet, there is something different about the imagery that has always scraped the back of my mind.

It is a little-known fact that St. Francis of Assisi died fairly young, at 44 years of age. He had been battling an illness and was known to place a human skull on his breakfast table to contemplate his impending doom. It was a representation of his old friend, Death, that he even wrote about in The Canticle of Brother Sun and Sister Moon.

What was the symbolism there? For that matter, what was Zurbarán's message? Why did the interest in Zurbarán's work fade in time? Why did skulls appear in his other work? Was this also a form of self portrait? I don't know if I will ever have an answer. What I do know is that between the 1950's and 1960's Zurbarán was what "all the cool people" were talking about.

Here, for example, is a clipping from 1965 talking about how this painting was inspiring fashion in Spain.

A more potent example of how influential Zurbarán was can be seen in Salvador Dali's 1956 painting called the Skull of Zurbaran.

In this painting, I can see the conversation Dali is having. There was a lot he struggled with in regards to tradition, death, and religion. Much like his views of the constraints of time, which are represented with his famous melting clocks, here I see "the few" constructing an effigy to something beyond their ability. Was that how he saw Zurbarán, an artist beyond his own ability?

Unfortunately, Dali was even more twisted in his head than even his paintings let on. He, for instance, was obsessed with necrophilia, preferred to masturbate in front of a mirror, and was terrified of female genitalia.

I imagine Dali studying art history and being perfectly fine with Heads Severed by Theodore Gericault. Then flipping a page to be met with L'Origine du Monde and scream in terror. His mustache would shoot out like a cartoon in his iconic style, and he would swear epitaphs in Spanish. The topic of the famed Magic Realist Georgia O’Keefe would come up at a party, and I could see him having a “melt down” over her famously vulvic flowers.

Because that is what she is remembered for, not her unique cityscapes or her abstracted-form studies; her vulvic flowers.

Art history is weird like that, a collection of taboos following the mythos of the artist around like a three-legged dog. Zurbarán is all but forgotten, Dali is not remembered for his psychosis, and Georgia is remembered for vulvas. She is not remembered for paintings like Head with Broken Pot, a piece of work that is as nuanced as both Zurbarán's and Dali's work that hearkens to the fragility of mankind and to human life.

I guess the moral of this story, if there even is one, is that artists view the cycles of life in abstract ways trying to make sense of what, "it all means". Paint becomes a snapshot of those moments, mixing in pigments of consciousness and primal urges even when they don't belong. We the viewers become a part of that in our remembrance of those moments.

Even before there was the camera, people felt the urge to have artists create images in their likeness. The wealthy had artists create portraits in watercolor, oil, and even frescoes. Often these artists would paint more expensive clothes or even change history by adding false imagery at the request of their patron. In the time of antiquity, people had statues and mosaics made to display their likeness. So, this practice is not a new habit of ours.

Oddly, there is one painting that always comes to my mind when thinking of humanity's constant need to create these kinds of displays. The painting I'm talking about was of a man who suffered with hypertrichosis named Pedro Gonzalez (Petrus Gonsalvus).

The story of Pedro Gonzalez, is a strange one. Pedro Gonzalez was born in 1556 in the Canary islands (a group of islands off the coast of Spain). At birth, he was a source of local curiosity and soon drew the attention of the aristocracy.

During the 16th century, all kinds of people were seen as oddities were traded between powerful or wealthy families. So, Pedro was taken from his home and given as a gift to King Henri II.

King Henri II decided to give Pedro a Latin name (Petrus Gonsalvus) and ordered Pedro to receive an education. The King did this as a sort of entertainment; he wanted to watch the "savage" fail. Fortunately for Pedro, his education was a success.

Pedro became fluent in multiple languages. He mastered the art of the nobleman's etiquette. He even became essential for receiving foreign dignitaries and ambassadors, gaining favoritism from the King.

When King Henri II died his wife, Catherine de Medici, took power as regent. She decided that Pedro should be married in hopes of producing more "wild children" like himself. Catherine became a matchmaker and found a woman (ironically also named Catherine) for him to marry. This new Catherine was a French woman, rumored to be a great beauty.

Petrus and Catherine met for the first time on their wedding day and though it might not have been love at first sight, Catherine gave him many children (seven in total and four of their children inherited their father's hypertrichosis)

In 1581, he and his family were sent on a never ending tour of the courts. Where many paintings and studies were done on him and his children. This fascination escalated and soon they settled under the ownership of Duke Ranuccio Farnese, who tragically sent away Pedro's affected children as gifts.

I don't know why I connect this strange story of Petrus and his family to the current selfie culture, but I do. Somehow, I think we have become voyeurs in each others lives. The more bizarre or unique the narrative, the more interested we become.

Remember friends, anything you can do I can do bleeding.