One pre-Covid weekend not so long ago (but TBH what is time anymore?), I had an interesting Sunday to myself. I had eaten an edible from a dear friend and what was supposed to be a couple hours feeling silly turned into 8 hours of Holy Moly I Am Very High.
It was neat during my dance class. For two hours, my eyes barely opened, I moved my body in every direction physically possible as what I’m pretty sure every memory I ever had passed through my brain. From a random memory of Wendy’s salad bar (remember those days?) to memories of painful losses, they all made an appearance.
But even though I danced my ass off (and thought my brain off), afterwards I was still very high. Luckily I had more to do. It was the last day of the ON OUR BACKS: The Revolutionary Art of Queer Sex Work exhibit and I was determined to go. I headed to the Leslie Lohman Museum of Art and despite being real high, was able to enjoy and get excited by the exhibit. Especially the work I saw of sex worker, stripper, actress, magazine editor, writer, film producer (and more!), Annie Sprinkle.
Admittedly Annie Sprinkle first stuck out to me because of her red hair. As a redhead myself (and for any of you about to tell me my hair looks brown, just don’t), I’m always intrigued by the work of redheads more than others. But obviously Annie was and is more than her hue. Annie Sprinkle was a NYC prostitute and porn star who then morphed into an artist, sexologist and champion of sex worker rights. She’s done a lot but it was her work as an artist that drew me in. Annie admitted that while she was content “living as a multi-media whore–making porn films, doing burlesque, nude modeling” her deep, dark, secret fantasy was to be an artist. Remembering her first performance art piece, she described feeling liberated and exposed in a new way and having a lot of creative freedom she wasn’t previously used to.
And after one look at her website, it’s obvious Annie did not take creative freedom lightly. The titles of her projects as entertaining as their contents: Projects Sidewalk Sex Clinic, The Love Handle, Dirty Sexecology, Bosom Ballet and the very intriguing Public Cervix Announcement. In PCA, Sprinkle invited the audience to view her cervix using a speculum and flashlight, presenting her vagina not as an object of pleasure as “an area of empowering beauty and mystery.”
Annie’s performances remind me of the artists who came before her. I remember in college learning about Carolee Schneemann’s performance, “Interior Scroll” in which Schneemann read aloud from a scroll she pulled out of her vagina, Yoko Ono’s “Cut Piece” that had Ono kneeling on the floor of a stage audience members gradually cut off her clothes.
Despite being part of a generation that has consistently been ‘putting ourselves out there’, I am still consistently impressed by these performances. They’ve allowed me to convey my own artistic philosophies without shame. By those women putting themselves out there in a way that could do more than get them flagged on Instagram, my comedy, my blog can exist. I think of them often. Especially today.
For artists like Sprinkle and Schneemann, making their statement wasn’t as simple as posting a photo or going Live. And as the world social distances, I continue to see all the ways my favorite artists and performers, figure out new ways to be the old person they were in a pre-COVID world. Whether we want to or not, almost all of us are being forced to shake the dust off of our comfort zones. To dive deep into our creative toolboxes and reinvent ourselves. This process is not easy and in certain ways feels just as vulnerable as the performances above. Because now, it’s not just a small, intimate gathering watching, it’s the whole world.
How am I going to put myself under the figurative speculum? I’m not sure. Even though I’d love to come out of this the Quarantine Queen of Creativity, I know I’m just not there yet. I’m still in the process of breaking down my old life. It’s hard for me to turn to this new content, this new normal. I find myself instead turning to the art and music and Sprinkles of my past. It was their work that inspired me to be whatever this artist is I am today. As for whatever artist I’ll be after this? Well, that remains as mysterious as Annie Sprinkle’s cervix. I only hope it’s just as beautiful.