Tag: David Wojnarowicz

Keiran on Catholicism

Posted on | by keiran
Reading Time: 4 minutes

My mother took this photograph of me shortly after my Confirmation in the 6th grade.

If you follow me, you know I occasionally write about my different interests and preoccupations.

That’s true for my post today. 

While I mentioned being Catholic in my post last year about the movie, Dune, the death of Pope Francis seemed like the time to explore the subject I’ve had on my list for years: that is, “Growing Up Catholic”1.

See, my parents were both Roman Catholics. Plus, Dad grew up in Chicago, where he got a scholarship to Loyola Academy.

So Dad learned under Jesuits. Therefore, he and mom thought Catholic schools would be a good place to send us.

But more than that, Mom and Dad were just cradle-to-grave Catholics. They (and their three children) were at church every Sunday, no matter the weather or if we were on vacation.

this means that (despite the sin of pride) we felt superior to the other families who came to Church Only on Easter and Christmas. And while mom surely confessed her pride to the priest… I’m ashamed to say I don’t remember saying that in Confession.

Additionally,

lots of my childhood memories include details from growing up Catholic.

I easily recall the smell of the incense

And have an early memory

of walking into Church one Sunday when I was probably a kindergartner and thinking that God existed within and beyond that church building.

And seeing the other women (not Mom) wearing lace on their heads in Church pews.

Or being in church services during Lent, which took place every Friday in the Spring, and seeing a classmate faint because it was really warm and stuffy that day.

Although that girl was a fainter – she went down at the cartoon of the uterine lining while we watched the filmstrip in the girls-only class about menstruation.

Or that one ritual where we went in and a priest blessed our throats to protect us from choking?

which I had to look up because I thought, “Did that really happen, or did I imagine it?”

Plus I wonder – does the throat blessing last for a long time, or should you get it done every year after you get your flu shot?

Or early May reminds me of one of my favorite rituals in grade school, when we paraded the statue of the Virgin May around the church crowned with flowers in veneration.

— but it was probably also because the church smelled like flowers —

And other things. Like,

one time I was at a local eatery and heard someone at another table noting how illogical “the Feast of the Immaculate Conception” is.

He was saying,

It makes no sense – like, hello? Christmas is on December 25 so why do they celebrate December 8 as the day the angel told the Virgin Mary she was pregnant?

And I piped up immediately that the feast celebrated the miracle that the Virgin Mary was conceived and then her original sin was removed by God so that she could bear Jesus Christ.

Even I was surprised by how quickly that came out from the deeper venues of my brain.

In fact, that kind of stuff, and others, is still probably packed in my head.

After all, I (along with the rest of my 6th grade class) memorized the 175 questions and answers for the night we underwent the sacrament of Confirmation.

I don’t remember them all, but here is some of what we learned:

  • the honorifics for religious leaders (priest, Bishop, Cardinal, Pope)
  • where the ashes from Ash Wednesday come from
    •             they burn the palms from Palm Sunday the year before
  • who blesses the oil used during your Confirmation
    •             the Archbishop
      • Although they tell me here that they bless the oil for three purposes and I only remember learning the one.
  • And that when you are Confirmed you “become a soldier for Christ”
    • btw we were taught that “soldier” is not a fighting soldier; it’s supposed to mean you’re standing up for your religion and prepared to “deliver the Good News” or stand up for God. You don’t want to be like St. Peter denying Jesus three times, do you?

So, despite what I learned in history class, it took me years after graduating from Catholic high school to start to really understand why the Protestant Reformation happened.

I mean, our teachers spent a lot of time explaining that all of the saints were not idols that we worshiped.

Actually, they’re supposed to be “intermediaries to God.” 

And I’m a little embarrassed, but I’ve never read all 4 of the Gospels.

After all, being Catholic meant that you memorize all these rules and the Priest explained the gospels to you every Sunday.

Although,

having gone to parochial school means I find what “outsiders” think of Catholics to be slightly humorous.

Like, everyone freaked out when Pope Francis said he believed in evolution.

While taking Religion classes five days a week, we learned about evolution in addition to “reading, writing, and ‘rithmetic”.

And there was a papal encyclical in 1950 saying it was ok to believe in evolution.

But then

people also thought that Pope Francis was going to change the rules and allow female priests.

And I was like,

“yeah, I understand we all want that, but, DUDES, no… that’s not gonna to happen.”

Because the RC Church is about 2,000 years old, which means change happens really slowly.

Although, I do feel lucky that I grew up in a church that existed after “Vatican Council II” and didn’t have to listen to Latin mass (like my mom experienced).

However, here’s one last thing:

Or:

Of course I found a way to link this to Frank Lloyd Wright.

One of the Cardinals called to the Conclave (where they will elect a new Pope) is Cardinal Raymond Burke.

Burke was born in the same town where Wright apparently was: Richland Center, Wisconsin.

He’s also under 80 years old, which means he’s on the list for possible future popes.

Update:

shortly after I published this, the Cardinals elected Pope Leo XIV. 

 

 

First posted May 4, 2025
My mother took the photograph of me at the top of the page after I was confirmed. You can see part of the stole I wore with my Confirmation name: for St. Francis of Assissi. I was drawn to that humble, self-sacrificing man. Although unfortunately the title I gave my paper on him was “St. Francis: Lover of God”. Unsurprisingly, I was 12 when I wrote that.

  1. I don’t say that I’m a “recovering Catholic”. I prefer saying that I “grew up Catholic.” It’s more accurate and think it encompasses more of what’s in the subterranean parts of my mind.

 

Photograph of Keiran with a tour group on Taliesin's Hill Crown. Keiran has white pants on.

Doing too many Taliesin tours

Posted on | by keiran
Reading Time: 5 minutes

My post today isn’t going to be about taking too many Taliesin tours, but about giving too many of them. That’s because, you see, we’re coming into late September and I realized that the Taliesin tour guides right now may start to feel like what I wrote years ago

            in my unpublished memoir, “What Time Does the 1:30 Tour Leave?”

I started giving tours in 1994 while I was in school.1 But after this, I worked full-time in the tour program during the 1995-2002 seasons.

During that time, Taliesin Preservation mostly had:

            Now called the “In-Depth” House Tour. Here’s a link to a description from 2021.

            a.k.a, the 4-hour tour.

Due to the lack of heat inside Taliesin, we gave interior tours at that time only from May-October.

Therefore, we were always happy when the tour season started, because

We got to

see the buildings again! That really was like seeing old friends.

And then the season really got rolling and veteran guides mostly gave House and Estate tours.

This heavy rotation of veteran guides giving tours that went into the House would go

probably STILL DO

from late June through our peak season (ending on Labor Day).

Then the kids went back to college and the tour numbers dropped

            (spiking in October for “leaf season”).

This heavy House tour rotation

from June through the beginning of September could start to do funny things to the mind.

In fact,

I usually succumbed to what I call:

“tour guide’s disease”.

That is: on tour, I’d say whatever was in my head.

            I’m not talking about giving my shopping list or commenting about a sweater any of my guests was wearing

I mean that,

The genius of the man and the beauty of the spaces faded

Frank Lloyd Wright in his studio with 4 apprentices in the Taliesin Fellowship.

And instead, I found myself musing out loud about the bunny rabbit that had shown up on the tour; or,

  • a small change in the stone that I’d never noticed,
  • an answer to a question someone had asked me earlier that day,
  • and talking about Sherpa, who was a Taliesin Kitty for years.

Then in one particular year, the tour scheduler

            No, not you, Bob

basically xeroxed the tour schedules.

That is,

she gave us each the same tour schedule week after week.

In fact, one of the Taliesin tour guides gave only House tours through July and August. In other words, all this guide gave was: two, two-hour House tours, five days a week, for eight solid weeks.

I saw the effect this schedule had on her by the end of that summer.

Because

as I was also on this “xeroxed” schedule, I gave House tours two days a week; one Estate tour; and for the other two days I was a Taliesin House Steward.

Our collective experience was like walking up to a mirror and saying your name over and over until it becomes an inexpressible concept.

Sometimes, this guide would be talking about something while looking in a completely different direction. Because OF COURSE she knew exactly where that table, piano, Japanese screen, or bed was in each of the rooms.

Also,

sometimes she walked past me while I held the door open for her and visitors to walk into Taliesin’s Guest Bedroom:

A photograph looking north in Taliesin's Guest Bedroom taken while on a tour. Includes the bed, several seats, and lamps. Has masonry in view. Photograph by Stilfehler.

and she’d whisper “God, get me off this tour” to me as she walked over the threshold.

Now, my suggestion for guides (and myself) in this case

giving the same tour over and over

is to “vary your tours”: find some aspect about Wright, or his ideas or buildings to explore.

which is why what I talked about on tours was sometimes completely different in September than what it had been in May.

However, that summer was special, too.

Because of the weather.

It was warm.

Not dangerously hot most of the time, but through the bulk of the summer, the weather seemed a consistent 85F [29C] or so.

Sometimes it was warmer, and sometimes it was cooler, but the rest of the time, it was 85F.

And dry.

So, every day was hot.

Cloudless.

Hot.

Cloudless.

Hot, perhaps a little humid, cloudless.

all the while we were surrounded by dying crops and brown grass.

This repetition made us all a little loopy.

And for me? I was giving so many House/Estate tours and listening to so many House/Estate tour guides in such heat that my internal censor had begun to malfunction.

I do remember

when this problem hit home.

I was giving a House tour and was on the stone hearth in front of the Living Room fireplace (like you see in the photo from 1955, below):

Color photograph taken of bench and fireplace in Taliesin living room, 1955.
Courtesy of the Huntington Library, San Marino, California.
Call Number: photCL MLP 1266

A fireplace, inglenook and flagstone floor seen in my post, “1940s Change in Taliesin’s Living Room“

I had either just received a question regarding the furniture in the room,

            or had just come to that subject in my tour narrative.

Do you know that at Taliesin, there is said to be only one piece of furniture from the interior that survived the 1914 fire? It’s a bench that is, today, behind the dining table in the room and you can see it in the photo below:

Black and white photograph of furniture by Taylor Woolley, 1911-12. Located in the Taylor Woolley photograph collection at the Utah Historical Society.

The bench is one of two on either side of the table in the photograph above.

While I was speaking, I voiced the thought I’d previously had about that bench:

“that doesn’t make a lot of sense to me. If a guy is chasing you through a burning building with an ax, are you going to think, ‘Oh, yeah, got to save this bench over here.’”?

I was speaking these words and

            a voice in my head off to the side was asking me:

“Keiran. Dear. What the f**k are you saying?”

While my lapse in judgement caused me to rethink my phrasing, several days after my comment, the heat broke in two of the most ferocious thunderstorms I had ever personally witnessed. Two large cloud bursts each lasting an hour and a half brought 7 inches of rain.

In addition, the manager finally scheduled all of us for more Hillside and Walking tours.

So that broke the spell.

 

Published September 15, 2024
Someone from Taliesin Preservation took the photograph at the top of this post. It shows me with a group while I was giving a tour. I’m standing in the middle in white pants. You can also see this image in my post, “Tour Guides and Trust“.

Note:

1. you can read about the guy I was writing my Master’s thesis on at that time, here.

2. formerly called the “Hillside Home School Tour”, but we changed the name by the mid-1990s after some people got very angry when they found out they weren’t going to the Taliesin residence.

Two women at The Whitney Museum of Art looking at Untitled (Hujar Dead) by David Wojnarowicz

David Wojnarowicz

Posted on | by keiran
Reading Time: 7 minutes

Looking at Untitled (Hujar Dead), 1987-88. “Hujar” was Wojnarowicz’s mentor & dear friend. The piece has writing silk screened over photographs of Peter Hujar (who had just died from an AIDS-related illness).
The writing, in part, says, “I’m a thirty seven foot tall one thousand one hundred and seventy-two pound man inside this six foot frame      and all I can feel is the pressure      all I can feel is the pressure and the need for release.”

My husband and I were driving in the car and “It’s Been a Minute” with Sam Sanders came on. Sanders interviewed Sarah Schulman, co-director of the ACT UP Oral History Project and the author of Let the Record Show: A Political History of ACT UP New York, 1987-1993 (“ACT UP” comes from AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power). It’s a great interview that I encourage you to listen to.
https://www.npr.org/podcasts/510317/its-been-a-minute-with-sam-sanders

Listening on the radio, and the fact that it’s Pride Month, pulled me to write this post. It’s about another long-term interest of mine: the artist David Wojnarowicz [VOY-nə-ROH-vitch].

Who was Wojnarowicz?

Wojnarowicz (1954-1992) was an American multi-media artist who died of an AIDS-related illness and was the subject of my Master’s Thesis in Art History in 1994.1

If you’ve not heard of him, you know at least one of his pieces: it’s Untitled (Falling Buffalos).2 I’ve noticed it a lot online and it was also the cover of the CD single, “One” by U2. The piece also graced the cover of his book of essays, Close to the Knives: A Memoir of Disintegration, which I took a photo of, and that’s below:

Cover of the book, Close to the Knives: A Memoir of Disintegration, by David Wojnarowicz. The book is sitting on a small table with my notes in the background (as apparent decoration?).

This post will not be a biography on the artist. That was expertly done by Cynthia Carr in her book, Fire in the Belly: The Life and Times of David Wojnarowicz.

Talking about why I can’t really talk about him

I’m not certain I can properly write about him at all. This sense of inadequacy also explains why I didn’t go to NYC 1990-92 to find him. I kept imagining walking up to him (myself a white, suburban girl with combat boots as my ONLY hard-ass protective badge) and saying. . . what? “Um. . .  I like your work”?

This was a man who, according to Close to the Knives, lived mostly on the street when he was a teenager (you’ll have to read Carr’s biography to understand more), and (among other things) created art in a falling-apart pier on the Hudson River by spray painting on the crumbling walls and, one time, throwing grass seed on the rotting floors (you can see the grass in the 6th photograph from the Hyperallergic page linked to in this sentence).

My encounter with his work came at a good time:

His time at the forefront of art began in the 1980s while he participated in the art scene in the East Village of New York City. The energy and dynamism of his work drew me when I first encountered him in an article in The Village Voice3 in 1990. He didn’t seem to apologize for being gay, or for being angry at the rampant homophobia surrounding the AIDS crisis.

And while some see him as “an angry artist”, I never did. It seemed to me that his anger was completely justified. If you watch him on YouTube you can see him explain reasons to be angry.

And if you don’t remember the unchecked, cruel, homophobia surrounding AIDS in the 1980s – mid-’90s, then you either never knew of it, or you don’t remember (not that homophobia wasn’t there before, but [expletive expletive expletive deleted] people were dying).

And, while he was not explicit, Wojnarowicz wrote at times about erotic homosexual situations. Due to this my advisor told me to switch 2 of the professors on my thesis defense team. He said that, while they wouldn’t admit it, they’d never accept the thesis because of their problems with Wojnarowicz’s sexuality.

Now, here are links to a small bit of his art:

While I was first drawn to his painting, my thesis concentrated on his photography, which he began exploring in the late 1970s in a series called “Arthur Rimbaud in New York”.

He made a mask from a photograph of Rimbaud’s face and took photographs of a model wearing the mask all over New York City in a variety of different situations. I find it interesting that he explored a similar subject as Cindy Sherman, with her Film Still series of the same time period. It was the wearing of a mask. Plus, using Rimbaud automatically throws in “The Flaneur“: the withdrawn man watching society around him.

Another series of black & white photography (and photo collage) comes about a decade later, and I think it should be mentioned. It’s “The Sex Series”. It’s fascinating, intricate, includes his writing, and can be interpreted a variety of ways. The piece I’ve linked to is what I started my thesis talking about (I won’t put in my text; it’s 10 pages long). But just these two things (Arthur Rimbaud & “Sex Series”) give you a hint of how wide ranging his work could be.

Here’s what I took at a retrospective:

I took this in 2018 retrospective at the Whitney Museum of Art in NYC (“History Keeps Me Awake At Night“):13 art works on the wall in the Whitney Museum of Art during "History Keeps Me Up at Night"

Wojnarowicz was put into the category of “Graffiti artists” in the early 1980s (like artist Keith Haring) because he painted on the tops of trashcans and used stencils, among doing other things. The photograph above has one of his stencils, “Falling Man” in a piece on the left.

My Major Professor (advisor) was generous in encouraging me to pursue the artist for my thesis, even though Wojnarowicz had passed away only two years before. I didn’t majorly screw up on it, and am mostly proud of my writing. And still proud of my thesis title: “The Inscrutable Imagination and the Politics of Visibility in the Art of David Wojnarowicz”. It’s earnest, complex and, like the thesis text, has the hard, serious chunkiness of homemade artisan bread.

A list of books and articles about the artist:

Since I really cannot write about the man the way he should be written about (I’m the Taliesin Historian, not the Wojnarowicz historian), I’ll add some of the books/articles on him/by him/from exhibits on his work:

David Breslin and David Kiehl, ed. David Wojnarowicz: History Keeps Me Awake at Night  (New York, NY: Whitney Museum of American Art, 2018). Exhibition catalogue

Cameron, Dan, Fever: The Art of David Wojnarowicz (Rizzoli, New York, 1998). Exhibition catalogue

Carr, C., “Portrait of the Artist in the Age of AIDS,” Village Voice, February 13, 1990, 31-36

Kuby, Adam, “The Art of David Wojnarowicz,” Out/Look, vol. 4, no. 4   (Spring, 1992), 53-62

Lippard, Lucy, ed., David Wojnarowicz: Brush Fires in the Social Landscape  (1995, Aperture, 2015)

———-, “Out of the Safety Zone,” Art in America, vol. 78. no. 12 (December, 1990), 130-139+

Wojnarowicz, David, Close to the Knives: A Memoir of Disintegration (New York: Vintage Books, 1991)

———-, David Wojnarowicz: Tongues of Flame. Works 1979-1989, Barry Blinderman, ed. (Normal, Ill: University Galleries, Illinois State University, 1990). Exhibition catalogue

———-, Memories That Smell Like Gasoline (Artspace Books, San Francisco, 1992)

Some URLs:

Talk about “full circle”: it’s the reproduction of the piece (owned by the Chazen) that I first saw in the now-Chazen Museum of Art at UW-Madison less than six months after I started Grad school. A person’s bandaged hands (in B&W silver nitrate) are in the background, while the text is in the foreground.

What struck me:

Instead of the energetic, intense man I first saw, the words on the piece (a lot of his art includes writing) showed a 36-37-year-old-man discussing the reality of his oncoming death:

“I can’t abstract my own dying any longer. I am a stranger to others and to myself and I refuse to pretend that I am familiar or that I have history attached to my heels. . . .” Ending with, “I am disappearing. I am disappearing but not fast enough.” The pain and exhaustion struck me and I stood looking at it for an unknown amount of time. I ended my thesis talking about this work. It wasn’t until I read Carr’s biography that I found out this piece was the last he ever produced.

The “Pre-invented Existence” is what Wojnarowicz felt we all lived in.

First published June 20, 2021.
I took this photograph at the Whitney Museum of Art in NYC during its retrospective in 2018, “History Keeps Me Awake at Night”.
As I often do, when I take photos, I’m doing it mostly for documentary proof that I was there. And I wanted people in the photo so I could remember the actual size of the piece. You can see Untitled (Hujar Dead) at the Whitney: https://whitney.org/collection/works/48140

Notes:

1 My thesis defense in November 1994 came just under 4 years after my first encounter with Wojnarowicz. December 1, 1994 was “The Day Without Art” on World AIDS Day. I and other Grad students created a series of presentations on it, the first time that had been done at the university museum. Organizing that with other Grad students is something I’m still proud of.

2 I love Wojnarowicz’s work, but the number of artworks that he left untitled is incredibly frustrating.

3 Cynthia Carr mentioned that she wrote that piece in her introduction to Fire in the Belly, her biography on Wojnarowicz. Not to be melodramatic, but I can’t remember how long I stopped breathing when I read that. The piece had an undeniable effect on my life.