I have had an unorthodox life. What you know about me may be interesting, what you don't know about me is fascinating.
1957 Born, Meriden CT, a Scorpio, hospital birth document reports "uneventful birth," my parents take umbrage.
1961 Something is wrong. I can draw in three point perspective, and create a depth of field. Other four year olds are still finger painting. I ask my kindergarten teacher for a fan brush so I can add shadows to my painting of a Halloween pumpkin.
1965 Sister Mary Edward pools the 3rd grade class on "What we want to be when we grow up?" I proudly reply "that I want to be an actor!" Sister Mary Edward is aghast, and reports that "good Catholics don't become actors; actor's live in a world of false illusions, pretense, and perpetuate the sham of fairy tales." Which sounds great to me. She points towards a portrait of "The Sacred Heart" and says, "with God's help that I can be anything else." Without hesitating I reply, "well, if I can't be an actor, I guess I'll have to be an actress!" I am enrolled at public school several days later.
1968 While on route to school I find a pale white mannequin wig head tossed away in the garbage of "the Academy St. Beauty Salon," South Orange, NJ. It is crazed from age and the makeup is almost all worn off. It becomes my coveted possession. (see my welcome letter) I name it Blanche after Blanche Dubois; I consider it providence as "Streetcar" is being shown on "The Million Dollar Movie" every night that week. My found treasure becomes my muse, "Oh look, we have created enchantment."
1969 The summer of love. I meet Rod McKuen and vow to become a poet. I fall in love for the first time with words and McKuen. Three weeks later I sit repeatedly (six times) through "Funny Girl" at the Castle Movie Theatre in Irvington, NJ until the manager insists my parents remove me. I fall in love for the second time. I want a knitted sweater with round bob buttons like Barbra wears while singing "People," it doesn't happen.
1973 Contrary to most 15 year olds, I develop an interest in fibers, learn how to spin wool, work a three harness loom and weave my own fabric. I begin to collect vintage clothing, wear celluloid collars, spectator shoes with red velvet ribbon instead of laces, and start tailoring my own clothing. I didn't fit in.
1977 Enter college, and after several semesters transfer several times, enrolling at 6 different campus simultaneously to study, fine arts, illustration, theatre, early childhood education, communications, film and media, painting, art therapy, literature and creative writing. I study seriously for six more years, GPA of 3.5, receive honors, obtain over 275 college credits, but elect not to obtain a degree. I am chosen for a winter intersession study with Bruno Bettleheim at the University of Chicago, who is prepping his thesis "The Uses of Enchantment." An analytical study about the sham fairy tales, and how false illusions and pretense are used to reinforce social mores. I am at the right place at the right time. (See Blanche Dubois quote.) Dr. Bettleheim and I do not see eye to eye.
1979 Survival jobs for the proceeding decade while pursuing acting include applying my art background and interest in fashion as Display Director at Unique Clothing Warehouse, Display Director at Stern's Department Store, Display and Visual Director at Bed, Bath & Beyond, (holiday window archived by MOMA) Store Manager at A Different Light Bookstore, world's oldest and largest Gay & Lesbian Bookstore. Theatre doesn't beckon much, but retail does.
1980 Work with "Wizard of Oz" fairy tale actress, Margaret Hamilton in staged readings of censored material/banned books throughout NYC public school system. Study with Stella Adler, Eva LaGalliene and at HB Studio will Bill Hickey, placed in supporting roles in films in marginal films. I become a professional commercial reader for J. Walter Thompson and William Morris. On a cattle call for extras, "The World According to Garp," I am told I look too ethnic for a NY City street sequence. Yikes! I'm 11th generation American. Star and featured in over 2 dozen stage performances on Broadway and off, far off, and way far off. The limelight begins to dim. I work my way down the actors ladder. Surprise! It's a short ladder.
1982 Begin volunteering at GMHC after the NY Times report that 41 gay men are diagnosed with "gay cancer," I am placed on the Pediatrics Team shortly there after, and work with the first infants infected with AIDS in the country when hospitals refuse to administer care. I wonder if I am at the right place at the wrong time.
1985 Poetry published in multiple magazines and journals, I become one of America's most published poets in the 1980's. Rod McKuen writes me a fan letter; the circle is complete... almost. I do not hear from Barbra Streisand.
1992 Return to college to pursue study in HIV/AIDS psychology, no department or course study exists, so I develop my own. I develop three housing programs in NYC for homeless PWA's, dually diagnosed with mental-illness and active substance abuse. Two of the programs are located in the heart of the Times Square/Theatre District, placing me back where I started, in the entertainment industry.
1995 Through the Actors Fund befriend and work with until their deaths, former big band singer Dolly Dawn, choreographers and dancers, Ulysses Dove and Miguel Godreau and other principals of the Alvin Ailey Company, I help to produce the "Love of Dove" Benefit at Lincoln Center. Regrettably, I can't dance. I have two left feet. I think it is a lark. I wonder why I am mired in the world of dance when I become Managing Director of the Battery Dance Company.
2001 While commiserating one morning that nothing every happens to me, I am only nine blocks from the World Trade Center, it is 9/11. I'm sweeping up dance resin from the floor, prepping for rehearsal for an international ambassadorial good will tour as a black cloud of debris envelops us. Birds, paper, and shoes manically beat against the window panes as the second tower implodes. Two weeks later the Battery Dance Co., undeterred by the events, hosts the first free dance recital in the still "frozen zone" of Manhattan, erecting a stage above the temporarily defunct Franklin St. subway station, firefighters, police officers, aide workers and residents pause albeit momentarily to watch a newly choreographed piece "the anyone's ballet," based on the e. e. cummings poem.
2003 I become the Assistant to Creative Director at Goldsmith Mannequins; projects include the Chanel Exhibit at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, F.I.T exhibits, Pattern Language: Clothing as Communicator show, developing visual programs for retailers, Galleries Lafayette, Escada, Ungaro, Burberry, Bloomingdale's, Barneys and Bergdorf's, St. John, and hundreds of others. In going through company archives I realize that the mannequin wig head I found in 1969 was created by Goldsmith. The mold was tossed away in the 1970's. I have the only known copy.
2007 All good things come to an end. I am terminated from Goldsmith on March 30th, Crestfallen, I know I will never work again. I am hired six days later, as Creative Director at Visual Merchandising International aka Fabulous Fit, maker of the words most beautiful dressmaker forms. I pick up design work with America's top fashion designers.
2008 Back to School, life holds surprises, I am now a Professor at LIM (Laboratory Institute of Merchandising) College, the school for the business of fashion, in New York City. I offer instruction in the Department of Visual Merchandising. They say, "That those who can, do, all others teach". A cynical statement only partially rooted in truth. I'm preparing the next generation of retail executives, visual merchandisers, marketing, press & PR professionals, fashion merchandisers, and editors.
