CAT.NO. ++ Th e Bride, 197o. .... -

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TO KNOW THII PLACE FOR THE FIRIT TIME r;JJ/YJUJIZI

JAC QUELYNN BAAS

Myself, in an endless succession ofrole s, the things that are fJart of my daily life are the best vehicles I can use to express what l fee l aboid myself, my ex fJeri ence. 1

1 war/, from both the conscious and unconscious states, hoping for a balance of both, which I suspect rarely happens. The images, ideas and techniques in my pictures only sen1e to reflect my thoughts, feelings, attitudes, beliefs, relationships with other people and my daily percefJtion of the environment I exist in. 2 - Joan Brown

Th e art of Joan Brown was re lentl essly focused on herse lf, and , more than anyo ne, Elmer Bisc hoff, who "talked my her world, and the discove ry of a metaphys ical reality that language, although I hadn't hea rd it before."4 By thi s, could help her organize her experience and existence. In Brown mea nt more than just an artisti c language, al­ this single-minded pursuit of her own psychologica l and th ough Bisc hoff was clea rl y a stylistic influence on her: spiritual developmen t through her art, Brown was at odds "cl own deep, psyc hically, I never got the kind of energies both with th e existenti alist outl ook of th e artist fr iends or connections that I go t from Elm er." 5 T hey shared an of her yo uth and with the political, ironi c, and reducti ve in terest in meta ph ys ics and mys ti cism, an interes t that perspec ti ves that came to dominate the art wo rld after never found expli cit express ion in Bischoff's art and that th e mid 1960s.' Throughout her life, Brown studi ed phi­ Brown fe lt free to express in her wo rk onl y afte r 1969, losophy and reli gion , with a foc us on uni versal theme when th e un ex pected dea th of her fa ther and th e sui­ and symbols. She integrated a number of these symbols cide of her mother opened th e door to a new emotional into her personal iconograph y, for whi ch her own uncon­ freedom. cious also se rved as an important source. Brown's early Bisc hoff taught Brown to focus on what was aro und ar ti sti c idols we re Rembrandt and Goya, with their psy­ her. "When I ge t too far out with what I'm doing and no chologica ll y revealing portra its and self-portra its (see ca t. longer have any handle, I go back and wo rk from what 1 no . 69, p. 118) . But her mature work shows grea ter affini ty can see and what I know, what I am familia r wi th and it with th e willfull y prim iti ve, enigmati c paintings of Paul gro unds me and roots me," she to ld an interviewer in Gauguin, whose art she also admi red (see cat. no. 59, p. 1985. 6 Even in her later work, whi ch is heavi ly sy mbolic, 106). Like Gaugu in , Brown developed a personal artisti c an occasional pa inting appears that was cl ea rl y clon e di­ language whose idiosy ncra ti c sy mboli c voca bu lary wa rec tl y fr om life- li ke The Cypress Trees (ca t. no. 102) and drawn from wide-ranging cultural traditi ons, from art his­ th e simple, charming Portrait ofToby the Cat (cat. no. 103, tor y, and from her imaginati on. p. 90), both from 1980. In ge neral, however, Brown's em­ Joan Brown bega n in th e mid 1950s as a ve ry young art­ phasis on the im po rtance of the unconscious in her pro­ ist whose art refl ected and developed the styles of her cess of making ar t, and her mysti ca l attitude towa rd life, mentors: David Park, Frank Lobd ell , Na than Oli ve ira, an attitude that seems to have ex isted from an ea rl y age:

11:19 CAT. o. 102. Th e Cypress Trees, 1980 .

190 JACQUELYNN BAAS allow for a ge nerously interpretive reading of art from ofth ese pieces are starting to relate and fonn a whole. every period of her ca reer. Part of my interest in the ancient cu ltures, the main Indeed, Brown herself engaged in ongoing interpreta- part, is this spirituality. Yea rs ago it was th e art. I spent tion of her work: a lot ofti me studying the symbolism ... and the con­ cept: what do symbols mean in the crossovers between I don't mind at all if my work is not perceived as I the ancient cultures. 11 "think" I intended. Very often I don't know what I in­ tended nor does that question frequently occur to me in What might a study of th e sy mbolism of Joa n Brown the fJroc ess ofconceiving and/o r executing a work ofart. yield? What do her sy mbols mean in the "crossovers" I've also found that sometimes, when I'm working on a among her researches into art and ancient bel ief systems, painting I'll think my intentions to be such, only to her changing concepts of herself, her relati onships with change my mind about the original intentions at a others, and her ongoing sea rch for th e meaning of life? In later date. 8 order to investigate this qu es ti on, I ha ve chosen to focus on one work-The Bride (ca t. no. 44, p. 188) , painted in Brown was resolutely democra ti c in her openness to inter­ the spring of 1970 -and to use it as a fu lcrum, a kind of pretation, stating frequen tl y that "art is for everybody," home base from which to expl ore some of Brown's most and that she was as interes ted in the response to her work meaningful symbolism. of ordinary people as of ar tists and critics. "I work with sy mbols," she told an interviewer in 1985. "My work is rep­ The yea r 1970 was a year of prodigious crea tivity for the resentati onal but also very sy mboli c. When you work with th irty-two-year-old artist, and a yea r of grea t technical ex­ symbols, you leave yo urself open, naturall y, to people's perimentation as well. On Hall oween 1968 she had mar­ interpretati ons, unless th e sy mbols are real cut-a nd-dried ri ed fell ow painter Gordon Cook, her third husband . Fo r unive rsal sym bols that we are all familia r with."9 Brown, marri age-however problemati c-was a des ir­ Although Brown shifted her subj ec t matter every few able sta te. In 1975 she told an interviewer, ''I've been mar­ yea rs, some themes permea te all phases of her wo rk. Her ri ed three times. I get married. I prefer fam il y li fe .... I own life, including herself at va ri ous ages, her child, her like the stru cture of fami ly life, I like the growth and th e pets, and others she ca red about together form one leit­ exchange that ca n take place with a cl ose relationship . . motif. A second , ve ry broad category might be call ed "the There's a certain funny ritual-as human bein gs we're other" or, as we have ca ll ed it for th e purposes of th e pres­ connected to rituals-where so mething happens . It's ent exhibi tion, "the wo rld ." Her resea rch in this realm was sy mbolic, and th ere's something very big, ve ry large about prodigious. Brown's library of some fifteen hundred vo l­ it. It's not infallible, obviously."12 A little over two months umes included books on not only art and ancient culture", after her marriage, in January 1969, Brown's alcoholic fa­ but also reli gion of all kinds, metaph ys ics, and mysti cism. ther died suddenly of a hea rt attack. Brown 's mother hung For Brown as for Sa int Paul , th e wo rld was made up of herself six weeks later. On th e day of her mother's dea th , things seen and things unseen. The titles of her ea rly ab­ Brown had a premonition that manifes ted itself as a new strac ti ons from 1959 and 1960 key us to this attitud e: titl es fee Ii ng of freedom: like Dog Dreaming of Things and Images; an abstrac t self­ portrait, Thing on Its 21St Birthday; and Things in Land­ She'd always talked ofsuic ide when I was a kid-con­ sca fJ e #1 (fi g. 16). The continuity of existence, th e connec­ stantly referring to suicide-she was go ing to go off the ti ons betwee n "things," was Brown 's ve ry un-existenti al bridge, all the time she was goi ng to jump offthe bridge. point. One of her favor ite authors was Fri tjof Capra, She'd say [whi le reading the newspaper}, "Oh, look, whose books emphas ize both th e similariti es between an­ here's another one off the bridge. We ll, I'm gonna be cient beli ef systems and recent discove ri es in the ph ys ica l next," . . . which scares the hell out ofy ou when you're a sciences, and the elusive boundaries between matter and little kid . ... I woke up that morning and I felt different, energy. 10 In 1985 , Brown asse rted th at: before I called my mother. I felt different, I felt a burden was off me, to tell you th e truth . At first I had a hard time As time has gone by, the things that I've been interested explaining it, it was like missing an arm or a leg, I fe lt in are all fitting into place, coming together, like parts different. It was like a hum, a noise was gone .... ofa puzzle. There are still empty spaces, which is a lot I felt free r, I felt better- I fe lt all these things, and I more fun than if it was all together, but nevertheless, all fe lt different. 13

TO KNOW THIS PLA CE FOR THE F IRST TIME 191 That summer, she and Cordon Cook lived in Vi ctoria, tay . . . . Once I ta rted using th e glitter, it became British Columbia, whil e her six-yea r-old so n, oel, stayed kind of a conscious element . .. ofu sing it to des ignate 11ith his fa ther, Manuel l eri, in Beni cia. That August, cheapne s, vulga rity, things like that, so tha t's part of it Brown , Cook, 1oel , Cook's so n Matthew and Paul , and too. But that came a~er u ing it. i- dogs Rufus and All en moved to th e nea rbv Sacra mento In The Bride, glitter gives 1· isual punch to elements of delta region- first to a house at Snug Harbor and then, in the bride' atti re, lends parkl e an d my tery to th e fur of January 1970 (after nug Harb or fl ooded ; fig. 90), to Rio her cat head, and crea tes a bristl y, glitterin g hal o around Vista. Fo r Br01rn , who had lived all of her life in cool, th e rat crouched along th e bottom edge of the picture foggy Sa n Franci co, this move to th e rural , unny delta that pushes him agg ressi ely into the viewe r's space. The with her husband, th eir children, an d pets mu t have enamel paint is bright, glos )', and smooth , ye t painterl y: been another kind oflibera ti on. the arti t's touch is visible and clea r as handwriting in the Betwee n th e spring of 1969 and the pring of 1971 di scursive trokes that describe th e colorfu l fi h in th e Broll'n produced a ignificant number of her fin est paint­ background and th e shorthand lace of the bride's gown. in gs. The eri e begins wit h a large diptyc h- Gordon, The Bride was painted on ca nva and is large in size-a Joan 6 Rufus inFrontofS.F. Opera 1-Iou e (ca t. no. 40; ee littl e over seven and one-half by four and one- halffee t. 1 previous essay)-ancl an all ego ri cal land cape-Chinese The size, frontal compos ition, bright color , and aggre - Statues Guarding a Delta Landscape (fi g. 82)- both from sive urface of th e painting-along with th e unn erving 1969. It concludes ll'ith th e autobi ogra ph ical Portrait of a stares of th e ca t, rat, and fi sh-create an effec t of unse t­ Girl (ca t. no. 51, p. 196), painted in th e spring of 1971. Th e tling intensity. The Bride confronts us a viewers and chal­ Bride, whi ch wa probably begun in th e ea rl y pring an d lenges us to engage with her on intell ectual and spiritual fini shed in th e earl um mer of 1970, 14 is on e of the most a well a visual and en ua l terms. The e are Joan Brown's complex of thi s ve ry compl ex eri e of pa inting . Brown ' term s, th e terms he set for her elf. Those who wish to en­ 01rn asses ment of Th e Bride is indica ted by th e fact th at it gage, to di cover fo r th emselves the mea ning of The Bride was th e painting he submitted to th e Centennial Exhibi­ mu t expl ore her multirnlent ymbolism with a curi ou tion at the San Francisco Art In stitute in the winter of mind, an open hea rt and a se nse of humor, for humor was 1971. Imposing, hi erati c, confidently composed an d tech­ a consi tent element in Brmrn' work. nicall v elf-assured, The Bride is one of Brown 's mo t pow­ The Bride compri e fi ve main pi ctorial elements: the erful and enigmatic work . brid e her elf; her rat, which is attac hed to her wris t by The visual language of Th e Bride is heavily coded, but a lea h; her ca t head; th e fi eld of poppi es in whi ch she it style is simple and straightforwa rd, in keepin g ll'i th tand ; and various colorful fi sh Aoating in th e sky or water the Rous eau-inAuence cl style that had charac teri zed (it is un clea r whi ch) above th e poppies . "Th is is a painting Brown's wo rk since th e fa ll of 1967, when Gord on Cook wh ere everyth ing just evolved," Brmrn laughingly told an gave her a large book on th e work of th is French primitive audi ence for on e of her slide lec tures . "I was doing a se ri es artist. 15 Th e Bride was painted with th e bright, luminous of paintings of Adam and Eve and all of thi art of thing, "Bull etin Colors" of commercial Sherwin-Will iam oil and it started out a a nud e in th e center, dead center, of enamel th at he had fir t used ea rli er in 1970 whil e paint­ Eve, and th en it went from th ere .... It we nt through a ing fo Memory of J\lly Fath er, J. W. Beatty (c at. no. 42, p. lot of chan ges; I worked on it for about three months."19 203). 16 Jn Memory of My Fath er was also the fir st time she Among other th ings, The Bride i a per onal Garden of had u eel gli tter to ac hi eve pi ctorial ri chn ess, a tec hnique Eden. A characteri sti c of depi ctions of the Garden of he exploited to startling effect in Th e Bride. For Brown , Eden i an abundance of plants and animals. In The Bride, gli tter accomplished sy mbolic as we ll as techni cal goals: the poppies and fi sh evoke th e Rora and fauna of Brown's Us ing glitter came about when I tarted working with own para di e in th e Sacramento delta. Even th e rat has a enamel and I rea lized that I missed the thickness of domesti c prototype: A Mouse in Snug Harbor, signed and paint . . . . So I wanted another kind of texture th ere and elated "Jo·m Cook 12/10/69" (ca t. no. 41 , p. 206). also I wanted something to refl.ect more light or light in a Other paintings from this tim e on th e th eme of th e different way than the many layers ofen amel did. So it Gard en of Eden in clud e Paradise Series #1: Eve with Fish just occurred to me to use glitter. I went to the hardware, 6 Snakes (cat. no. -l-7, p. 223 ); Seascape in the Garden of 10-cent store, and just got a whole lot and found that if Eden, with its leaping fi sh, preying bird , and erp ent I put a lot of layers of ve rathane over the glitter that it border (fi g. 83 ); and Devil Standing on Fish (ca t. no. 46,

192 JACQUE L YN , BAAS £61 3 IN I .L .L H l 3 3I-I .L H03 3:JV1d SI1-1 .L /\I ON)! O.L

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I F'IG. 83. Joan Brown. Seascape in the Garden of Eden, 1970.

p. 222) . All of Bro\rn's Eden painting feature fi sh, wh ich This paper-do ll world wa one of Brown's "compensa­ had ve ry personal meanings for her, a we hall see. Al­ ti on " for her unhappy li fe at home with her parents and though only a small part of the canoni cal Garden of Eden grandmoth er: story, th e fi sh is a uni ve rsa l symbol for Christ. Brow n was My mother was so mething like thirty-eight when I was rea red Roman Catholic and attended Catholic sc hools born, and my dad was five years older. And my gra nd­ throughout her girlh ood. The Christia n tradition of Mary mother was Li ving th ere. But it was a cra;::y situation, as th e new Eve, th e bride of Christ, who subdued the and my mother continued to work for a few )'ears after Devil, may hove r somewhere within th e confident ca t­ l was born , until she got sick and developed epilepsy. brid e, urrounded by her fi h, who has tamed th e rat. Mostly it was an. emotional disorder. What had hap­ The ultimate source of th e bride's power, as we hall pened was that my mother, neve r ha ving wa nted a fam­ ee, is her erene balance of innocence and experi ence, ily life all of a sudden found herself with one, but would her openne both to li fe and to knowledge of even th e never buy a hou e. So I was rnised in a three-room apart­ darkes t truth. This dual quali ty also links Th e Bride with ment with my mother, my father, and my gra ndmother. th e trad iti onal th eme of th e Garden of den, for in den . .. My mother didn 't wantthe respon ibility ofth e fa·e was tempted by the serpent to eat of th e fruit of th e house, and my fat her didn 't want to take a tand and put Tree of th e Knowledge of Good and Ev il , fruit that God up with my moth er . .. . I absolutely hated that environ­ had warn ed her not to tas te. Surely Joan Brown would ment. It was dark, 1 mea n dark in the p ychologica l way, have empathized with Eve, for from an ea rl y age he ,,·as and it was cmzy. 21 an avid eeker ofknowledge of all kind , and of experience in th e full est sen e of th at wo rd . For Brown 's mother a move fr om th ei r small Ma ri na The paper-doll dress of th e bride refe r in a ra th er apa rtment22 wou ld ha\·e meant ac knowledging the fact literal way to th e fanta ies of childhood- pecifi ca ll y th at she wa re ponsibl e for a fami ly and parti cul arl y for girlhood . Recalling her childhood, Brown told an inter­ a ch ild-so mething that she was apparentl v in ca pable of viewer, "I spent a lot of tim e making paper dolls, whi ch doing. Sh e thus seem to have repea ted th e pattern et by I've never thought of, but \\·hi ch now kind of hit home as her own mother, Brown ' gra ndmoth er, who took to her I spend a lot of tim e painting or making my own world .'' 20 bed more or le s perm anentl y after her husband was killed

194 JAC Q UE LYNN BAA trying to jump a train in an attempt to join his wife and produced around 1970. The girl is based on several fami ly daughter in San Francisco fo ll owing th e 1906 ea rthquake. photographs of Brown from th e age of about two to five Brown's mother wo uld have been four yea rs old at the yea rs old. The head is taken from an undated, han d­ time; she ca red for her mother for most of her life. As colored photo of Brown in a pink dress and hair ribbon for Brown's fath er, he seems to ha ve ass umed the ro le of (fi g. 84) . The dress and body are fro m a black-and-wh ite the chi ld in th e fa mil y, while Brown became, by defa ult, photo labeled on th e back: "Joan Bea tty age 5 yrs." (fi g. the moth er: 85) . The Rower in the right hand of th e ch ild in th e paint­ He drank himself into a stupor almost every night, ing is taken from a black-and-wh ite photo inscribed, which I don't blame him for one single bit. My dad and "Joan Vivien Beatty October 1940 2 yrs. 9 mos." In th is poi­ Twe re always very close; I was very sympathetic, very gnant photograph a sad-looking Joan holds out a rose to­ protective. !Vly mother would fight him up and clown ward th e photographer (fi g. 86). The Chinese character an d I'd jump in and I'd protect him constantly. He was and ferocious C hinese dragon in th e background of the rather helfJless in any situation that needed action, and painting were taken fr om illustra tions in a well-used two­ my grandmother was bedridden most ofthe tim e, crifJ· vo lume set of books on C hin ese art and history in Brown 's pied with arthritis. So very often. T would have to take library. The caption for the drago n in volume two rea ds: over a situation when my mother was sick, you know, "The five-c lawed feet of the dragon identi fy him as a sy m­ 27 with efJileptic attacks-and that would happen any bol of the emperor, the Son of Heaven ... . " (fig. 87). time du ring the night. It's only been. in the last five or six When Brown was yo ung she was fr iends with a C hi ­ years [s ince her parents' death] that I can sleep soundly nese boy (a fac t she hid from her parents), and she enjoyed 28 at night, beca use I was always alert, waiting for this. "expe ri enci ng" Chinese food with hirn. Brown was par­ And in this tiny environment, three rooms, you can hea r ti cularly influenced by Chinese culture in th e summ er of the slightest dishirban ce. So it was a very tense life. 23 1969, when she taught at th e University of Victoria in Vic­ toria , Canada: The chaoti c physical and emotional environment of Brown's chi ldhood was surely a factor in her ea rly sea rch They had a one-block Chinatown, but what a for and lifelong beli ef in a conta ining metaphysical real­ Chinatown! They had a lot ofthin gs there from Red ity.24 Later in her li fe, Brown came to regard her diffi cu lt China, and the only things we had seen we re iust the childh ood as a kind of gift: junk from around [San Frcmcisco ). .. . There was a curi­ 1think my life with both my mother and fath er was a ous duality between "funky" roughness and elegance very gift-giving kind ofsituat ion , as painful and as nega­ tive as it may so und . .. . My father taught me a great deal about gen tleness, which is something that did not develop that much in 111)' own personality. I felt you al­ ways had to come out fighting . .. . Sometimes I'll stop, put on th e brakes, and try and connect to that again rather th an ru shing through. For me, this was a great gift. The other gift, from my mother's side, I feel, is that I knew 1didn 't want to either live like that or end up like that-wanting something and yet thinking I cou ldn't do a dam n thing about it . ... Herutter failure in coping with her goa ls, fa ntasies, desires, and more important, her actual sihwtion, was a great gift to me, in tem1s of 2 being able to take action. ; Learn ing to take ac ti on was how Brown distinguis hed her- elf from both her mother and her fathe r; it was how she grew up. 26 !'IC. 84. Joan Brown The Portrait of a Girl (ca t. no . 51), painted in the spring of in pink dress and hair ri bbon 1971, \\'as the last of th e seri es of major paintings Brown at age two, 1940.

TO KNOW TH I S PLAC E FOR THE F I RST T I M E 195 CAT. NO. 51. Portrait ofa Cir/. 197 1.

196 JACQUELYNN l3A AS _.J

FIG, 1)5 (above left). Joan Brown at age five, 1943-

F IG. 86 (above right). Joan Bro\\'n at age two years, nine months, October 1940. FIC.87(right). Chinese dragon from Joan Brown': opyoF Th e f-lori;::on History of China / TR firr-tiuu,d /m_...,f 1Jw*dt11):rtt (American Heritage Publishing Co .. (11bo1t) 1,ln,111, him 111 11 · r;rr.hof. fl New York. 1969, vo l. 2, p. 73). •/tht twtfKr.,,, I~ 'i'411 ,., lfwrn ~ N(ff!,yt~iii, Jr"1,,,,c,. 11.r;JI,, r/11,,~.

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TO KN OW T H I S PLACE FOR T H E FIRST TrM E 197 which really attracted me. It was ve1)', very ophisticated plaster, tring, nail , and raccoon fur Fur Rat is large­ an d yet ve ry raw too. There is a funny duali ty there too over four and one-half fee t long and one and one-half fee t in the color and pattern. I became very interested in pa t­ tall. (It is, in fac t, alma t exactly th e size of th e rat in The 2 tern, and it was a huge influence. g Bride. ) It fur is matted with plaster and, though its bottom is quite bald , its tail is furry and tudded with hidden nail . Chin ese culture not onl y attracted Brown vi uall y, but This rat's lineage goe back to Brown's wrapped sculpture also repre ented th e beautiful and the exo ti c, th e enti cing of a bird (ca t. no . 3, p. 23 ), whi ch mimicked the ancient "oth er" that wa everything her life at hom e had not been. Egyptian prac bce of mummifi ca tion . Even before the Like The Bride, th e yo ung Joan Beatty in Portrait of a you ng Joan Beatty began reading about Egypt, she was Girl confronts us in a central, fronta l, though le elf­ morbidly fasc in ated by mummies: confident, l\ay. While the bride' gaze i traightforward and stea dy, that of a confident ca t, th e young Joan appears For many years, as a child, I used to be stu ck going to determined but a li ttle fea rful. In her ri ght hand she holds the e hideous concert otd in Golden Gate Park with my a pink rose , sy mbol of love and affection. 30 Her left hand father, my grandmother, my mother. ... I iust hated it. is hidden defens ively behind her back, a though she is /I the e old peo ple would talk abo1tt illn es es and hiding somethi ng she doe not wan t us to know he ha . stuff ... My dad would ay he was going to go watch The child Joa n tands, feet planted wid e, 31 on a glo sy the ball ga me, and he'd cut across the park over to inth black Aoor that co ntains a snakelike reAection of the Avenue and go to th e Little Shamrock where he had a frightening and tantalizingly exotic Chinese dragon th at bunch of Irish drinking buddies, over there on Sunday threatens her from behind. Her dominance of th e snake­ afremoons. So I would go to the de Young Mu seum. li ke reAection is reminiscent of th e ea rli er painting, Para ­ And [s tare at] that mummy, that one dumb , stupid, 33 dise Series #1: Eve with Fish 0 Snakes (ca t. no . -+7, p. 223 ), ratty, rotten mummy . . . and may allude to Brown's conquering of her childh ood The use of th e word "ratty" as an ad jec ti ve-popular slang demons. A tamed drago n ca n become a protector, like th e in the 1950s and 196os-was linked in Brown 's conve rsa­ Chine e guardians of the moonlit delta in another ea rli er tion with spec ifi c kind of images. The de Young mummy painting (fi g. 82). Whatever meaning this dragon may with whom she spent lone! Sunday afternoons was hold, he surely represents above all Joan Brown' own in­ '·ratty" and rotten. Her parents "wore the ratti es t kind of domitabl e spirit and her true li neage: daughter of heaven. chea p clothes ou could ever imagine."34 Tomb or apart­ Small , vulnerabl e, yet determined, this chi ld is th e pi ri­ ment, both contain ed a kind of mummifi ed existence. tual mother of th e triumphant Bride. The tudio was a place where she could combat rattine : "\1/hat a me s there! Rotten old pain t cans around and th e Wh at is th e Bride's sourc e of power? The mo t notable ratti est brushes. Then it' fascinating and chall enging ign of her power is th e large, cowering rat on a leash at to ga th er up tools in th is mes ... and try to create some the bride' fee t. The rat wa Brown 's mos t con istent and ord er in it. It's my kind of order. ... I have ome con­ pervas ive image . Rats appea r in so me of her ea rli es t works trol."3; For Brown, rattiness was linked with rottenness and reappea r often, frequ ently as protago nists in her pic­ and, by extension, death. rt wa a weapon aga inst death tori al drama . ccording to her on, Noel Neri, Broll'n - manifested both in the Egyptians' creation of sensual was fri ghtened of rats, a ph obia that persisted throughout and spiritual bea uty from death, and in her own powers her life. Given her actio n-o ri ented persona li ty, it should of creation. no t be surpri ing to ob en·e her engaging in th e counter­ In thi sen e, th e rat i a uni ve r al sy mbol: th e rat's ten­ phob ic behavior of repeatedl y depi cting the ource of dency to infe I: human habitations, it dirty color, and its her fea r in order to tame it. In a 1982 inten·iew, Brown reputati on for ca rrying plague as ociate it ll'ith di sease desc ribed the rat as "the ominou , dark, fri ghtening im­ and death ; whi le it fur coa t and di turbingly naked, age that I've u eel on and on for yea r ." 32 What, for Joan snakelike tail link it with ex. rat in a drea m can be an Brown , might thi s particular rat ha ve represented? Other image of something that is repulsive or sex uall y obscene exampl es of her rat imagery may help u beg in to an wer to th e dreamer, or it can represent a morbid outlook. this qu es ti on. Brown her elf had a vivid dream of a rat, a drea m that she Fur Rat from 1962 i perh aps the most powerful and recorded in a dark , murkv dral\·i ng from 1959: Rat Drea m ce rtainlr the most ge nuinely frightening of Brown ' rat #1 (ca t. no . 7; scene from thi or other rat dreams are images (ca t. no. 25 ). Constructed of 11·ood, chi cken ll'ire, represented in ca t. no . and 9, pp. 200-201). Brown told

198 JACQUELYNN BAA CAT ..'

TO KNOW T HI S PLACE FOR T H E F I RST TI ME 199 CAT. NO. 7. Rat Dream #.1 , 1959.

200 JACQUE LY N B AS •

CAT. NO. Ii (above). Rat Dream #2, 1959.

CAT. NO. 9 (left). Rat Dream #3. t959.

TO KNOW THIS PLACE FOR THE F I R ST T l ~IE 20 1 author Caroline Jon es about this drea m, in which a rat "appea red to her on the kitchen sink, its luxurious pelt ex­ tending to a long, bushy tail. Only when she stroked the tai l in the dream did he di scover th e harp nail con­ cealed within the soft fur." ' 6 The exual implication of thi drea m are unm istak­ abl e and complex. The kitchen is th e locus of domestic­ ity. The dream-rat' tail is not naked- it is covered wit h tempting fur, whi h harbor hurtful nai ls. Two photo­ graph s in Brown's personal coll ec tion of famil y photo­ graph may help heel light on the mea ning of thi image . The first is a photogra ph po tm arked 1959 that Wall ace Berman se nt her, hawing Brown at a how at th e Spatsa Gall ery in 1958 seductively enveloped in th e raccoon fur

FIG. 8 . Joan Bro\\'n in raccoon coa t and hat. hat and coat she later tran form ed into Fur Rat (fi g. 88). Ph otograph by 'v\la llace Berman, in scribed nother photograph, from ome forty years ea rlier, shows on ve r o: " 1957 [sic]/ HOW AT PAT A Brown' fa th er in simil ar ga rb and in a similar se tting, GALLERY. " (Brown' show at the Spat a com plete with painted backdrop (fi g. 9). The ph oto­ Ga ll ery was in 195 .) graph is a souvenir of John Bea tty's service in Siberia dur­ ing \,Vo rld War I. Brown's identifica ti on with her fath er, in parti cular this yo uthful ,'- relatively glamorou father who served in Siberia, is manifested in In Memor)' of M)' Father, f. W Beatty, 1970 (ca t. no. 42), th e centerpi ece of which is a wooden box in cribecl : ''SGT JOH 1 W. BEATTY I (887214) / A. • .F. SIBERI / FEB. 5, 1897- JA . 21, 1969." In a di scus ion of this pai nting, Brown ex­ plained th e signifi ca nce of th e box: "He had been in th e First World War, in Vladivo tok, and he had guardh ouse duty or something, but made fri ends with these German pri oners, and when he left, they made him that wooden box as a gi ft. "38 A nap hot fro111 Brown's coll ec tion hows this box on top of a pil e of objects that appea r to have been re cued from th e flood in Snug Harbor (fig. 90). Her dog All en is standing in the water as though guarding th ese ob­ jec ts. He is reproduced ve rbatim to the left of th e box in the pa inting. Once we know the dog i tanding in flooded water, other ele111 ents of th e painting ac hi eve added sy 111- boli c richn ess. The eagull with the hamrock39 in its beak become a poignant reference to th e biblical story of I oah and the fl ood , in whi ch a dove returning with a sprig of green folia ge represents the promise of new li fe follow­ FIG. 9. Sergeant John W. Beatty in Siberia, ca. 191-+- 1 . ing devastation. The salmon in the surrounding border beco 111 e symbol of regeneration. Brown rese 111bl ed her fat her ph ys icall y. Like him, she was mall-"He (was] a very sma ll man ... small er than I am"40 -and th ey shared rather poi nted, one might even say ra tlike, fac ial features. She was also more or less named afte r him : her fath er and mo ther's nam es were John and Vivien Beatty; th y named their daughter Joan Vivien Bea tty.

202 JACQUELY t N BAA CAT. NO. 42 (above). In /v/ emory ofMy Father, f. \\I. Bea tty. 1970. FIG. 90 (right). Allen the clog in the flood , Snug Harbor, Ca li fornia, ca. ea rl y January 1970.

TO KNOW T HI S PLACE FOR THE FIRST Tl~! E 203 ' t• •o+C'\ J•l'lfiu.'IH llll""l 'lt,i,rr~ - ,..,, lLJ V -i l ~ N Ji;<;,,JrwJ:,, 13c'HTy t 0~1. i1t.) M4'J-..,l l. UO :J.\ ~t'i::.ll.... a. ~,~ --

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FI G . 91. Joan Brown. PamilyTree, in ! oe l Neri' baby book, 19fo.

It is likely th at not even Joan Brown could have sorted Brown seemed determined to reverse the fam il y cur e of ou t the affectional, sexual, narciss isti c, and morbid impli­ apathy and depress ion. But it is likely that the experi ence ca ti on of her rat drea m and, by extension, the Fur Rat. of pregnancy and th e prospect of becoming a mother eli c­ or would she have wan ted to, for her power came from ited angry feelings towa rd her own mother- th e mother her unconscious: who had never wa nted or accepted her42 -along with ac­ companying fee lings of guilt and fear of abandonment. Unlike a lot of people, or people I know, 1 trust the w1- Brown probably made the Fur Rat before loel's birth, conscious very, very strongly. And I don 't trust my con­ som etim e during the spring or summer of 1962, during scious, my mind is a mess. It iust loo ks like this painting her pregnancy. She may we ll have felt a particularl y table. It 's iust fzll ecl with nonsense, sidetracking, ga r­ strong need at thi s tim e to exo rcise th e "ominous, dark , bage and crap. Bu t in my unconscious are th e ideas I get frightening" drea m-im age of th e fur rat, an image that re­ (or painting, from nothing very clear or precise-my ceived much of its powe r from un co n cious fee lings of at­ drea ms. I'm a great believer in drea ms. I pay a great deal trac tion toward her fa ther, hatred toward her mother, and ofatte ntion to them, and follo w them in my everyday 4 fea rs of isolati on and dea th. ' life very strongly.4 1 One of th e most in teres tin g ob jects in Noel Neri 's col­ Pres umabl y, Brown had th e rat drea m in 1959-the date lec ti on of hi s mother's work is his own baby book, wh ich inscribed on the drawings (ca t. nos. 7-9, pp. 200-201). Fur Brown seems to have worked on somewhat obses ive ly Rat wa clon e in 1962. What was it about the yea ri9fo that soon afte r his birth on August 20, 1962, and updated regu­ ca used her, three yea rs later, to create a large-scale, three­ larl y until oel was eight amine years old. This tancl arcl­ dimen ional, tac til e rep] ica of th e rat in her dream? iss ue ea rl y 1960 baby book was heavil y customized by I in eteen sixty-two was th e year Brown learned she was Brown: th e se ntimental drawin gs decorating th e book pregnant: her on, I oel, was born in August of that year. were transform ed by her into portraits of J oel, ca ri ca ture For Joan Brown, th e ex peri ence of rnotherh o cl was ex­ of th e fami ly's pets (Bob the Dog is ubiquitous), and oth er tremely positi ve; in moth erh ood as in everything else, icli o yncra ti c images. Even rats appear-only once, but

204 JACQUELYN 13AAS m quantity: th ey cavort through a ribbon-bedecked "Fam­ il} Tree'· of Brown's own devising on a page on which -:\lom's sid e" of Noel's fam il y-Brown's parents, grand­ parents, and great-grandparents-is listed in some detail fig. 91). In contrast, "Dad's sid e'' of th e fa mil y lists only Ianuel's mother and fath er, despite the fa ct that Brown as on good terms with her mother-in-law, Guada lupe -Lupe" Ne ri , of whom she painted a sensiti ve portrait ·cat. no. 22, p. 69). It is likely that Brown spent consid er­ able time talking with her fa ther, mother, and grand­ "'1other aro und the time of th e birth of her son , fo r her "mily history on this page is repl ete with cross ings-out and fillings-in of information. +4 In th e process of re­ searching the names and exact birth dates of her fo re­ bears, of ta lking with her parents and gra ndmoth er about :heir own parents and abouttheir youth, Brown must have gained a ri cher understanding of the peopl e who had caused her so much pain . The "Fa mil y Tree" is decorated much like th e Christ­ mas tree Brown crea ted fo r her son's fir st Chr istm as, a FIG. 92. Joa n Brown and Noel Neri at Ch ristmas 1962. in Noel Neri's baby boo k. tree that Brown libera ll y draped with wide ribbons of candy-dotted paper (fi g. 92), and whi ch she docum ented ma major painting, Noel's First Christmas (cat. no. 28, p. 207). Christmas was an importa nt holiday fo r Brown; it represented a ritual time when animosities we re put as ide and harmony reigned. 45 Presumabl y, the birth of a baby ought to be another such occasion for harmony and cele­ bration. Brown named her baby "Noel" after th e holiday. And although th e "Family Tree" was not th e first tim e Brown depicted ra ts in a li ght-h earted fa shion (see ca t. no. 10), it is notabl e that, in Noel's baby book, Brown's rat­ infested fa mily tree is thoroughly celebratory in nature. Mo use in Snug Harbor (ca t. no. 41) was clo ne onl y a few months before The Bride, in December 1969. Al­ though its direction is reversed, th e mouse's pose is virtu­ ally identical to th at of the rat in The Bride. lt is painted with a heavier impasto than the res t of the painting, em­ phasizing its three-dimensionality, mu ch like th e rat's glit­ ter in The Bride. The mouse crouches on a blac k rug with pink Rowers that is simi lar to th e blac k, fl owered ground plane of The Bride. The styli zed leaves of the obsessive ly pa ttern ed wa llpaper, in the sa me pos ition as the fi sh in The Bride, evoke th e shape of ex tern al female genitals. About her use of pattern, Brown told an in te rviewer in 1982 : "[ have n't used any patterns for a while now, in the sense of the ord erl y, form al kind of pattern s I was using .... \iVhen I did use th em, it was beca use I did fee l a kind of need, CAT. N O. 10. Rats on Pingers, 1959. a compulsion to have that kind of ord er in pictures. I felt better after I put them all in ."46 Psyc hologically,

TO KNOW T H JS P LACE FOR T H E F IRST T I ME 20 5 CAT. NO. 41. A Mouse in Snug /-I arbor, 1969.

206 JACQUELY N BAAS loz '.3W l .L J.S ~I.:l '.3!-1.L ~o,r '.3::)Yld S1 1-IJ , /\ION)! O.L rodents repre ente d a threat to Brown 's fu nd amental as an expression of th e death in tinctwas one of th e impli­ sen e of self. A 1ouse in Snug Harbor i on one level a ca ti on of Brown' "fur rat" drea m, and it is also a pr imary cene from her domestic life. On another level it is an ef­ componen t of th e rat ym bolism in Th e Bride. The Bride's fort to tame a phob ia. On ye t another level it i a hi ghly rat represents th e base instin cts, instincts th at the bride controlled attempt to re olve long-standing psyc hologica l has tamed and now con trol , just as Brown th e artist i ues, iss ues that were more programmatically, th ough tamed her "rattv" bru hes to create art. perhap no mo re consciou ly, defin ed in The Bride. The rat ap pea rs in anoth er painting closely related to As he grew old er, Brown's continuing researche into Th e Bride: a square Self-Portrait with sy mbolic fig ures in spirituali ty and metaphys ic brought her to increa ing lev­ th e background tha t was painted at about th e ame time el of comfort with th e darker side of ex istence. In 1977, (ca t. no. 43). T his is a key wo rk, fo r it alerts us to Brown's inspired in part by Pau l Brunton' book,A Search in Secret strongly ico nogra phic progra m, and it presages th e even Egypt, he tra ve led to Egypt to fin all y experi ence th e more programmatica ll y sy mboli cal self-portraits of 19 3 ghos ts of a culture that had fasc inated her si nce child­ (cat. nos. 110-14). This mall er self-portrai t picks up and hood. The Fina l Obsen1ation of 1977 (fi g. 94) was one of repea ts several features of The Bride. ea r th e right edge, many works Brown created as a result of her Egypt trip. the paper-doll dress from The Bride is attached to a fi gure Like other 11·orks from this ex ten ive eri es, The Final Ob­ with Brown's head, confirming that the cat-bride is in­ servation is infused \,·ith obviou humor, a quali ty that deed a self-portrait. To th e lower left of th e bride th ere i leavens its heavy message. 18 a ca t, and fi sh are scattered among th e other ob jec ts, as In this dip tyc h, a decorous Brown an d her male com­ th ough they had somehow tumbled from th e background panion ob erve a pair of hea vi ly drinking rats who are of The Bride into th e background of th e Self-Portrait. Only seemingly unawa re of th e skeleton behind th em laying a one of these images ac tu ally in trud es into th e arti t's own bony, proprietary hand on each of th eir shoulders. An an­ space: th e gray rat that crouches on her left shoulder, its cient Egyp ti an ankh -a symbol of immortality-hang tail ca ressing her throat. It i like a malevolent guard­ from Brown's arm in much th e sa me way th e rat's leash ian ange l; or devil, to u e Gard en-of-Eden imagery-th e does in The Bride. Egyp ti an fi gures and sy mbols decorate Devil was a fa llen angel, after all. 47 the backgrounds of both part of th e diptyc h, but those on In Brown' later work, ra ts are most frequ entl y assoc i­ th e left-h and , rat side are in di sarra y, whil e tho eon the ated both with partying, in par ti cul ar dancing and heavy ri ght-hand , Brown side expre celebration and wo rship. drinking, and with dea th , in the fo rm of skeleton . Often Clea rly, Brown and her compani on are assoc iated wit h both th emes are combined. The Last Dance from 1973 co rni c ord er, whil e th e drinking rats are literall y di or­ (ca t. no. fo, p. 2w) makes explicit what is implicit in many der! - th ey ha e knocked over a bottl e of wine and a bot­ of Brown 's Dancer paintings: the un conscious fore kn owl­ tle of aqua vit. De pite th eir natty dres , th eir atti tude and edge of dea th th at dri,·es the urge to merge with another. behavior are ra tty. Brown and her fri end watch in di may: T hree couples dance in va rious state of intimacy and ec- th ey know that th e rats, ignorant or unca ring of pir itual tasy, obli vio u to the three rats creeping up from beneath truth, are al read y dead. to swa ll ow them whole-th e fate of a fourth couple, who In addition to representing a ca rele approac h to life, are in th e process of di appea ring headfirst into the maw th e di ord erl y rats in Th e F'inal Observation repre ent of a large, sharp-toothed rat. The compos iti on is fl anked, Brown's own shadow-se lf, th e dark sid e of her natu re th at left and right, by a skeleton in e1·ening wea r observing she lea rn ed to recogni ze and integrate a she grew older. 19 the cene, and by a skeleton dancing wi th a rat who e Similarl y, th e rat in The Bride, like th e rat on Brown ·s disturbingly naked tail trail off into th e lower right-hand shoulder in Self-Portrait, is an attribute of th e bride her­ corner of th e compositi on. The overall compositi on and self, an a pec t of her own psyc he. Brown' humor, her several detail of this painting are remini cent of Edva rd sense of play, i manifest in all three works. In The Bride, Munch's Dance ofLif e (fi g. 93 ), wh ich is in fac t a dance of th e dark pass ions are held in check by th e power of dea th . The message is th e arne: love and death are com­ th e bride, a power sy mboli zed by th e pulchritude of th e plements, two sides of th e ame coi n. Munch beli eved bride's body and costume at her moment offeminine apo­ th at one is intimately linked with th e other. Brown wished theos is. Despite th e quali ty of carica ture in th e bride's nu­ only to remind herself and us (humorously but fi ercely) bile breasts and her paper-doll wedding dress, for Brown, th at one in evitably fo llow th e oth er. T he sexual instinct she was a ymbol of that "certain funn y ritual . . . ll'h ere

20 JACQUE L YNN BAAS 6m: 3 1~1J. J.SUl.:1 3 H .L UO.:I 3::)\/'l d S1 1-I J. /\I ON)! OJ. CAT. NO. 62 (above). The La ·t Dance, 1973.

FIC.93 (right). 0 dvard 1' 1unch. Dance of Life. 1899-1900.

210 JACQUELYNN BAA CAT. NO. 61. i\'ew Year's El'e Dance # 1, 1972.

TO KNOW T !-11 S PLACE FO R T H E F I RST T I ME 211 FIG. 9+ Joan Brown. Th e Final Observation. 1977.

something happens," something that allowed for "growth it's both, but I th ink it's an alter-ego.";2 This androgy nous and th e exc hange that can take place with a cl ose relati on­ quali ty of th e cat partl y accounts for the disturbing nature ship."10 The innocence of th e bride, her opennes and of The Bride. She is more all ey ca t than pu y cat, and willingness to connect, are an important so urce of her the masculine directness of her ca t head contra di cts th e power. softn e of th e ro und-brea tee! fema le body to which it The only power worth having is power over oneself, is attached. The contradiction within Brown herself be­ and the bride's innocence i balanced by the confid ent, tween stereotypi call y ma culine and feminine qualiti es­ kn owing stare of her ca t's eyes. A cat is anyth ing but inno­ her "mal e" forcefuln e s of character and her "female" cent. A related im age by Brown is Woman Wea ring Mask sp irituali ty- led her to conduct lifelong resea rche into from 1972 (ca t. no . 55 ), in whi ch a woman confronts us ph ilosophi es that stressed the integ ral nature of masc u­ boldl y, wea ring sexy black underwear, red hoes, and a ca t line and feminine, such as that of kh enato n's Egypt and mask. This image elicit common associati ons with cats th e C hinese concept of yin and ya ng. In a 1985 lecture, as predators and as amoral exual crea tures. But th e un­ Brown claimed that "every ancient cul hire has used the dres eel woman in Woma n V-learing Ma k is wearing her duality, the male/female principle, making up th e sum to­ cat nature as a mask for the benefit of the viewer, a part tal, this now bei ng a principl e existing within the incli vid­ of her co tume. We se nse that it is one of many pas ible ua l."53 In The Bride, Brown i , among other things, advo­ per onas-this woman is pl aying at being a ca t. In co n­ ca ting the compl ementary rather th an th e contradi ctory trast, the ca t-brid e of The Bride is neith er a woman wea r­ na ture of masc uline and fe minine qualiti es within a in­ ing a ca t mask, nor a ca t dressed up a a brid e. She i a gle being. true hybrid. Joa n Brown referred to her ca t-bride as a sphinx. 54 The Although he painted a grea t many dog , which he Egyptian sphin prototype ha th e body of a ca t and the generall y a sociated with her fath er,51 Brown identified head of a human, but the reversal we see in Th e Bride was with cats. "I think th e cat is an alter ego," Brown told an also comm on, both in Egyp ti an art55and in Brown's wo rk. audi ence in 1985. "I use th e ca t frequent! . The ca t is like In 1967, for exa mpl e, Brown did a painting on paper in an androgynous bein g, it's neither male nor female and whi ch complementary phi nx-type are paired: a loud ly

212 JACQUE LYN BAAS CA T. NO. 5;. Woman Wearing /\/ask, 1972.

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AT. NO. 37. J\ la11 <5 Tiger, 1967.

214 ) ACQUE LY ' N BA AS dressed man has the head of a tige r, while a tiger has the and pure one of its kind . ... Jf this man coveted place or "head of a se nsiti ve man'' (cat. no. 37). T he mea ning of power, it was not for his O\Vn sake, but from the convic­ this drawi ng may be no more co mpl ex than a witty visual tion that he could do the work we ll and truly, and to the play on th e animal quali ties of contrasting human perso n­ advantage of his fellow-men.6 0 alities-a poet with th e hea rt of a ti ge r, an d a fla shy dresser Brown seems to be examining her motives as an artist in with a predator's mind. Or it ma y simp ly be a contempo­ this im portant yea r- th e yea r of her C hinese astrological rary renderin g of a desc ription of an Egypti an monument animal , the Tige r; th e fo rty- fifth yea r of her life. Two yea r Brown found in on e of her books.56 "The sphinx," Brown after making th is pa inting, she told an audi ence fo r a slide asserted in a 1987 lec ture, "has fascinated me for longer lecture, "T he (fo rm ] over my head still has some hook than I can remember. ... \,\That th e sphinx means in eve ry into it. It starts out as an altru isti c th ought form, but it ancient culture is th e higher and th e lower se lf joined comes back into th e ego .. . . 171e ca ts have good on es . toge th er; th e animal and the human living toge th er in The ca ts are hom e free th ere, but I'm still hooked in."61 harm ony, not separate-non-dualism."57 For Brown , the For Brown , th e cat wa s an integrated, balanced crea ture, sphinx represe nted a wholesome balance betwee n our a creature to emulate. Harmony (cat. no. 108 . p. 217), from human and our animal natures. Humans are associated 1982, form s a kind of coda to Th e Bride. In I-lann ony, with intell ec t; an imals, especially cats, with in stin ct. It i Brown's human, in tell ec tual powers, linked with th e sun des irab le to balance intell ec t with instin ct, as Brown tried and with co nsciousness, and her ca tli ke instin ctu al to do in working "from both the co nscious and un co n­ powers, linked with th e moo n and with th e unconscious, scious states, hopi ng for a balance ofboth."'8 are shown in perfect balance. Ironica ll y, f-lann ony, with For ~rown, animals we re by no means inferi or to hu­ its literal sy mboli sm, fee ls more heavil y 1Yeighted toward mans. In fact, sometimes the opposite was th e case, as in Brown's consc ious mind. It is a less interes ting and effec­ Brown 's large, all egorica l self-po rtrai t of 1983, Year of the ti ve painting than The Bride, whose multivalent images Tiger (ca t. no. m ). The ti ge r was Brown's Chinese astro­ are resonant with th e mys teries of th e unconsc ious. logical symbo l. (The cat in The Bride is a tige r ca t. ) In Year ofth e Tiger, itis represented along with the other Chinese The fi sh in th e upper backgrou nd portion of The Bride are as trological sy mbols in a wh eel at th e upper right. Below in some wa ys th e simplest, in other ways th e most chal­ the tiger is a drawing of one of Brown's self-c hosen patron lenging sy mbolic component of this painting. Cats like to sai nts: th e athletic Egyptian godd ess Nut, who holds up eat fi sh, just as th ey li ke to catch rodents, so it do es not the heavens. To th e left of center are two constell ati ons, seem particularly strange to see fi sh as well as a rat in this quarius and Leo, representing Brown's bir th sign an d cat's rea lm. But \\·hen we begin to look at other works fea­ her ri sing sign. Brown herse lf stands at the center, a pen­ turing fi sh that Brow n produced around this tim e, th e sive look in her eyes . Dressed in her painting clothes, her poss ible mea nin gs of th ese fi sh multiply as mys teri ously as paintbrush in hand , she co ntemplates her future and th e th e fi sh in th e Ne\\' Testament miracle of the multipli ca­ worthiness of her moti ves. Over her head and over th e tion of th e loaves and fishes. heads of two ca ts on pedestals fl anking th e composi ti on sked about th e fi sh in th e background of The Bride are "thought-forms'' taken from a book of that titl e by the­ during a 1975 lec ture, Brown sa id, "I did numerous fi sh at osophists An nie Besa nt and C. W. Leadbeater that ex­ that time; we we re li ving on th e delta ri ght on the wa ter, plica tes th e meaning of shapes seen over people's heads and th e kids wo uld fi sh off our do ck and we were con- in various emoti onal situations by unspecifi ed clairvoy­ tantly surrounded by fi sh one way or another."62 Broll'n' ants.59 The pink curve d fo rm over th e left-hand cat rep­ so n do es not remember fi shing in Ri o Vista , but he does resents "affection ," 11·hil e the blu e, cone-s haped form remember his mother frequ ently bringing home fi sh from over the head of the right-hand cat signifi es "devotion." the market in ord er to paint th em. At the beginning of The more compli ca ted ye ll ow/orange hooked form over 1970, Brown, attesting to her obsessive interest in thi s tra­ Brown's own head represe nts "high ambition." According ditional still-life subject, painted a number of sti ll lifes of to Besa nt an d Leadbea ter, this form is by no means to­ fi sh. Major paintings from 1970 that feature fi sh include, tall y nega ti \'e : in additi on to th e Eden pictures mention ed ea rli er, th e The ambitious quality is shown by the rich deep orange painting in memory of her fath er, whi ch has a fi sh bord er color, and th e des ire by the hooked extensions \Vhich (ca t. no. 42, p. 203); a large portrait of herself with her arm precede the fonn s as it mo ves. The thought is a good around an over-life-size fi sh (ca t. no. 49, p. 224); and The

TO KNOW T HI S PLACE FO R T H E F I RST T l ~I E 215 CAT. NO. 111. Year ofth e Tiger, 1983.

216 JACQUELYN N BAAS ..... I

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CAT. NO. 10 8. Harmony, 19~2.

TO KNOW THIS PLACE FOR T H E F IRST Tii\.IE 217 lermaid (ca t. no. 45 , p. 220 ), which is also a elf-portrait. This is on e mea ning, for exa mpl e, of th e Christian ritual (Although the mermaid i bl ack, she ha Brown 's green of baptism. Because of their many eggs, fi sh are sy mbols eyes and trademark bea uty mark on her cheek.) of fertilitv, whi ch in p yc hological term s mea ns a prom­ Someone who depicted herself embracing a fi hand a ise of perso nal growth and, in per onal term , of genera­ a mermaid clea rl y id entifi ed with fi sh or, perhaps mo re tion-the power of creativity. In Brown 's large pa in ting accurately, identified fi sh with omething about her elf. 1ew Age: The Bolti Fish , which he also ca ll ed Transfor­ On one level, this is not compli ca ted: Brown loved being mation (cat. no. u6), the fi sh ca rri es both mea ning . Here in th e water. She told Paul Karl tram in 1975 that during th e artist shows her elf landing in the mouth of a large her unhappy childhood she" pent an awful lot of time in colorful fi h, holding a paintbrush in her hand. Brown·s th e wa ter and on the beach, which I have returned to in visual model for thi image wa a reproduction of a th e la t ix or seven rears." 63 The ex hilara ting contrast be­ fifteenth-centur)' Persian manu sc ript painting of Jonah tween her parent ' dark , clau trophobi c aparb11 ent and and the Whale (fi g. 95 ). Stubborn Jonah tri ed to aYoid th e bright, open water of San Franci co Bay must have Cod's order to go and preach to th e sinful inhabitants of been an important part of the appeal of s11·imming when l in eve h. He ll'as thrown off the ship on which he ll'as she wa yo ung. Fl eeing, and spent three days and ni ghts co ntemplating S11·imming may also have sati fi ed a need to master the hi s willfulness in the bell y of a wh ale. The fish vom ited primal element of water. Both as a child and as an adult, him up afelv on dry land, and he eve ntuallv went on Brown warn at qua ti c Park, with its dangerous currents to fulfill Cod's command. Transfonnation 11·as painted and its proximity to th e Colden Cate Bridge, whi ch her in 1984, th e year fo ll owing Brown ' pi votal year of self­ mother had repeatedly threa tened to "go off;' as we ll as ques tioning- a pi ritual and professional crisis that pro­ Alcatraz Island, ll'ith its evocati ve priso n.64 Among th e du ced several major paintings, including Qu estions 6 An­ important changes in Brown's life in th e yea r 1969 was a swers and Year of the Tiger (ca t. nos. uo, 111; pp. 164,216). return to regular swimming. !th ough she lived in th e There are ove rton es of th e Jona h story in Transformation , delta, whi ch presumabl y had pl enty of places to swim, as an expression of Brmrn's resolve , after her yea r of self­ Brmrn returned to wim from quatic Park, where she doubt, to make her work her spiritual practice. had swum as a child . Certainly, mastery wa fundamental Abo ut th e fi h in Transformation , Brown told an au- to her altitude toward wimming, for she warn competi­ di ence: tivelr, and in the ea rl y 1970 he became a student of th e In Egypt in the eighteenth dynasty [the period ofAkh e­ Olympic swimming coach C harli e Sava, who was an im­ naton) there were fish in the river, in the Nile, called portant mentor for her as we ll (see cat. no. 69, p. u 8).M Bolti. And these fish hatched their eggs in their mouth. For Brown , swimming was a meditahve ac t as well as It was looked u/Jon as a symbol of reincarnation and of 66 a ph ys ical activity. Water is a uni1·ersal sy mbol for th e tran formation . . .. And it was a acred image. So 1 un conscious, and fi h are equated with its content : we thought this was fittin g. It's a fish and it's a little self spea k, for exa mpl e, of "fi hing for id ea ." On one level, portrait with a paintbrush in its lwnd.67 th e fi sh in Th e Bride represent the prey of th e ca t in ju t this sen e: the prod ucts of Brown 's imagination that nour­ Brown's account of th e Egyptian fi sh th at hatch ed th eir i heel her art. That th ese fi h ma y exist in th e mind of th e eggs in th eir mouths is related to th e story ofJonah . It ma y bride i indicated by th e fact that thev wim in an indeter­ be related as well to a ve r ion of th e Egyptian myth of minate blue field behind her in th e upper half of the pi c­ 0 iris that Brown surely wou ld have known. After Osiris ture. re th ey swimming in water, as we would expect, or was torn in pi eces and hi bodr sca ttered by his brother in the ky, as implied by th eir position above a fi eld of Set, his consort [sis ga th ered th e pieces togeth er and they Rower and by th eir diminution in size as th ey approach were reunited by his, on nubi . One pi ece, however, was th e hori zon ? This qu andary reminds u of th e imag inative mis in g: Osiris's genitals had been thrown by Set into ex peri ence of lying on ou r back on th e ground and visu­ th e l ile, where th ey were swallowed by a fi sh. Fi h are ali zing the ky, not as a ceiling ofblu c, but as a sea of infi­ ancient yrnbols both of th e phallus and of th e female nite depth , with the ea rth a an ocean Aoor. There is a ge nitals, whi ch "swallow" tho e of th e male. The e mul­ timele s quality to this sensa tion , a 1ve return in our imag­ tival ent a ociations of fi sh both with spiritual it~· and re­ ination to th e beginning stage of evolu tion and breathe ge neration, and with ferti lity and crea tivity, lead u to look water a if it ll'ere eth er, like our ancestors, the fi h. at other examples of fi h that appeared in Brown ' art dur­ V-fater al o sym boli zes rebirth, a return to th e watery ing th e sa me yea r in whi ch The Bride was painted. world of the amniotic Auid in whi ch we were fir t formed. In The Mermaid (ca t. no. 45 , p. 220), Brmrn depict

218 JAC Q UELYNN BAAS CAT. NO. 11 6 (abore). New Age: Th e Bo/Ii Pish (Transformation), 198+

FIG. 95 (right). Jonah and the 'v\flw/e, Iranian, Earl r Ti mu rid per iod, ca. 1..fOO . Ill ustra ti on from Jami (1 /-Tawarikh (Compendium of Histori es), by Ras hid ad Din , Fadl All ah.

T O KNO W T II I S PLACE FO R TI-I E F I RST Tl~I E 219 c.~T. NO. 45 . The Mermaid, 197o.

220 JACQUE LY NN BAAS NJf as a black mermaid wi th a sequ ined tai l wh o stares is helpful also to compare th e Devi l with The Mermaid, h1l) at us from on top of what appear to be white ice and Eve with th e Self-Portrait with Fish and Cat. Like Th e in a choppy red sea fu ll of leap ing fi sh. In Self­ Bride, The Mermaid and th e Devi l share a lavish use of rait with Fish and Cat (cat. no . 49, p. 224), Brown glitter, whi ch recalls Brown ·s statement that she eventu­ els in her pain t clothes in a reel room holding a paint­ ally began to ex ploit gl itter's associations with "cheapn ess, h in her ri ght hand and embracing a ve ry large fi sh vul ga rity, things like that" -associations that seem partic­ her left arm, whil e a cat rubs against her ankle. The ularly apt fo r th e Devil. The Devil 's relationship with the heme is also key to th e odd pair of paintings from th e fi sh is clearl y on e of dom ination. As for th e Mermaid ­ f 1970: Devil Standing 011 Fish and Eve with Fish <5 halfhuman, half fi sh, she is a sy111bol of the union of our kes (ca t. nos. 46, 47) . The Devil stands on a pink fi sh human and spiritual natures . Thi s is an unusuall y ea rthy­ bran di shes a large, harl equin-pattern ed snake over looking merm aid-hers is not the stereotypica l fema le eacl. His body is divided verticall y: his ri ght side, in­ body of Th e Bride, but a real wom an's body, complete Jmg his peni s, is reel ; his left side is black . The color with sli ghtl y pendulous breasts of unequal sizes and a . along with the color black, were ubiquitous in definite tu mm y. Her black skin li nks her with 1\llami n's pa intings from this periocl .68 Reel , th e color of Wata , the water spirit of th e Ibibio, Igbo, and other Afri­ .d. is assoc iated with li fe , with power, and with pas­ ca n peopl es, a deity capable of bestowing blessin gs or in­ Black, the color of darkness, is associated ll'ith death Ai cting pain .-0 The Mermaid's bla ck skin and her reel 1e \Ves t, but more universall y with mys tery, earthi­ ocean home are similar to th e Devil's red and blac k body, . and the un consciou s. The Devil 's legs and feet are but th e overtones here are completely different. Cool, like n'.'Cd like th e rat's tail in The Bride, whi ch links him the ice she sits on , thi s merma id is a tota ll y earthy as well "ith th e rat and with the snake,-his own harlequin­ as a totall y spiritual being. Like Eve, she is a self-po rtra it emecl snake and th e garishly colored snakes in Eve of th e artist, but her relation to the watery world of th e fish 6 Snakes, on e of whi ch (the one th at extends it unconsc ious and of creati ve fo rce (note the leaping fi sh) eel tongue toward Eve) is also striped. In Eve, whi ch is seems much more self-ass ured than that of Eve, who If-portra it, a Cauguin esqu e69 Brown clutches a similar clutches her fi sh defensively to her body within th e mas­ pn k fish to her body as she stands on what appears to be a culin e realm of th e snakes . , rock amid a sea of threatening but subdued snakes. Self-Portrait with Fish and Cat shows Brown ll'orking in This puzzling pair of pa intings wou ld see m to express a less assertivelv all egori cal mod e. Self-Portrait with Fish J°-"n Brown's interpretation ofThe Fall. In traditional rep­ is a repri se and bringing toge th er of th e essential th emes ntations of thi s event, Eve is usuall y depicted as th e contained in The Bride, Th e Mermaid, and especiall y (a ptress who covets th e opportunity to know wh at Cod the simi lar titl es indica te) Eve with Fish 6 Snakes. Unlike '\\S, and leads Adam to join her in tasting th e fo rbidden those in tense ly sy mboli c paintings, Self-Portrait with Fish t. ln Brown 's psyc hologi ca ll y complex version, Adam and Cat is a straightforward self-portra it in whi ch Brown not Figure, and th e fruit has been tra nsfor med into a confronts us in her paint cloth es, her paintbrush in her The mod el for this parti cul ar fi sh 11·as a reel snapper, hand. Like E,·e, she holds a large fi sh- in this case a hich Brown ph otograph ed and used fo r both paintings golden fi sh- aga inst th e left side of her body. f\ bl ack cat -~- 96). Its pink color emphas izes th e femin inity of this rubs against her ankl es . The scene takes place in a red r,onal sy mbol of sex ual kn owledge an d power. The room wi th a reel til e Aoor onto which Brown and the cat t.•·il, who with his contrasting colors would seem to be cast blac k shadows that connect th em with the edge of th e h... life fo rce and death fo rce incarn ate, tramples the fem­ pi cture and thus wi th the world . Like Brown in Eve with u me fis h as he holds up his masculine snake in a gesture Fish, Brown in Self-Portrait holds th e fi sh as a talisman, a -\ictory. Fo r the gentl e Eve, th e fi sh se rves as a talisman . ~y 111bol of her creati vity. But it is a tro phy fi sh too, a beauti­ ..., Jnding on a black pedestal, Eve is protected by her fi sh fu l, big, li1·ely fi sh, lik e th ose in The Mermaid, seemingly - m the threatening snakes . It is her connec ti on with ca ught in the act of jumping. Brown's "alter ego," th e cat, h the un con sciou s, sy mbolized by th e black pedes tal, is blac k, a color th at connects it, and bv ex tension her. nd wi th her own ge nera ti ve power, sy mbo li zed by th e with th e un conscious. Her pa in tb rush in her hand , she i pmk fish, that gives Eve/Brown her powe r. ready to paint, to ac t, to crea te order out of chaos. 'The Devil and Eve were seemingly crea ted as a pair. In The Bride, th e mu lti colored fi sh Roa t serenely be­ Their iconogra phy is diffi cult to interpret, hmYever, and it hind the brid e's ca t head in an ethereal blue skr abo\'e a

TO K NOW T III S PLACE FO R T H E F IRST T l ~I E 221 CAT. , o. -16. Devil Standing 011 Fish, 1970.

222 JACQUELYN I B. AS CAT. NO. -+7 (left). Paradise Series #1: Eve 111ith Fish c5 Snakes. 1970 .

FIG. 96 (below). Red snapper. 1970.

TO KNOW T HI S PLACE ~' OR T II E F I RST T l ~I E 223 CAT. r-:o. -+9· Self.Portrait with Fish and at, 1970.

224 JACQUE LYNN BA r- 1c. 97. Henri Rousseau. War (La Guerre or La cheva uchee de la Disco rde), 1894.

ack field from whi ch grow orange Californ ia poppies, end of all our exploring will be to arrive where we started, ~ wi ld poppi es, and white and blue morning glories . and know th is place for the first time.' Coming back to th e lore in cliviclu ali ze cl th an th e generi c salmon that frame elf."73 The trigram painting prese nts in a literal way what e earli er In Memory of My Father, th ese fi sh, like th e had been ve iled in all egory in Portrait of a Girl: for Joan t, seem held in thrall by the spell of the confident ca t. Brown, crea ti ng art was a process of "com ing back to L:ke the fi sh, the Rowers no doubt had th eir genesis in th e self." Few painters (among them Paul Gauguin and • •\\n's own Eden: her new delta home in the spri ng. Edvard Munch) ha ve pursued this goal through th eir he pa inting, th ese Rowers grow ou t of scorched, bla ck art with such openn ess and hones ty. Ove r th e course I that resembles the blasted ground in the painting of Brown's life , th e focus of her art shifted from a self­ ar, by Brown 's stylisti c model Henri Roussea u (fi g. 97) . exp loration whose sy mbolic terms were ve iled, even, at • ,wn had been through her ow n wars-personal and times, to herself, to a more programmatic metaphorical chological struggles sy mboli zed by the rat-and had expression of deepl y held spiritua l beli efs. In the end, per­ onl y survived, but triumphed. Poppi es are sy mbol s haps all reli gion is personal. The ri cher, com pl ex expres­ · "orgetfulness and hap py dreams; morning glori es of sion of Brown 's earlier wo rk has wo n higher pra ise from " .h beginnings. These Rowers ground The Bride, li ter­ art historians and criti cs than her simpl er, more direc t ai'l} and figurati vely, in th e wisdom of th e un conscious, work from th e 1980s. But th e truth of the matter is: Joa n t as the fi sh envelop her in an aura of creativity and Br01rn didn't ca re. She had consciously shifted her focus spuituali ty. 71 by th e encl of her ca reer from self- exploration to sharing th e results of her research and her hard-wo n knowledge Juan Brown painted an untitled work of eight sy mboli c tri­ with as wide an audi ence as possibl e. ams (ca t. no. 98, p. 226 ) in 1979, almost ten yea rs after Despite her many teach ers, Joan Brown wa s funda­ ,he pai nted The Bride and three vea rs after she bega n th e mentall y a self-mad e person. Her work from the impor­ ,eries of trave ls that helped to coalesce her philosoph y of tant period of 1970 and 1971 shows us this person, this art­ rtas an express ion of"th e superconscious, wh ich is a very ist, in many co nt ra di ctory aspec ts-sad and triumphant, pi ritual way of being."·2 In this relative ly small (three by fearful and confid ent, loving and powerful. The Bride re- two feet) painting on paper, th e Chinese trigrams of th e I ists easy, even persistent, interpretati on, ye t it is one of Ching , the Book of Changes, sur round a quote from TS. th e artist's most sa ti s~'ing works. Of all th e paintings Eliot's Four Quartets. The Chin ese trigra ms are remini s­ Brown produced during this lime, The Bride is perh aps ce nt of th e Chinese characters in th e background of Por­ th e most complete express ion of her analyti cal, intuitive, trait ofa Girl (cat. no. 51 , p. 196), Brown's other ma jor sy m­ ad ve nturous nature. It is not onl y a superb aes thetic and bolic self-portrait, along with Th e Bride, from her mid­ techni ca l accomplishm ent; The Bride effec ti vely and in a career period in th e 1970s. Brown explain ed the mea nin g completely fres h way also presents us with an image of the of the trigra m painting in a 1985 lecture: "This was [from ] oul- Joa n Brown 's so ul , an entity capabl e of amazing the fina l se ri es [on China]. The quote here ... says: 'The toughness, sensiti vity, and transfo rmation.

TO KNOW TH I S PLACE FOR T H E FIRST TIME 225 CAT. NO. 98. nlitlecl (Eightsymbolic tr igram ). 1979.

226 JACQUELYNN BA AS NOTE.I

1. Joan Brown , quoted in Na ncr Aza ra, ''Artists in Their Own stated th at she ll'orked on Th e Bride "fo r about three months." Image." [Vis. 1. no. 7 (J anuar\' 1973 ): 58. Woman Wearing i\.lask, Third , in th e same 1975 lec ture Brown stated that /n Memory of 1972 (cat. no. 55). is ill ustrated. My Fc1ther. ll'hich was probabl y begun around th e fi rst anni ver­ 2. Joan Brown . q11 oted in Miriam Schapiro, ed., Art: f\ sa ry of her fath er's dea th in January and is da ted 3/23/70, was the Woman 's Sensibility (Valencia. Calif.: California Institute of th e first painting in which she used commercial oil enamels. Th e Arts. 1975), p. 12. Bride, ,d,ich is also painted with oil enamels, is th e onl \' oth er 3. In a San Francisco Art Institute program, "On th e Spiritual large painting from 1970 to be pa inted on canvas-all th e oth er in Art,'' with Go rdon Onslow- ford , 31 January 1987, Brown paintings from 1970 except th e small Self:Portrait (cat. no. 43, p. talked about her interest in an cient cultures and metaph ys ic 209. el ated 5/21/70) are on masonite. I surmise, th erefore, th at she when she was in sc hool '1t the Sa n Francisco Art Institute (SFAI) took up Th e Bride soon after she fin ished J11 Memory of J\ I)' Fa­ duri ng th e late 1950s and ea rl v 1960s. Had she revea led these in­ ther. (Brown seems to hal'e li ked th e smoo th sur fac e of maso nite. terests at th e time, "people would have consid ered me in va lid as but not to ha,·e liked its weight: she switched bac k to ca nl'as. an arti st. a nut . . . . it \\'as a ve ry existential kind of time, and if dense ly prim ed wi th smooth rabbit-skin glu e, in 1972.) there \\'aSa n)' phil osoph )' that \\'a s accepted and pushed ... it \\'as 15. [n Joa n Brown's lib ra rv is a battered. paint-cove red cop) ex istenti ali sm''; from a tape in th e SFAI library; 111 )' th anks to Jeff of Jean Bouret's Henri Rousseau (Greenll'ich, Conn.: New York underson. Graphic Society, 1961) insc ribed, ''From Cordon in Fall 1967. / 4. Archi ves of Am eri can Art (AAA), Smithso nian Institution. chewed up lw Rufus & Al len Fa ll 1968!" The first major pain ting Was hington, D.C. , interview \\'ith Joa n Brown bv Paul Karl­ to show a stro ng Roussea uian inAuence is Buffalo in Golden trom . San Fran cisco, transcribed manusc ript, 1J uly 1975, p. 44. Cate Park, 1968 (ca t. no. 39, p. 87 ). 5. AAA, 1 Julr 1975, p. 43. 16. "I wanted a Ratter ki nd of surfa ce and a thinner surface but 6. From an in tervie\\' ll' ith Karen Heil man, 4 Ap ril 1985. ye t th at had a lot of oil in it .. . . T he paint was erawlingand doing Karen Hei lm an, '' On Joan Brown," a paper for Peter Selz's co urse all kinds of terr ible things [for an exam pl e of th ese pro bl ems, see in Contemporary Art History at th e Uni,·e rsily of Californ ia, A Mouse in Snu g Harbor. 1969, ca t. no. -+1 , p. 206), and th en one Berkelev, completed 9 ~ lay 1985 (estate of Joa n Brown. co ll ec­ cl ay when [ \\'as living in th e co untry, acc id entally [ ran ou t of oil tion of Mi chael Hebel and Noel Ne ri ). paint. ... It was an hour and a ha lf from th e nea rest place . 7. In th e 1987 SFA I program , ·'On th e Spiritual in Art" (cited \\'h ere I co u lei ge t so me oil paint ... . [S]o I went to th e local hard­ inn. 3), Brown talked about meeting ·'an older lady" who was a wa re stores. and I brought home so me red and some blac k and Rosicru ci,rni st \\'hi le wa lking dogs in th e park when she was di seo,·e red it was exac tl y the sa me kind of surfa ce I had been about nin e. She attributed th e sparking of her interes t in looking fo r for years.... And it ll'as quick because it dri es fast" ; gyptology, especia ll y th e religion of Akh enaton, to th is child­ transc ript of videotape interl'iew b" Kate Horsfi eld, "On Art and hood fri endship. Arti sts: Joa n Brown," Profile 2 (~ lay 1982): 15-16. 8. Quoted in Schapi ro, Art: A \,\loman's Sensibility, p. 12. 17. Horsfi eld intervi c\\', p. 20. 9. Fro m an interl'ie\\' by Andree Marcc ha l-Workman , "An In­ 18. Brown l01·ed to paint large pi ctu res; Horsfi eld inte rview, terv iew wit h Joan Broll'n ," Ex/J o-see (March-April 1985 ): n.p. p. 19. T here were li mits to interpretation fo r her. howeve r. Di sc uss ing 19. From th e tape of th e 18 Apr il 1975 lecture at th e SFAJ in some depth th e psrchological mea ning of checked pattern s in (c it ed n. q ). her work with Paul Karl strom, she co ncluded: "I don't \\'ant to 20. AAA. 1 July 1975, p. 9. "[ 1rnuld make paper doll s for other an alyze thi s; I hate doing th is kind of thing. I don't like it wh en kids on th e bl ock, and th en 11·e wou ld have a stor)'-each kid other peop le do, especiall y psyc hiatrists, psyc holog ists, art hi sto­ ll'ould have a ce rt,1in paper doll , and I ll'O uld tell th em what char­ rian s"; AAA. 15 Jul y 1975, p. 14. acter th ey woukl assum e . .. oh, and a cloll house . . .. So ['cl spend 10. In Brown's li brary are paperback editi ons of Fritjof l.., a­ ages hove ring over th e doll house and doll s'': ibid ., p. JO. pra 's The Tao o(Phrsics (1975 ), Th e Turning Point (1983 ), and Un­ 21. AAA. 1 Jul y 1975, pp. 6- 8. Broll'n 's moth er and fat her actu­ common Wisdom (1989). Brown stated in her 31 Janu ary 1987 all )' bought and mm·cd into t\\'o separate houses wh en Joan \\'3 SFAl lecture (cited n. 3) that in her painting she attempted to \'e ry youn g, on!)' lo mo,·e bac k into th eir or iginal apartment both rend er in visual fo rm Capra's description of the interchangea bil­ tim es. Joa n's moth er hung herself in th at apartment. in wh ich ity of matter and energy. See in particul ar th e backgrounds of her Joa n claimed she had "nel'er spent one mom ent alone . . .. It 11·a paintings from th e late 1970s. such as cat. no. 95, p. 15+ blac k. dark. sca n·, like a Drac ula house to me, and l wo ul d ne,er 11. From a l'id eo tape of a Joan Brown lec ture to a Sai Baba be alone in if'; ibid .. p. 16. gro up in San Di ego on 6 August 1985, at th e tim e of the dedi ca­ 22. There ll'ere no bedrooms; onl y a kitchen, bath room , and tion of her obelisk th ere; tape in th e coll ecti on of Noel Ne ri . dining room, \\'h ere Joa n and her grand moth er slept, and a lil'ing 12. AAA, 1 July 1975, pp. 25-26. roo m, where her parents sle pt. 13. AAA, 1J ul v 1975, pp. 15-16. 23 . AAJ\, 1 July 1975 . p. 12. q. 1 base this datin g on th ree facts. First, th e painting is dated 24. Sai Baba-the name ofBroll'n 's spiritual g11id e from 19150 on th e back ''6/30/70." Second. in a 1975 lecture at the Sa n Fran­ until her dea th - translates as "di vin e mother/fath er." Sec previ­ cisco Art lnstitutc (18 April ; tape in th e SFAJ libra ry) Brown ous essar. n. 233.

TO KNOW T l-ll S PLACE FOR T II E F IRST Tl'IE 22"j 25. AAA, 1 Jul )' 1975, pp. 27-28. -+6. From th e Hor fi eld interview, p. 21. 26. Brown's statement that she "learned a grea t deal about 47. Brown attend ed Catholic sc hools throughout her vouth; ge ntl cne ·· from her fath er i something of an anomaly. One Cath oli c emblem book and im ages of sa int mav have influ­ component of her fa mously fei sty temperament wa urelv not enced her depl oyment of ymbols. onl y ange r with her moth er but also repre ed rage at her fath er -+ . On Brunton. ee previous e sar, pp. 146, 1-+8. Hrmrn liked fo r hi pass i,·it!· and drunkennes . ll"h at he perce i,·ed a Egyptian humor. She reveal ed her O\\"n at­ 27. Th e J-/ ori:::o n Book of the Arts of China and Th e J-/ ori.::011 titude tm,·a rd humor in her work wh en he told an intervi ewer: History of China (New York:. meri ca n Heritage I ubli hing Co .. ""n,e 'g)'ptians were ,·e ry, very witt1·. nd I like th e wit. Not 1969). Both image we re taken from vol. 2, pp. 37-3 (charac ter ) a area ti c kind of humor. Ju twit about peopl e. about being abl e and 73 (dra go n). to laugh at yo ur elf, about evervday occurrences"; f A, 15 July 28. AAA, t July 1975, p. 20. 1975, p. I L 29. Quoted in Butterfi eld inten·ie\\". '" Joan Brown in onve r­ -+9· Joa n Bro\\'n sa id in 1975, '· a kid you rese nt your parents sa tion \\"ith Jan Butterfi eld ,'" \lisual Dialog 1, no. 2 (December being wea k, hul a you grow old er you find out, hell . you are too"; 1975-Februarv 1976): 17. A ' \, 1 Jul v 197 5, p. Lf· 30. Rosebuds also appea r in the pattern o the \\"all pa per in 50. AAA, 1 July 1975, pp . 25- 26. th e bac kground of Girl with Gorilla C7 \Vol(, 1971 (fi g. 6i, p. 105), 51. In res ponse to a qu estion about th e anima ls in /11 /\,J emory painted th e pre,·ious ll"inter. of M)' Pather during her 1975 F I lecture. Bro\\·n responded, 31. The girl 's po e i ve ry clo e to that of th e girl in C u - '" he liked animal a grea t dea l, and th e dog and th e cat were our tav Klimt's Portrait of l'vli:ida Prima,•e i in the l\ letropolitan l\ lu­ animals." ]though Brown \\"al keel dogs a a child , th e Heatt)'s did se um of rt in New York. (Thank to Steph en \Val rod for thi not m,~1 pets; th ere \\"a no room for th em. And, as di sc ussed observa ti on.) above, th e dog in this painting was Bro\\"n 's 0\\"n cl og around th e 32. From an intervie\\' by Gerri e Kretzmer, 6 May 1982 (from time of her fath er's dea th . Brown wa eith er dis imulating (whi ch a tu dent paper. a cop)' of whi ch is in th e co ll ec ti on of l\ li chae l is quite pos ibl e). or he was indicating th at she id entifi ed th e dog Hebel and 'oel l eri ), p. + and th e ca t with her fath er and her elf. For an interesting disc us­ 33. AA&. , 1Jul y 197 5, p. 2.f· sion by Brown about her a sociation of dogs with her fath er, see 3+ i\AA. 1J ul y 1975, p. 10. MA, 1Julp975, p. 30. 35· , 15 Jul yi.97 5, P-15· 52. From th e video of th e 6 ugust 19 5 San Diego lec ture 36. aroline . Jones, Bay Area Figurati ve Art: J950-1965, (cited n. u ). exh. cat. (Berkele)' and Los Angele : ni Ye rsity of California 53. Ibid . Press and an Fra ncisco: San Francisco iv! use um ofi'vlodern Art , 5+ erri e Kretzmer, "Epil ogue,'" student notes fr om a 19 2 1990), p. 1-+ . Joan Brown slide lec ture ( opy in coll ection ofi'vli chael Hebel 37 . Brown told Karlstrom her fa th er had lied about hi age to and Noel Neri ), p. 2. serve in th e war: "he wa onl y about fi~ee n'"; AAA, 1 Julv 1975, p. 55 . There are, in fa ct, more precise Egyptian prototvpes for 2. ln fo ct, he would have been e,·enlee n in February 19q. In th e th e bride's cat-head ed femal e fo rm than th e phinx: the goddes Karl trom interview, she desc ribes her elf a lying about her mrn Bast, guardi an of marriage, wh o i repre ented a a ca t or a ca t­ age lo ge t job : "from fourtee n on l worked summers . .. li ed, sai d headed woman; and th e related goddess Sekhmet, wh o i de­ I was eighteen , and graduated from high chool"' : ibid. , p. 19. pi cted as a lion ess or a woman with a lion ·s head. Both form s of 3 . From ta pe of th e 18 April 1975 FAJ lecture (cited n. 1-+)- th e ca t-h eaded god des were a sociated ll"ith Ptah. god offerti l it:y, 39. Bro\\'n's fath er was lri ,h, and one of hi s fa1·orite bar ll"a rea tor, and patron of th e arts. During th e Empire peri od of th e Little Shamrock. Egyptian hi tor)' th e love goddess A tarte joined th e Egyptian -+0- AAA, 1 Jul y 1975, p. 2. pantheon offeline deiti es. The No rse god des oflo ve, Frey ja. ll"aS -+1. AJ\A, 9 eptember 1975. p. 22. ;i] soacatgodd e s. -+2. Brown's fee lings about her moth er ll"erc quite o,·ert: ·'[ 56. The in cripti on on th e painting reads: " THI, DUAL T ICER hated m,· moth er," he told Karl trom; A.A, 1 July 1975, p. 13. SPHINX AR E CO~ IPO ED OF SOLID ROCK. T HEY TA, D l 9 FT. LONG ·B- Alth ough Brown stressed to Karlstrom th at he didn "t AND 66 FT. HIGH. THE REC LIN ING TJ CER SPHINX HAS T HE BODY mind her childh ood isolation , that she liked being alone, she AND PAWS OF A T IC ER BUT rr's [sic] H EA D I THAT OF EN ITIVE ne,·e rtheles de cribed th e "rea l en e of iso lation" as th e mo t ~[AN . T HE TANDI NCTICE R PHIN XHA TH E H EADOFA FO R~ll ­ fri ghtening aspec t of-h er traumati c 1975 Alcatraz " ·im: AAA, 9 DABLETIGERA ' D T H E BO DYOF ~I N DR ESSE DI NCONTE~IPO­ September 1975. p. 7. RARY GARB. " 4+ Bro\\"n " ·as abl e to recount th e hi tory of her famil y in un­ 57. From th e tape of th e 31 January 19 7 SF I lec ture (cited usual depth and detail during her 1975 interview ll"ith Paul n. 3). Karl trom. 5 . See n. 2 above. -+5 · Santa Claus appear in Brown 's painting Questions 6- . n­ 59. Annie Be ant and C. \V. Leadbea ter. Th ought-Form s, first swer #1 of 19 3 (ca t. no. 11 0, p. 16.J.). ll"h ere he is accompani ed published b)' The Theosophical Publishing House in Ach-ar. bi• a painted insc ription: "'[ have al way thought ofChristrna ,' Madras , Indi a. in 1925 and reissued in numerous sub equ ent edi­ wrote Charl es Di ckens. 'a a good tim e; a kind, fo rgiving, char ita­ tion . There are two co pi es of this book in Brm,·n· library. It i ble, pl ea ant tim e; th e onl y tim e l kn ow of in th e long cal endar interest·ing to compare th e colors Brown associates with the vari­ of th e ,·car when men and women eem bv one con ent to open ous animal in her wh eel of Chinese a trological symbols with th eir hut-up hea rts freely."' th e mea nin gs ass ign ed to th ese colors in th e fronti spi ece to th e

22 JAC Q UE LYNN BAA book. This "key to th e mea nings of colors'' corresponds with all 69. Among ot her things, th ese paintings re,·ea l an increasing but one of th e colors in Brown's astrol ogica l wheel. (The white stvli sti c and thematic influ ence of th e nineteenth-centurv sy m­ bac kgro und of th e rn bbit docs not appea r on Lea d beater's chart.) bolist arti st Paul Ga uguin , who by and large repla ced Roussea u Brown 's mt is give n a ln1ckground of dir tv green, whi ch repre­ as Brown's artistic model in the summe r of 1970, and to whom ents "sc lfi shn cs~"; th e cl og's background is a brighter green, she produ ced a painted homage , Woman with Gauguin Paint­ mean ing "sympathy"; th e background of th e snake is black, ing. in 1972 (ca t. no. 59, p. 106). In 1889 Gauguin crea ted a seri es mea ning "hatred and malice"; and th at of th e dragon is gra)·, of paintings on th e th eme of the Garden of Eden in th e dining which represen ts "fea r." Brown's O\\'n ti ger has a rose-colored room of th e inn at whi ch he \\'as living in Le Poulclu . A reproduc­ background, th e sa me colo r as the shirt she is \\'ea ring. Ac­ ti on of his Self- Portrait with Halo and Snake fro m that se ri es wa co rding to Besa nt and Lea dbeater, rose stands for "that absolutely one of th e reprod uctions pinn ed up in Brown's studio .1t th e tim e unselfi sh love whi ch is poss ibl e only to high natures"; Besa nt and of her dea th . Elements in Brown 's Eve and Devil ha ve as their Leadbea ter, p. 23 . ources spec ifi c "·arks br Gauguin . The ye ll ow hill and aqua- 60. Besa nt and Lea dbea ter, Th ought-Fo rm s, p. ~2. colored sky in th e background of th e Eve, fo r exa mpl e, appear to 61. From th e video of th e 6 August 1985 San Di ego lec ture be based on Gauguin 's 1892 painting Sacred Mountain . The odd (cited n. 11 ). phvsiognomy of Brown's Devil may ha ve been in spi red by Ga u­ fo. From th e tape of th e 18 Apr il 1975 SFAl lecture (c ited n. gu in 's sc ulpture Pather Lechery q ). 70. As a wa ter spirit. Jvlam i \\lata's attribute is, interestingly 63. AAA, 1J uly 1975, p. 10. enough, th e snake; she is often depi cted \\'rea th ecl in snake s. 6+ Both also dominate th e l'iew from Brown's fi rst perma­ 71. Close inspec tion reveals that th e black paint of th e gro und nent refuge from her home life: the Sa n Fra ncisco Art lnstitute. O\'c rl aps th e colored paint of th e fl owers, and thus was add ed T he viewpoint of Seascape in the Carden of Eden, with its fi sh­ after th e fl owers we re painted. (Thanks to Ri chard Lorenz fo r devouring birds (fi g. 83 ). is from under th e Golden Cate Bridge, poin ting thi s out to me. ) with th e Marin Headla nds on th e righ t and th e shoreline of Lin­ 72 . From th e video of the 6 Augu st 1985 San Diego lec ture coln Park on th e le~. (Thanks to Joe \/ern ac i for this observation.) (cited n. 11 ). By the "s uperconsc ious" Brown probabl y mea nt 65. For more information on Sava·s influ ence on Brown, see something very similar to Paul Brunton's "overse lf.'' See Paul th e previous esSa)', pp. 115-17. Brunton. Th e Quest of th e Overself, 2d rev. eel. (Yo rk Beach, 66. "For severa l yea rs now I've perfor med th e dail y ritu al of Maine: Sa mu el Weise r, Inc .. 1984). Brown owned th e 1975 pa­ swimm ing in San Fra ncisco Bay .. . . l depend on this sll'im .... perback editi on. Brown frequ en tl y cited Brunton as an influ­ It is ac h1 all va fo rm of meditation "; Joa n Bro\\'n, quoted in Henry ence . •mcl he is one of four figures to whom she painted "hom­ Hopkins, 50 West Coast Artists (San Francisco: Chronicle Books, ages'' in 1983. (The oth er three we re Akh enaton , Quetzalcoatl, 1981), p. 34· and Charli e Sava. ) 67. From th e vid eo of th e 6 August 1985 Sa n Diego lecture 73. From th e vid eo of th e 6 August 1985 San Di ego lecture (cited n. n ). (cited n. u ). The actu al text on th e painting rea ds: "The encl of 68. As her storv of running out of th ese two colors whil e paint­ all our exp lor ing/ \,\fill be to arri,·e where we started / And know ing In J\lemoryofMy Father attests (see n. 16). th e place fo r the first tim e. T. S. Eli ot."

TO KNOW T HI S PLACE FOR THE FIRST T l ~I E 229