April: Birth is Death
Shrouded in death (not in a hot way). A Proustian birthday questionnaire. An eight foot tall book.
IN THIS ISSUE
🥀 It’s April, the birth of spring. So let’s get poetic about death.
🎨 Then a Proustian birthday questionnaire for artist Alexandra Jean Auger.
📔 One artist mini-profile: Alison Knowles, 90 years young.
⛪ April artist birthday speed round.
Let’s go babes ↓
I originally had a long essay about death to start this whole thing off. This project has been absolutely shrouded in death, and not in a hot way. This is maybe a strange way to introduce something that has brought me a sense of childlike joy and mischief over the past several months—but then again, in “these times,” as we say, maybe it isn’t. This project was born in heartbreak and failure and I used to think that was what made it special, but I’ve realized, after months of what can only be classified as a sort of delirious obsession, that the devastation spawning this creation is the very thing that makes it exactly the same as every other piece of art.
We do certainly make art when we are happy about how life is going, but more often than not, we make it when life is refusing to go. We make it in order to create some sort of forward motion.
Almost four years ago, I sent a novel I loved out into the world and it died a slow death over the course of a year. I murdered the novel that followed it—trying so hard to coddle and shelter it from the fate of its older sister that I didn’t leave it any room to breathe on its own. There were other smaller projects, smaller deaths. Behind every artist’s CV is a graveyard. Then there was an actual death in my family. Part of my city—including a part very close to my home—burned to death in the January wildfires. And always, ceaselessly, like one of those trick birthday candles you can’t extinguish, the proverbial fires: death to free speech, death to human rights, death to the idea that we ever had a say. Are we having fun yet?
Somehow, I am. Somehow, this project was conceived and then quite rapidly born. Human conception is not always successful, but it is—when you boil it down to its elements—straightforward. Artistic conception is rarely successful and consistently boiling over. There is no pill to manage art cramps, nothing to regulate the flow. Around the time my second book was dying, I had a dream I was at the doctor and she asked me: “How many days since your last project?” And I tried to count backwards, tried to picture the clothing I was wearing, if I had been caught by surprise in the bathroom without anything to clean it up.
I woke up and started a tracking system. I had an idea but I had no idea where it came from, which is how I knew it was something. I opened an excel sheet, collecting as many women artists’ birthdays as I could find on the Internet. When the Internet ran out, I went to the library. I sat on the floor like a child, books open all around me, taking notes. The excel sheet became a physical calendar, became a zine, became this newsletter. I called out of work for a night to learn how to use a spiral binding machine. I had a thousand trashed drafts, which is how I knew it was working. The blood was back, I was fertile, I was ravenous.
It turns out that something small will flower into something good if you’re just consistently insane enough about it.
This project began as a sort of dead space where I wouldn’t have to think about anything, invent anything, try anything, fail anything, respond to anything, fix anything. It stayed that way for as long as I needed it to. Nothing was growing in that part of my life. I couldn’t afford any fertilizer, or at least I couldn’t find any. If there is a lesson in this metaphor, I think it’s just something about moving the same dirt around until it forms a new pattern. Or maybe you disperse it enough so that something can suddenly breathe again from underneath all of the mess that you made.
It’s April, birth of spring. I’m covered in the dirt. Releasing this project into the world feels like a way to let it breathe a little. I’ve learned the hard way what happens when you hold it too tight.
And yet—when death is inevitable—how else am I supposed to hold it?
Anyway, happy birthday 🥀
Every month, I invite an artist to answer my Proust-inspired Birthday Questionnaire. For my inaugural newsletter, I asked my former art bookstore coworker, fellow Gemini, extreme birthday enthusiast, and Canadian-American textile artist Alexandra Jean Auger, currently living in London as a student of UAL: Central Saint Martins. When I was looking for someone to invite for this first issue, I immediately thought of Alex, mostly because I remembered that she always asks people to send her photographs of flowers on her birthday, a ritual that lives at the top of my To-Steal list.
One of my favorite things about Alexandra’s answers to this questionnaire is that she, without any instruction on my part, included the birthdays of every single person (and animal) she mentions. You can’t fake this kind of enthusiasm, and when someone makes an obsessive move like this, I know they really mean it.
Alex’s weavings strike that perfect balance of beautiful and funny, aspirational and yet deeply relatable. Her talent extends to her fashion, and many of her outfits are also at the top of my To-Steal list. For the rest of you: she currently has a few works available for purchase! You can learn more about her on her website and follow her London escapades on Instagram. Let me know if you want to join my heist to steal her entire identity. I am dead serious.
When is your birthday?
June 11, 1991Two things you love and one thing you hate about birthdays.
I adore birthdays, my own and everyone else's. The one fact I'll retain about everyone I meet is their birthday. I'm honoured to spend someone's birthday with them. I like to join in when strangers are being sung to in restaurants. All birthdays should be a big deal, (and a paid day off work, in my humble opinion). There just isn't much to celebrate day to day, is there, so why not?I like the cosmic 'click' of it being your own day—free pass. I like the potential for surprise, for reconnecting and reminiscing—fresh start. I don't like the anxiety of trying to plan a single perfect day.
I often encounter cockroaches on or near my birthday. I hate them. But I also believe that seeing one is a lucky omen. What are your birthday omens & superstitions?
That's amazing; maybe just seeing an exterminator sign or cartoon cockroach can be enough and spare you the real thing? I can't say I have anything like this but I'm very excited to hear what other people's superstitions are. I'll pay closer attention this year. I suppose I'm pretty ritualistic with my birthday, I like to eat and do the same certain things, I have to dance to my favourite song. For several years now I have posted to Facebook/Instagram on my birthday asking people to send me photos of flowers they see that day and I feel extremely lucky when the messages come in. Maybe I don't leave enough up to chance! But a glorious pink sky morning and night would be a very good omen indeed.
It’s your birthday dinner. You can invite any 3 women artists, living or dead—but they get to decide your menu and decor.
Immediately, I'm inviting my friend Laura-Lynn Petrick (August 24), photographer and director. I've been fortunate to share many dozen meals with her, the best among them the ones she's planned/hosted/prepared. I can trust we'll be wine-ing and dining well.
I was remembering Sophie Calle (October 9)'s Chromatic Diet recently and think this'd be a fantastic table idea. I first came across her work in a big school library book of conceptual art; I'd never heard of such a thing and it was just amazing to the impressionable and pretentious sixteen year old me. She was my fave in there. I'd also like to invite Faith Ringgold (October 8), who has depicted many a joyous dance scene. You can feel an energetic buzz, almost music, looking at her paintings and quilts. Maybe she'd fill the room with sunflowers, that would be a dream.Describe the ideal edible birthday treat. Ignore money and dietary restrictions.
It's funfetti cake with matching icing. More than the taste, seeing it brings me joy. I have a really nice memory of coming home to my Montreal apartment to set up my 23rd birthday party and finding my brother Nico (July 15) whipping up a batch of cupcakes in a frilly apron. One of the most thoughtful birthday gifts I've received was a box of the Betty Crocker mix from my friend Zoê (September 21), mailed from her in Toronto to me in LA the first birthday I had after moving there. The love has spilled over to rainbow speckled dishware and glassware. To me, it signifies a party.Someone has ten dollars to spend on you for your birthday. What should they get you?
I've been walking around pondering this question and realized I had the stipulation no charity, no edibles in mind? Which isn't what you asked. Just trying to make things more complicated I guess, when the real answer is just 'a cocktail'. I can always use beeswax tapers and I collect art postcards.
Write yourself a three-sentence birthday card.
Happy fucking birthday, me—Folllow the joy and don't stand in your own way this year. Wildflowers don't care where they grow. Heaven knows it's got to be this time.Favorite birthday scene in a movie, book, or other visual work of art?
I know as soon as I hit send on this, something will come to mind, so I'm sending it to find out what that is. A lot of great dinner parties in art, but no particular birthdays come to mind. Dying for some recommendations! I did see this Degas (July 19) painting at The National Gallery in London, which I immediately texted to Tea (June 26) and Tess (October 15), saying 'us'. I can imagine it's one of our birthdays 10-ish years in the future, we're all on holiday together, skinny dipping in some Mediterranean sunset, mirroring teenaged times on Toronto Island.For your next birthday, I give you a plane ticket to anywhere in the world, but you have to go alone. What happens next?
Ooo, thank you. I have this vision of mountain peaks bursting with wildflowers and a perfect lake for swimming. Spending the day in a body of freshwater is always my birthday goal, though I'm a bit early in the season. Is this Switzerland? I'd like to go anywhere this describes.
Fuck, marry, kill: frosting, piñata, bounce house.
I think it has to be fuck bounce house (it's got the moves) and marry piñata (it's a provider). Kill frosting; I'm allergic to dairy anyway.What does another year mean to you?
Again lilacs, again lakes, again the first crisp night, again Christmas. I should be so lucky!Last one, stolen from the Proust Questionnaire: If you were to die and come back as a person or thing, what would it be?
I'd like to say I've earned a turn at being my cat Domino (April 4), but I could never do her madness justice. One lifetime as an otter would be nice. The algorithm is intent on serving me otter videos, and I want what they have.
I could not have asked for a better person to answer this inaugural questionnaire. She came prepared with links, with birthdays, with philosophy, with pizzazz. Thank you Alexandra for being as excited about birthdays as I am. Please check out her website and her Instagram—and mark your calendars for July 2026, we’re stealing this bitch’s whole life.
Artworks featured here (all images property of Alexandra Jean Auger), in order of appearance: Missing, 2020; The Motel Room, 2019; Receipt $11.69, 2020; Pulling Over to Pick Mustard Flower at Sunset Along the PCH, 2021. Headshot photo credit: Lauren Lotz, 2023.
Each month I will feature an artist who has/had a birthday in the current month. I’ve kept worksheets and long lists of notes as I’ve researched this project, so I’ll be including those notes here as a brief overview of the artist’s career and work—this is by no means an exhaustive study, as you are probably too exhausted to read a whole biography. It’s meant to be a light snack with the option to follow links and videos straight down into the rabbit hole, should you ever need to kill seven hours.
This month is the very much alive, very much revered Alison Knowles.
All of the photos were taken by me at the exhibition By Alison Knowles: A Retrospective (1960-2022) at BAMFA in 2023. Starting with this photo of her majestic 8-foot book, with giant pages that actually turn and that you could, if museum security looks away, walk inside of.
Birthday, Sun, Age: April 29, Taurus, 91
Known for: Make a Salad, 1962 (also performed in 2008 & 2012). The inspiration for the piece came to Alison during lunch in 1962 when she was asked what she would be presenting at the ICA and she said, "Well, maybe I'll make a salad.” In article about the 2012 performance on the High Line in New York, Miranda Popkey wrote: “Around noon, High Line staffers began opening a huge green tarp on the lower level of the Passage, and a palpable thrill went through crowd, which had swelled to more than a hundred. Suddenly there was a sense of urgency: cameras shot up in the air; there was a scramble to find standing room on a picnic bench in order to get a better vantage. Knowles and her assistants dumped the produce, then the dressing (a simple vinaigrette of olive oil, vinegar, and tarragon) over the railing, and the volunteers below shook the tarp to mix the salad, to cheers from the audience."
Associated with art movements? Fluxus (an international community of artists, composers, designers, and poets during the 1960s and 1970s who engaged in experimental art performances that focused more on the artistic process rather than the finished product. Artworks included performance, music, video art, and conceptual art)
I’m obsessed with: The Big Book. Eight feet tall, front cover, several pages, a stove, telephone, toilet, art gallery, electric fan, smaller books, and other necessities. It’s a book that asks the question: what if books were meant to be lived in? Not just mentally, but physically?
Her work touches me because: I’m very interested in participatory works, especially because our experience with art in a museum often involves looking, not touching, and so we are kept at a distance from the work. I dream of a world where we are allowed to touch the art, but I know that would come at the art’s expense. I also would want to ban billionaires from touching it. Like if you are above a certain tax bracket (whichever one makes you feel like you are above paying taxes at all), you have to donate $1 billion to the arts or humanity before you’re allowed to touch anything. I digress.
Below is a photo of my boyfriend (participating in the art!), who humored me by spending a few hours of our romantic vacation at this museum learning about an artist he’d never heard of.
Strange detail from the Internet: Alison was originally studying painting. Sometime around 1958-1960, she decided she wasn’t into it and burned all her paintings in a bonfire in her brother’s backyard.
Her contemporaries: Yoko Ono, John Cage, Dick Higgins (also her ex-husband)
A good quote: “I was a married woman with two children. [Salad] was something that I loved and understood how to cook…It was something that I knew I could do on a stage that maybe a man couldn’t do as well.” - “Her Ordinary Materials: Fluxus Artist Alison Knowles on her Carnegie Museum Show,” ARTnews, June 30, 2016.
Read this: The incredible exhibition catalogue, which was constructed in a way that references Alison’s practice. The cover of the book is a ‘makeready’ (press sheets gathered from printing the interior of the book) produced during the printing of the interior pages. Each cover in the edition is unique.
Watch this: Here it is, the famous salad performance. Watch Alison make a giant salad for 1900 people in Turbine Hall, in a performance described as “nailbiting” by some guy. Also featured: local farmers, radishes, and a salad dressing waterfall.
🎥 April 2: Rosalind Fox Solomon (photographer, age 94) with one of the best landing page photographs I’ve ever seen
🌾 April 5: Nancy Holt, land artist who, for five decades, asked questions about how we might understand our place in the world. “I feel that the need to look at the sky—at the moon and the stars—is very basic, and it is inside all of us. So, when I say my work is an exteriorization of my own inner reality, I mean I am giving back to people through art what they already have in them.”
🐈 April 6: Leonora Carrington, surrealist goddess recently experiencing somewhat of a renaissance in popular culture. Fun fact: there was a Leonora Carrington tarot deck (major arcana only) released a couple years ago, that, for mysterious reasons, was pulled from production shortly after its release, making the decks that got out into the world very valuable.
🎨 April 10: Bernice Bing, a Chinese-American lesbian artist from northern California who spent a lot of time with the infamous Beat Generation, yet rarely gets the credit, for predictable and ridiculous reasons. On my watch list is this 2013 documentary, The Worlds of Bernice Bing.
💃 April 14: Carina Ari, which was the artistic pseudonym of Maria Karina Viktoria Jansson, was a Swedish dancer who lived in Paris and Argentina, had two artistic careers (dancing and sculpting), at least as many husbands, and used her wealth to award scholarships to young dancers and eventually to create the Carina Ari Library, part of the Dance Museum of Sweden. It contains the most comprehensive archive of dance literature in Northern Europe.
You’re giving me a new lens, stuffs to ponder, and something to look forward to in my in box. Couldn’t have come at a better time.
I love everything about this, from the intro (DEATH) to the interview to this mini bio of an artist I'd never heard of--I love this salad piece. Thanks.