Street Art by Mentalgassi | The Dirt Floor.

what would you write?

SOURCE: My Love For You

Peregrine allowed me to pry into her life a bit last week while she was road tripping between New Orleans and Kansas City and I gotta tell you, I just kept thinking over and over ‘I want to get to know this one…’

INTERVIEW:

1. (Me) I love men and sex, but where I find the purist feeling of romance is in San Paolo street art, cutting edge fashion and hip-hop.  Where do feel experience the truest romantic feeling?
   (Peregrine) I’ve been road tripping to New Orleans since I was eighteen. My husband, Mark Southerland, is a jazz saxophonist and instrument maker so these very specific doors and places are open to me now. The Backstreet Cultural Museum, green rooms casually scattered with world-class musicians, beautiful poverty food, and the war torn carnival aesthetic of New Orleans street dress always get me. I was born in 1976- I grew up in San Francisco on the Castro with my mother and Project Artuad- an art cooperative- with my father- there’s a sense of calamity and costuming, creative groupings and urban celebration that I am comforted by and love to be in the thick of. I am passingering back from New Orleans as I type these answers, recovering from Halloween, Voodoo Fest, and meetings with property owners for birdies New Orleans to have a nest. If half my heart is there, I should invest in a good valve.

   

2. (Me) The day I was leaving the safari grounds of Kruger National Park in South Africa I cried unexpectedly. I felt my life had changed. I can only compare the kinetic energy I felt on safari, to that of NYC, except in the jungle the energy comes from the animals. Where in the world have you been that has changed your life?
   (Peregrine) The second time I was in Paris it was Spring- I was staying in a squat- Les Failles, falling in love, and I had one of those moments where the air was the same temperature as my skin and I was drinking a perfect espresso and I thought, “I must have done something okay in my life so far to be where I am right now.” I spontaneously wept on the way home from New Mexico the first time I visited. South Beach in the thick of summer has some of the best porches, drinks, and people watching on Earth. There is a certain light and air that triggers what I can only tag as my soul, to open. My tear ducts follow suit.

   

3. (Me) I used to smoke cigarettes like I was in love with them, drink booze like a frat bro and drop club drugs like, well, like the club kid that I was.  And I gave it all up 5 years ago. True liberation. What have you given up?
   (Peregrine) I used to live more like an animal, with a certain sense of ridiculous abandon. Now I have things and people and a business I care about that require air conditioning and respect. Clean Towels, toilet paper, nurturing relationships and my pets have taught me that being showered and more orderly does not need to be a creative hindrance. I feel clearer and more spontaneous having shed this “poverty and suffering makes an artist legitimate” attitude. I love making things and wearing beautiful clothes and traveling- all this costs money and some planning.

   

4. (Me) I worked on a 2 day photo shoot for MTV’s Real World NYC reunion several years ago and it was annoyingly freaky. The kids were so odd pretending they didn’t realize the camera wasn’t on them constantly (18 hours each day!). It was a celebration of deceptive projection (I just made that up). And the house was a mess of wires that ‘the tv audience’ couldn’t see, while the kids sat around acting like they didn’t notice. I felt sorry for them. Since you’re on a reality show, I’d love to know how it feels trying to act normal when you’re in a situation that is anything but.
   (Peregrine) I never seem to be on task with behaving in a specific way. My upbringing has often made me awkward or abnormal so I’ve always submerged myself in my work to understand what I’m getting at. Being on a reality TV show felt like a road trip or residency under surveillance. In context of your brilliant “Deception Projection” I simply befriended the camera crew and had a lot of inside jokes with Miles and Abdi and Nicole to keep the studio fun and scrappy. I had just finished Widow with Landfall Press my archival one issue pretend fashion magazine so I needed to market it and I figured if I was going to make art about pop culture I might as well be on both sides of the looking glass. My last show “Loser” with Dwight Hackett Projects drove me to be inspired by my experience as a D-lister. It was a very layered show and it received great reviews.

   

5. (Me) I used shoot all the New York fashion week shows and was occasionally thrown a bauble, trinket, accessory, etc in appreciation for all my efforts . You are on a national (International?) TV show, which targets you as a potential promo horse (thank you!). Have you been showered with fashion, and if not, whose the one designer you would want?
   (Peregrine) My friend Peggy Noland just had her first show for fashion week and I tried to wear as much of her work during the reality show as I could. She designed and has hand sewn all the “reading gloves” for Widow. By the way, you can’t wear white or stripes on camera so my wardrobe got wackier than usual once they eliminated these options from my luggage when I arrived. My silver space outfit is by Ari Fish- an amazing young artist who is a great clothes fabricator.

   Yes, I have been given a lot of free stuff and offered opportunities because of the show that I do and don’t want. I’m excited that my work and book and the people I collaborate with are thriving based on this super post-modern situation I placed myself in.I had a lot of projects I was in the throws of when I auditioned for Work of Art. For example, I just finished a large silk scarf with Other Criteria out of London that reads like an Hermes scarf (orange and brown box etc.) but reveals itself to be something naughty and dark once unfolded. We started on it over a year ago and I look forward to seeing it out and about in late November. I recently discovered Eatable of Many Orders-  – these nomadic contemporary garments that warp from being cloaks to bags, to jackets, etc.- a design group out of Canada. I fell in love with a few pieces from the collection at Project No. 8 in Chinatown when I was visiting NY for fashion week. Between Eatable accessories, two gowns from the Ports show, my Cocksucker Scarf, and Stella McCartney’s week of underwear- I’m set.