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Mar Goman:
a portrait,
with quotations
Noted author
to do reading
A W om an’s Place, in celebration o f its 13th
anniversary, w ill host an autograph party and
reading by noted lesbian writer, Lee Lynch,
on Saturday, March 1. Lynch, whose colum n,
Amazon Trail, appears regularly in Just Out
and other periodicals nationwide, is the au
th o r o f several novels w hich include Tooth
pick House, Old Dyke Tales and The
by W.C. McRae
"Art is not a m atter of perfect technique, it is
life of the soul." Pousette Dart
Mar Gom an d id n 't even think about pro
ducing art until she was in her m id-20s.
G orm an, whose “bag ladies" (ungiving
fem ale faces painted on paper bags) and
canvases o f large bodies in bathing suits
against flat crayon backgrounds, are fam iliar
to visitors o f the Sunbow Gallery, grew up
when "doing as good as the boys was m ost
im p o rta n t” After a prelim inary education in
the sciences, Gom an moved to Portland and
began w orking on an MFA at PSCI.
Sw ashbuckler.
The autogrpah party w ill be held at A Wo
m an's Place (2349 SE Ankeny) between 1:00
and 3:00 p.m . All o f Lynch’s novels w ill be
available fo r signing and refreshm ents will be
served. Lynch w ill read from her works in the
banquet room at O ld Wives Tales (1300
E B urnside) at 6:30 p.m . (A donation is re
quested fo r the reading.)
A W om an’s Place has provided fem inist
novels, literature, resources and m ore in
Portland fo r 13 years.
"The artist 's enem y is the utilitarian,
acquisitive, exploiting society in which any
tendency to do anything for its own sake
cannot be tolerated." Ad Reinhardt
B ut Gom an “ had trouble" at PSCI. "I had a
different notion o f what being an artist was."
At PSG academ ic prerogatives dem and that
art students assign themselves to specific
fields, like painting or sculpture. When Go-
m an attended, students whose activities were
not neatly defined by these categories were
fo r academ ic reasons discouraged to experi
m ent in other media. “ Established categories
d id n ’t allow fo r cross-overs" — drawing, co l
lage, constructions "d id n 'tc o u n t" fo ra paint
ing student, nor did the notebooks that Go-
m an kept, w hich she calls “ the ingredients
ou t o f w hich com e the artist” and which are
"p a rt o f the artistic enterprise."
She left PSG and set herself up and "m ade
a rt”
"What genuine painters do is to reveal the
underlying psychological and spiritual
conditions of their relationship to the
world." Rollo May
G om an claim s she “ spirals in and out of
them es" — "there are certain concerns I
have and I w ork them through, through a rt"
An ongoing them e fo r her has been the
alienating potential of com m ercial images of
wom en. G om an has treated this in a variety of
ways. She has taken the faces o f fashion
m odels from magazines and by working them
into her paintings, recuperates them fo r her
self as im ages involved in her dialectic o f a rt
She has also painted w om en’s bodies with
joyously expansive torsos, pictorially affirm
ing the w om an’s body as wom en experience
it, and not as a m edia image. Recently, she
has created a series o f parodies o f Vogue
covers w ith droll captions: on one, a faceless
though well dressed torso flanks the ques
tio n in g caption, “ D o wom en need heads?"
"Everyone should be as different as possi
ble. There is nothing that is common to all
of us except our creative urge. Art m eans
one thing to me: to discover myself as well
as I cam." Heins Hoffman
A series currently on show in Seattle is her
"M um m ies” — constructions o f wrapped
ch ild re n ’s dolls that represent the com ing
together o f several themes: a fascination with
Egyptian art; concerns about abortion and
“ babies all over the world dying because of
p o litics"; her own decision not to have
children; and the m ore purely aesthetic idea
o f w rapping — inner and outer surfaces.
"Say to yourselves: I am going to work in
order to see m yself and free myself. While
working an d in the work I m ust be on the
alert to see myself. When I see myself in the
14
work I will know that that is the work I am
supposed to do." Agnes Martin
G om an has been very active recently as a
fem inist activist in her church. She's “ w ork
ing very hard for acceptance o f wom en and
gays in the church.” This, too, she works out
throug h her art in a series she calls “ The
C hurching o f Women." O f the images that
em erge from this process, she says, “som e
thing is w rong with our notion o f wom en if
they seem out o f place as spiritual leaders."
As influences she cites the English (and
gay) painters Francis Bacon and David
Hockney. Locally, she credits Gregory Gre-
non with helping her realize she too could
paint faces, hence her “ bag ladies."
“The trouble with people is that they don t
have the fucking nerve or imagination to
star in their own movie, let alone direct it."
Tom Robbins
Performing Artists for
Life to benefit CAN
P erform ing Artists for Life are joining
forces fo r a benefit concert fo r Cascade AIDS
N etw ork on Friday, February 28 at 8:00 p.m.
at Arlene Schnitzer C oncert Hall. An im pres
sive program , perform ed by Jam es DePriest
Stefan Minde, m em bers o f the O regon
S ym phony Orchestra, the Portland Choral
C onsortium and Portland Civic Theatre will
range from Haydn to Sondheim .
Jam es DePriest and m em bers o f the Ore -
gon Sym phony Orchestra: Beethoven/
A llegro ma non tro p p o " from Sym phony
No. 6 in F Major, Op. 68, "The Pastorale";
R ach m an inoff/’A dag io" from Sym phony
No. 2, in E Minor, Op. 27.
Stefan M inde and m em bers o f the Oregon
S ym phony Orchestra and the Portland
C horal C onsortium : Beethoven/excerpts
fro m The M ount o f O lives"; H aydn/“ The
Heavens are Telling” from “ The C reation".
Portland Civic Theatre: excerpts from
"A in ’t M isbehavin'"; excerpts from "Sweeney
T odd".
Patron Party: The W oody Hite Big Band.
"Take gay people out o f the arts,” says Fred
G om an recently resigned her position as
directo r o f Northwest Artists W orkshop, in
order to devote m ore tim e to her own a rt Like
m ost artists she has to balance com m ercial
ism and “ going in m y own direction.” She
dislikes having to w ork under dem and, but
“ it’s pleasing to know m y art is accepted in
hom es across the country.’ Her "bag ladies"
are now featured in LA, and Greystone Gal
lery in Portland w ill host an exhibition o f her
landscapes this spring.
’ Beneath the whole art concept, every peiss
in the act, every stroke, should be our own
identity." David Smith
“A rt is a diary o f what’s going on in life,”
says G om an, "and m y vision o f the world. Art
com es fro m this deep spo t’ If you lose that
you lose the ability to produce genuine a rt"
' Idle curiosity is the artist s best friend." Mar
Goman
K orm an, “ and you have an em pty stage."
K orm an, principal oboist with the O regon
Sym phony, has been involved with Cascade
AIDS N etw ork’s PAL Project since last fall.
K orm an says that his experience with the PAL
Project gave him an idea w hich evolved into
the upcom ing benefit concert, because, “ It is
equally im portant to raise consciousness as it
is to raise money.”
Fred Korm an, born in Brooklyn, NY, has
been a m em ber o f the O regon Sym phony
O rchestra since 1978, com ing to Portland
after extended stints with the New Orleans
and Hartford Sym phony Orchestras. Korman
also holds teaching posts at Portland State
G niversity and Lewis & Clark College.
K orm an took his idea to Jam es DePriest
co n d u cto r o f the O regon Sym phony and the
benefit was on its way. "People came out of
everywhere," Korm an says. Jam es DePriest
and Gwyneth Gam ble Booth are co-chairs
fo r the b e n e fit Margie Boule, Alyce Rogers
and Shirley Nanette are hostesses fo r the
event, and the W oody Hite Big Band will play
fo r the patron party.
Tickets, ranging in price from $ 16 to
$52.75 are available at Civic A uditorium , Ste
vens & Sons (Lloyd Center), Portland Civic
Theatre and G.l. Jo e ’s. So fill up the Schnitz.
Edward II
makes rare
appearance
by Jim Hunger
Edward II made a rare appearance recently
— and in Portland, no less! The play chroni
cles the reign, captivity, and m urder o f a rela
tively unspectacular E nglish m onarch o f the
early 14th century, but has nonetheless
earned a position o f significance in literary as
well as gay history, although it is seldom per
form ed on stage or presented in the classroom.
The original play, w ritten around 1590 by
C hristopher Marlowe, Shakespeare’s early
m entor and m utual influence, is one o f the
few surviving literary nuggets that contains
w ithin it attractive im ages o f homosexuality.
M ost western historians, and western writers
in general have scrupulously avoided positive
references to homosexuality since the decline
o f Rome. Gntil recently, the ir hom ophobia
and anal retentive fastidiousness proved fairly
effective in obscuring m ost alternative sexu
ality references from m ainstream literary
consum ption.
Edward is an unlikely hero. A bungling
warrior, an uninspired and uninspiring leader,
he doesn’t begin to reveal his greatness until
he is a prisoner and facing death. W hile Ed
w ard’s m ediocrity as a ruler and his love affair
w ith Gaveston were problem s fo r Elizabethan
audiences, they were nothing com pared to
the deeds o f M ortim er and the Queen. Their
treasonous acts were dam ning crim es against
the natural order o f the cosm os, o f whch the
divine rig h t o f kings was an im portant link.
B ertolt B recht’s Edward II, one o f his
earliest plays, was first perform ed in 1924.
B recht follow ed the general story line, but
added dim ension to som e o f the characters:
the Queen, M ortim er the younger, and
Gaveston in particular; and incorporated a
num ber o f other changes, som e rather curi
ous. French knight Piers Gaveston became
Irish peasant Daniel Gaveston (“ Danny
bo y!"); Queen Isabelle was renam ed Anne;
and she meets M ortim er on the road to Scot
land, rather than in Paris.
B recht also made extensive use of “ pre
senters,” choral characters who announce
additional com plications o f setting and p lo t
T his device, initially disconcerting, helps to
convey a sense o f the passage o f tim e, par-
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