Takedown Portraits: 2016-02-14

(Larry Stanton in his studio, 1984)

'... nothing dies that is remembered.' Dr. Julia A. Mayo (Larry's psychiatrist)

Takedown. Definition 1: 'To get into one's hands control or possession.' The portraits of artist Larry Stanton, (website larrystanton.net), display his eventual mastery of crayon, pen, and brush as he confronted opportunities to record what he saw, whether in his studio, or at a Village diner.

Definition 2: 'A wrestling manoeuvre through which an opponent is swiftly brought to the mat from a standing position.' His sitters were never opponents, were unlikely to be standing, but strangers whom he noticed, friends, and/or well known men in the arts, such as the poets Donald Britton and Tim Dlugos, the playwright/actor/director Charles Ludlam, the writers Brad Gooch and Dennis Cooper, the critic Oleg Kerensky. His portraits, thrown onto a canvas mat, pinned their likenesses.

Definition 3: 'Having the capability of being taken down or taken apart.' Fighting his own demons, Larry could, and did, look deeply into himself, and into others, when drawing and painting them, dragging those insights up into the image surface.

This is a book about the portraits, the drawings, and paintings, by Larry Stanton, 1947-1984. It consists of what I call 'duets,' or conversations which I imagined taking place in his studio while he was working with each of his sitters. In format, the odd number stanzas, first, third, fifth, etc. are in the voice of the sitter. The even number, indented, stanzas, two, four, six, etc., are in the voice of Larry Stanton. I do not believe that I ever met him, or that I ever heard his voice. I did walk along West 10th Street regularly in 1984, passing his studio sign.

I have also not met most of the sitters, but thanks to their writing about themselves, to others writing about them, to their writing about art, music, literature, theatre, dance, life, I have tried to come up with voices, verbal representations, which are uniquely theirs. At times, words are spoken out loud, or quoted directly. At other times, words are thought. If successful, in both cases, each reaches you, the reader, as if from living people who are thereby remembered.

[The Reproductions of paintings and drawings by Larry Stanton appear with permission from his executor, Arthur Lambert, Jr.]

[Two portraits have been published previously, in 'Lustspiel Magazine,' (23 November 2016), and in 'RFD Magazine,' (Summer 2016), in different formats.]