One of my favorite art books is "Exotic Tableaux" As many of you know who read my blog I was Steven Arnold's Muse during the years if 1989-92. Here is more on Steven. You can also see is website dedicated to him at www.stevenarnold.net
PANDORA'S OFFERING
PANDORA Star of "Luminous Procuress" Steven's Muse & Life-Long Friend:
Steven , Kaisik Wong and I went to New York to show Salvador Dali Luminous Procuress (1969 full length color feature) . Dali had arranged to premier Luminous Procuress in the basement of Rizzoli¹s Bookstore but their projector broke. So he arranged to show it at the Louis XIV room in the St. Regis Hotel. It was quite a spectacular event. He had ice sculpture, all kinds of wines and hors d¹oeuvres , - The crème de la crème of New York society, Vogue Magazine and Andy Warhol were there. Dali fell in love with Luminous he played it upside down, backwards and sideways. He thought it was a work of genius, which it was.
I believe Dali understood a place where Steven was coming from and wanted to enhance that space... It was a wonderful time for Steven working on Dali's Museum. We dressed differently every night for Dali for a minimum of five years.
HOLLY WOODLAWN ON STEVEN ARNOLD (Star of Andy Warhol's & Paul Morrissey's TRASH)
When I came to Hollywood Steven took me under his wing.
He immediately invited me to one of his salons. There would be his patrons, a countess, a baroness, sex changes talking to lawyers, lots of beautiful boys Ðhalf of them running around naked like angels... and tons of food, and it was free and we were all starving to death. Everyone was so free.
All these artists going into this fortressÐ like Sleeping Beauty's Castle. It was covered with thorns and suddenly you're in an artist's heaven. And there was this Emperor - Steven was very soft spoken and just made everyone as comfortable as possible for hours and hours - you never wanted to leave.
And one day there was no more salons and no more Steven. It was very sad.
Comparing Warhol's evenings to Steven's salons: Being from New York and going to lots of Andy's parties at the Factory was fun because you got to meet a lot of famous New York people. It was very electric because obviously everyone was on speed and drugs, it was rock and roll - The pace was so fast it was non-stop like New York is and no one took the time out... They met you, went to bed with you, you know whatever they did.
But Steven's Salons were sort of like Versailles, but without the guillotine... Versailles versus Andy Warhol... Alcatraz where you could go in and out or Sing Sing or Bellevue with a little museum of modern art.
ruth weiss ON STEVEN ARNOLD
ruth weiss innovated poetry with jazz at the Cellar when it opened in 1956 in San Francisco's North Beach.
Steven and I had a deep friendship. We were two artists on the same beam. He was the first person ever to make me feel comfortable in front of the camera. He always did my makeup for his films and I was in all of his films. He knew how to make me feel beautiful - that was his magic.
Steven told me about this fabulous group called the Cockettes. They had called him and asked if they could appear at the Palace Theater where he had been hosting midnight movie shows he called the Nocturnal Dream Shows.
The showings first began at the 17th St. studio and moved to the Palace Theater in North Beach when he and Michael Wiese decided to show their film "Messages, Messages "to a larger audience. This film would later win Steven Best New Director at Cannes in 1970. When I arrived at the theater the marquee was lit with "ruth weiss and The Joseph" aka Joseph Zaccarella, the featured actors.
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