LongBeachCulture.org CenterStage Blog

Marisa Predisik is the intelligence behind the upcoming one-night art extraveganza titled “Moedog Darling’s Gallery of Oddities.” On Saturday, June 30th, from 6 – 11 PM Koo’s Art Center will be transformed into an Art Show, Sideshow, and CD Release Party. Marisa’s paintings and drawings of human sideshow oddities will be on display, along with performances by Dr. Joe Fox, Charlotte La Belle Araignee, Count Smokula, Patrice the Pantomime, and Marisa’s music group, Moedog Darling. Her new CD, “I’m the Queen, You’re the Pauper,” features a solid collection of thoughtful and well crafted songs, not unlike her first CD, “Parlour Flattery.”

LBC: Lets talk about the event… Did it start out as a regular CD release party?

Marisa: Not really. I new I wanted it to be something big, something extraordinary, so I brainstormed what I would want to go to as an audience member and I took the steps necessary to make it happen. I had a bunch of Sideshow Oddity paintings underway and I had been planning on having a show with them for over a year and, since the release party was happening at Koo’s, I figured it was the perfect opportunity to display the work and release the album all in one sha-bang! We’re [also] going to have a burlesque dancer, performances by a guy who hammers nails into his face, and also Count Smokula, who is known for his Vaudeville act. A mime is going to be there, too. I’ll be performing at 9:30pm.

LBC: Tell me about the other artists whose work will be exhibited?

Marisa: Ginger Ivy (founder of love ginger creations) has been sewing stuffed oddities that are over two feet tall each. She’s going to be displaying, and Chris Ballard is making a huge painting special for the release of the new album. It’s going to be a surprise as to what it is, but he got an advance copy of “I’m the Queen” to gain inspiration. It’s going to be themed off the album, but I won’t know what it is until the night of the show!!

LBC: What attracted you to the idea of painting sideshow oddities?

Marisa: I’ve always been interested in human oddities. Intrigued by them, really. I just started painting my favorite oddities, and pretty soon I had a collection of them. The new works are actually tight sketches on mat board that have been mounted on a fabric panel, so it’s a mixed media sort of thing, something garish (the oddity) mixed with something sweet (the fabric). Although, I would argue that the oddity is also sweet. I don’t even see their deformities anymore. To me, they’re more like interestingly shaped people, quite lovely, in fact.

LBC: That’s something I remember noticing when I saw some of your paintings: That they seemed lovingly rendered, affectionate, and not exploitive or grotesque.

Marisa: Oh, that brings tears to my eyes to hear you say that. Thank you. I feel like a mother of sorts. I’ve spent so much time rendering these people, these live (or once-living) people, and I do feel an attachment to them. I feel like all the time spent looking at them and rendering them has somehow brought me closer to them. Each one does hold a special place in me.

LBC: Do you feel that part of the human condition is to be, or at least feel like, a sideshow oddity at some point?

Marisa: Yes, most definitely. We all go through awkward stages in our life, not just when we’re growing up, in high school, etc but throughout our lives we’re constantly growing and changing, mutating if you will and, with each change comes that pain and awkwardness experienced as a youth. We may get a little more adjusted to it though, but yes. I think, though, that sometimes we all feel a little out of place, like an oddity. So, when viewing a human oddity there’s a softness that blossoms within us, a compassion and understanding, even if it’s unconscious.

LBC: Is there one oddity that you’ve connected with more deeply than the others?

Marisa: I do have my favorites, but there are definitely some that I feel a little closer to than others. Bill Durks is one. He’s the man with three eyes. Actually, he didn’t really have three eyes, but he had a radical split in his face, and when he performed in the sideshow, they’d paint on his third eye. He was a normal guy in every other sense: He had a wife, and lived to be old, but he had a major deformity and, for some reason, when I sketched him, I felt a love and compassion that, I dunno, it’s sort of unexplainable. Miss Mignon is another. She’s got a kindness in her eyes. Even though her deformity was exploited, she remained soft, kind, beautiful in fact.

LBC: What was her deformity?

Marisa: She had sort of stumpy hands and arms, and her legs were also stumpy. She was nick-named the penguin woman because her shape was like that of a penguin. Another that I really like is the three-legged courtesan. She had a third leg growing from in between her two standing legs, and she had two vaginas, both of them functioned and, consequently, had a really high libido. She left the sideshow business to become a courtesan in Paris. It was rumored that when she got wind of the three-legged man coming to town, she wanted to sleep with him. [laughs] But, she was a very successful courtesan.

LBC: Although you’ve said that you were interested in oddities from an early age, you didn’t really say why. What is your first introduction to them, and what about them did you find interesting?

Marisa: I never knew why I was so interested in oddities. I remember always feeling deeply sensitive when it came to interacting with normal everyday people with deformities and, talking with my mom one day, I came to find out that’s something that we both have in common. My mom’s an artist, and when I started working on this series she confided that what I was doing was always something she wanted to do! My mom always wanted to do a sideshow series!! So, I don’t know if it’s genetic, or what! [laughs] But, I think our interest (or fixation) with these oddities has a little to do with how we feel about deformities in general.

LBC: One thing I considered when thinking about your show was that it might be interesting to have portraits of folks with no visible deformities, implying in some way that their oddity was internal, spiritual or emotional…

Marisa: Interesting! I like that idea. Beneath each photo you could have written their internal oddity. That would be a good show. I think it would be pretty moving.

LBC: Like you said, some of the sideshow oddities lived perfectly normal lives, with families, etc

Marisa: Yeah, a lot of them were normal people.

LBC: What’s your oddity?

Marisa: I like to sit in a quiet room and do just that: sit there for long periods of time. Some may think that’s a little odd but I find it highly necessary for my well-being.

LBC: What does that stillness do for you?

Marisa: It puts everything into perspective for me because I get busy, and I’m constantly “forgetting”, and I need to be reminded what’s really going on. Sitting and being quiet reminds me. It’s like an “a-ha” over and over and over again, coming back to the focal point, “the reason”, which to me, is really no reason, the understanding of which brings me great peace.

LBC: How does this understanding interact with your work

Marisa: I think it’s necessary for me to proceed with my work. If I feel stuck, I get quiet, and it allows me to break free, to move through the rough spot and I think the quietness is one of the most valuable things. You can’t have sound without quiet. You can’t have dark without light. I’m allowing myself to understand this. Before, I’d push myself really hard, get down on myself if I came to a creative halt and wasn’t producing much. But there’s a time to not produce and a time to produce and a time to write and a time to stay still. It’s a cycle, and understanding this has allowed me to be more productive because I try not to get down on myself for experiencing the cycle.

LBC: I think that’s probably one of the more important lessons in life…

Marisa: Yes, most definitely!! It’s also one of the hardest to really understand and allow. It’s like, on one hand, you understand it, and believe it but on the other, you’re pushing and pushing and want to do this and want to do that and when you get caught up in that you sometimes miss out on what’s going on around you. I’m a very “future-thinking” person.

LBC: You also miss out on what’s going on in your mind and heart.

Marisa: Yes, yes. The other day, I was walking, and I experienced the view, albiet briefly, but I was there, experiencing it. It sounds mundane, but it was magical and mundane, which made it that more beautiful!! [laughs]

LBC: I think that, as artists, our job is really to reveal the magical, or spiritual, aspects of the mundane.

Marisa: Yeah, like, just seeing it how we see it and putting it into a frame, capturing it. I think art has a lot to do with how a person sees things. Well, it has everything to do with how a person sees things! But, I feel like that’s why art is so unique from person to person. We all see things differently. We’re these little filters, and objects go through this filter onto paper, or out into the open for other people to see so when you make art you’re really revealing to people how you see things in the crudest form. You’re saying, “this is how I really see things, whether I know that yet, or not”

LBC: That’s why your paintings reveal so much compassion for the subjects, because that’s how you feel for them. You see their humanity.

Marisa: Yes, I definitely feel so much for them and, with this series, although it wasn’t exactly intentional (consciously), my love for them came out in the finished work. Something with their eyes I think. I don’t know, it’s sort of unexplainable. There’s a softness there… I’m getting a little emotional just thinking about them! [laughs]

LBC: Have you ever had someone with physical deformaties sit for you?

Marisa: No, but I would LOVE LOVE LOVE to have someone sit for me. When I’m out in public, if I see someone with a deformity I think to myself “God, I would love to paint them” or, “I wonder how they’d feel if I drew them?” “Would they think I was exploiting them?” because I sure wouldn’t, at least not in a negative way. Most of the deformities I see are so interesting, so beautiful. I wonder sometimes if I approached someone in public and asked if I could draw/paint them, if they’d think I was mocking them. I almost want to shout, “You’re beautiful! I love you!!” But that’s just weird. [laughs]

LBC: Do you feel that for everyone?

Marisa: Hmmm. I know on some level I do.

LBC: I think everyone needs to hear that from time to time… It is like that understanding you spoke of earlier… we distract ourselves from it because we’re afraid of feeling empty, broken, alone…

Marisa: Yeah. Maybe I should start a love campaign. We just go around shouting loving things to strangers for the well-being of humanity. [laughs]

LBC: I think that’s a great idea, seriously!

Marisa: It’s like that “free hugs” thing. Have you seen that? A guy with a sign that says “free hugs” is standing in public, and some people are repulsedand others give him a hug but by the end, everyone’s hugging everyone and it’s really nice. Makes you all warm inside.

LBC: If you don’t mind, lets talk about your new CD, and some of the songs… So, tell me about the title!

Marisa: Welllllll….. It was actually the title to an art series I’d done a while back about a year or so ago and I liked the title, so I put it on the album as well.

LBC: What does it mean to you…

Marisa: Hmmm… well… The series was a little sinister. Let’s just leave it at that…

LBC: No! Come on! Don’t be shy… We’re here to reveal ALL!

Marisa: It’s a little ambiguous, so it could mean all sorts of things.

LBC: It seems to imply some sort of a relationship

Marisa: Yes, yes, you’re on to something.

LBC: …both of status, and of stature,

Marisa: Yes yes!

LBC: of power

Marisa: Yeeesssss!

LBC: It would be easier if you told me about it, rather than me guessing… [laughing]

Marisa: I think you got the gist from guessing.

LBC: Of the new songs I’ve heard, one really struck me: Rolled in Paper.

Marisa: That’s one of my favorite songs off the new one. It’s definitely an emotional song [about] a woman admitting she was wrong, giving the person in question the benefit but you almost feel as though she’s not really wrong, and I don’t think she is. It’s almost like, she’s admitting something that unveils her and makes her very vulnerable, but she’s strong at the same time. [She’s] getting through, making decisions, and sticking to them. It’s bitter sweet.

LBC: It seems to me that it is about letting go.

Marisa: Yes, and the struggle that comes with letting go.

LBC: There’s a line… “Sometimes I think he’d like me better if I died.” Who’s the ‘he’?

Marisa: The he is God. Like, I’ve been given these circumstances, and I feel a certain way, and where is he? How could he let me feel this way? How could he deal me these cards and be so cruel? Sometimes I feel like he doesn’t like me at all. Sometimes I think he’d like me better if I died. That was the mindset anyway when writing that line.

LBC: Are those feelings you have from time to time?

Marisa: Very rarely because, on the whole, I feel very fortunate, and I’m the one making my decisions. I’m responsible for dealing with what I’ve been given, and no one is to blame.

LBC: That, right there, is the key to ultimate happiness.

Marisa: Most definitely, [but it] also is really hard to understand sometimes because stuff happens and it gets so easy to use scapegoats, but there is no one but yourself to look to as far as responsibility for actions goes. You can only control your actions and reactions to other people’s actions, and that’s it! Everything that happens to you, YOU need to deal with. You’re responsible. Does that make any sense?

LBC: Absolutely! Personal responsibility for all thoughts, feelings, and actions.

Marisa: Yes.

LBC: It is a tough nut to crack, but it is really the only one that matters.

Marisa: Uh huh.

LBC: When did you decide to be a songwriter?

Marisa: I just started writing songs when I was about 17, and it sort of evolved. It was addicting. I wrote one song, then another, then another. Pretty soon I had enough songs to make an album, and I recorded them but didn’t release them because I didn’t think they were ready. (this was when I was 19.) But I continued to write and write and write and play and play and play and, pretty soon, I had enough songs that I DID think were ready. I recorded them, and Parlour Flattery was born.

LBC: Your first CD’s cover features a self-portrait of sorts. Care to talk about that?

Marisa: Yeah, the cover is called, “Girls, Put on Your Makeup” which is also a track on the album and the painting had to do with a hard time I went through. I used to wear a lot of makeup. I would cover my face with it. It was my mask, and I didn’t feel comfortable leaving the house without it. So, one day I asked myself why I felt that way, why didn’t I feel comfortable showing the world my true face? Why did I feel like I had to hide behind a mask? And the truth was, I wasn’t hiding from anyone but myself. I was afraid of myself. But, in realizing that, I began to change. Accepting and loving and all that bull honkey that people talk about in self-help books… [laughs] Slowly, the makeup came off and after that, I started not wearing any makeup at all! Talk about going from one extreme to another! So, that painting marks that time for me and points out what I was doing: Everyday, putting a bag over my head before I left the house because I didn’t want to world to see me. I don’t feel that way anymore, obviously.

More information about Marisa, and Moedog Darling, can be found on her LongBeachCulture.org profile, on Myspace, and on her own website.

More information about Sander can be found on his LongBeachCulture.org profile, on MySpace, and on his own website.