⊹ penelope gazin ⊹ is there such thing as a "former artist"?
on sexy-pop-surrealist-fairy queens and the concept of a "former artist"
Penelope Gazin is a Los Angeles-based artist-MILF-visionary born on the seventh of June. To scroll through Penelope’s dancing videos or hug her hello and goodbye within the brick walls of her surrealist fairy-cottage-prop-house is to find yourself taken by a wistful rush to casually witness such a being. She’s like a crossbreed between a vintage cheerleader hottie and a mischievous fairy in the face, leggy and long in the body but somehow still so tiny, tiny in the way someone folds up in a seat by the window or tiny in the way they can be flung around by a drunk guy with shoulders and arms.
Penelope’s great at gliding around in socks and balancing on her toes and playing drums and making clothes and comics and baby and breastmilk and she recently made a 15-foot-tall jacket she plans to send to Guinness World Records. Fashion Brand Company is her current primary project, a sexy-playful collection of small-batch garments that come and go. Linen jackets fit for circus clowns sit next to classic ribbed crop tanks, and to follow the brand on Instagram is to have a steady feed of ads that don’t feel like ads as much as surrealist video experiments. Her website’s about section reads “This is an art project and could go away in the blink of an eye, so don’t take it for granted”, and a red dress with over 20 gloved-hand appendages emitting from its body was recently posted with the caption “These are live. I only made 20.“
Penelope follows 0 people on Instagram , but we all follow her closely , especially for video updates on her son , Skip, an unbelievably angelic and giggly blonde that seems to have a more developed sense of humor than most adults. You can find Skip on his father’s shoulders, grabbing his hair and laughing manically as his dad pretends he is being controlled by “baby ratatouille”, or stealing a car in a viral video that has reached over 70 million views. I’ve shown a selection of these joyous Skip-starring videos to friends, in which they respond with things like “it’s so nice to see parents genuinely enjoying their kid” or “wow, that kid is going to be so funny when he’s older” or “you must be a fertile goddess touched by otherworld entities to produce such a divine apparition”. And it’s true. Penelope once shared in her story that, after a fertility appointment, she was told she had 59 eggs. “59“ was written in doctor-writing sharpie on a piece of paper held up in the car. I replied to this image and said “Kourtney Kardashian only had 7”.
When I shared the first draft of this entry with her, one of her email notes read, “also feel free to mention that i am currently a shell of my former self and haven't made art in 2 years and barely dance or make music anymore.“ This assertion is similar to her Instagram bio, which reads “former artist“, something I always found endearing and relatable, more of an ironic joke - because in my mind, she is still very much a multidisciplinary artist and always will be.
It is at this time when thoughts of eternity, identity, and internet archives set in for me: What is the identity of the artist who isn’t currently on a clear trajectory in their chosen medium, but whose unique vision still blatantly touches every ounce of their lives? How they raise their kid, how they design their bedroom, how they email me back. Surely all of us have had moments of letting our work fall by the wayside, felt the lull after a peak, or broke up with a medium entirely, only to find our voice sneak into the day-to-day, its influence archived. In Penelope’s case, everything she touches has a pop-surrealist humor to it that is entirely her own, from illustrations of the species of fem-zombie-aliens she invented to her interactions with her child.
Artists have often compared their finalized, publicized works to the sensation of children leaving the nest. Once a creation exits your studio, it is susceptible to the perceptions of the world and contexts that will invariably shift the works identity beyond your initial hand - much like a child who grows up and becomes its own being. Does a mother cease to be a mother once the baby has exited her womb and taken on a life beyond the mother’s hands-on creation many years ago? Not at all, and I’d argue that artists and their creations are no different. Further, if I am witnessing a work that affects me deeply - even if it initially materialized in the distant past - have I not touched eternity in that moment, am I not communing with an artist in an invisible exchange that transcends time? Does the death of your favorite painter cancel out their painter identity, because their body is no longer in daily practice? The evidence of every gesture lives on - the mother of it, the artist of it forever at its root.
I can’t look at a video of Gazin dancing in a leotard in 2017 before she met her husband, then a video of her dancing pregnant, then a video posted just last week of her dancing with her son, and not see yet another glorious work of art by a lifetime performer. By virtue of the world wide web, our archives are more public than ever, showing evidence of the rise and fall of every creative endeavor in our history. Penelope has been , and always will be , an artist, illustrator , painter, poster , performer, drummer, dancer, fashion designer, fairy, hottie, mother, surrealist vision. Like anyone worth observing , she bends reality and emits a life-force unlike any other. Whatever spirit has been possessing Penelope all these years is an absolute delight. And those ghosts in her house must be too. ⊹
⊹ what’s on your altar right now ?
⊹ The closest thing I have to an altar is my nightstand. Xenogenesis by Octavia Butler, a pacifier, and a big jug of all natural lube.
⊹ when do you feel closest to spirit ,
or , the essence of things ?
⊹ When I used to breastfeed or going to a strip club and day-dreaming that I am the beautiful stripper.
⊹ when do you feel most in your body ?
⊹ Dancing
⊹ who or what has been most influential
to your spirit , your way of seeing and being ?
⊹ My son sees ghosts.
⊹ what song should have been played at your birth?
⊹ Funeral March of a Marionette
⊹ your death?
⊹ anything by Benny Hill
⊹ please share an image you’ve taken
that you feel spirit was present for :
"Does the death of your favorite painter cancel out their painter identity, because their body is no longer in daily practice? The evidence of every gesture lives on - the mother of it, the artist of it forever at its root." This gave me chills~~~ thank you 🩵
Also wow I was like "what a cool person that I've never heard of" but just realized she's half of Slut Island! I saw them years ago (opening for Sasami) and posted an insta pic of them with the caption "the beatles could never"