Marjorie Cameron
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Marjorie Cameron Parsons Kimmel (April 23, 1922 – July 24, 1995), who professionally used the
Born in
Returning to Los Angeles, Cameron befriended the socialite
Cameron's recognition as an artist increased after her death, when her paintings made appearances in exhibitions across the U.S. As a result of increased attention on Parsons, Cameron's life also gained greater coverage in the early 2000s. In 2006, the Cameron–Parsons Foundation was created to preserve and promote her work, and in 2011 a biography of Cameron written by Spencer Kansa was published.
Biography
Early life: 1922–1945
Cameron was born in
Following the United States' entry into the
Jack Parsons: 1946–1952
In Pasadena, Cameron ran into a former colleague, who invited her to visit the large
During a brief visit to New York City to see a friend, Cameron discovered that she was pregnant and decided to have an abortion.
In the winter of 1947, Cameron travelled from New York to Paris aboard the SS America with the intention of studying art at the
Parsons' and Cameron's relationship was deteriorating and they contemplated divorce.
The Children, Kenneth Anger, and Curtis Harrington: 1952–1968
In medical language Cameron is a lunatic. Elementals and forces and ideas like Babalon when uncontrolled are dangerous. She is now uncontrolled because Jack is dead. Her lunatic four or five fold black and white moonchild operations or attempted operations are summarised by AC's [Aleister Crowley's] comment; 'I get fairly frantic when I contemplate the idiocy of these louts.' I would insist on a vow of Holy obedience and forbid all workings. In my opinion the poor girl is too far gone now to stop. You should dissolve and excommunicate her if she does not take and keep the oath ... She will be shut up and rightly so in a lunatic asylum as soon as she comes out in the open.
– Gerald Yorke, writing to Karl Germer[33]
While in Mexico, Cameron began performing blood rituals in the hope of communicating with Parsons' spirit; during these, she cut her own wrists. As part of these rituals, she claimed to have received a new magical identity, Hilarion.[34] When she heard that an unidentified flying object had allegedly been seen over Washington D.C.'s Capitol Building, she considered it a response to Parsons' death.[34] After two months, she returned to California and attempted suicide.[35] Increasingly interested in occultism, she read through her husband's papers. Embracing his Thelemic beliefs, she came to understand his purpose in carrying out the Babalon Working and also came to believe that the spirit of Babalon had been incarnated into herself.[36] She came to believe that Parsons had been murdered by the police or anti-Zionists, and continued her attempts at astral projection to commune with his spirit.[37]
Her mental stability was deteriorating, and she became convinced that a nuclear test on
In December 1952, Cameron moved to a derelict ranch in
After using the Chinese divination text the I Ching, Cameron returned to Los Angeles, moving in with Booth until the duo were arrested for illegal drug possession.[51] Released on bail, she moved into Druks' Malibu home, and through her joined the avant-garde artistic circle surrounding the socialite Samson De Brier.[52] It was through this circle that Cameron met the Thelemite film maker Kenneth Anger, and after a party titled "Come As Your Madness" which was organised by Mathison and Druks, he decided to produce a film featuring Cameron and others in the group. The resulting film was Inauguration of the Pleasure Dome.[53] After seeing the film, the English Thelemite Kenneth Grant wrote to Cameron hoping that she might move to England and join his London-based group, the New Isis Lodge; Cameron never responded.[54]
Through common friends Cameron met Sheridan "Sherry" Kimmel, and the two entered a relationship. A veteran of the Second World War from Florida, Kimmel suffered from
In autumn 1956, Cameron's first exhibition was held, at Walter Hopps's studio in Brentwood; several paintings were destroyed when the gallery caught fire.[59] Around this time, Cameron was introduced to the actor Dean Stockwell at a public recital of her poetry; he then introduced her to his friend and fellow actor Dennis Hopper.[60] She was also an associate of the artist Wallace Berman, who used a photograph of her on the front of the first volume of his art journal, Semina. The volume also included Cameron's drawing, Peyote Vision.[61] This artwork was featured in Berman's 1957 exhibition at Los Angeles' Feris Gallery, which was raided and shut down by the police. Investigating officers claimed that Peyote Vision, which featured two copulating figures, was pornographic and indecent, thus legitimising their actions.[62]
In late 1957, Cameron moved to San Francisco with her friends Norman Rose and David Metzer.[63] There she mingled within the same bohemian social circles as many of the beat generation of artists and writers, and was a regular at avant-garde poetry readings.[64] She began a relationship with the artist Burt Shonberg of Cafe Frankenstein, and with him moved into a ranch outside of Joshua Tree.[65] Together they began exploring the subject of Ufology, and became friends with the ufologist George Van Tassel.[66] After Kimmel was released from a psychiatric ward, Cameron re-established her relationship with him, and in 1959, they were married in a civil ceremony at Santa Monica City Hall; their relationship was strained and they separated soon after.[67]
In 1960, Cameron appeared alongside Hopper in Harrington's first full-length film, Night Tide. The film was a critical success and—despite not receiving a wide distribution—became a cult classic.[68] She was invited to appear in Harrington's next film, Games, although ultimately never did so.[69] After Cameron moved to Venice, Los Angeles,[70] a local arts shop exhibited her work in August 1961.[71] On his return to the U.S. from Europe, Anger moved in with Cameron for a time,[72] before the duo moved into a flat on Silverlake Boulevard in early 1964; Anger remained there before departing for New York City.[73] According to Anger biographer Bill Landis, Cameron had become "a rather formidable maternal figure" in Anger's life.[74] In October 1964, the Cinema Theatre in Los Angeles held an event known as The Transcendental Art of Cameron, which displayed her art and poetry and screened some of her films; Anger arrived and disrupted the event by objecting to the screening of Inauguration of the Pleasure Dome without his permission.[75] He then launched a poster campaign, The Cameron File, against his former friend, labelling her "Typhoid Mary of the Occult World".[76] The pair later reconciled, Cameron visiting Anger in San Francisco, where he introduced her to Anton LaVey, the founder of the Church of Satan. LaVey was delighted to meet her, having been a fan of Night Tide.[77]
Later life: 1969–1995
In the latter part of the 1960s, Cameron and her daughter moved to the
By the mid-1980s, Cameron was focusing to a greater extent on her family life, particularly in looking after her grandchildren, who were known to go
As well as entertaining old friends who came to visit her in her home,[90] Cameron also met with younger occultists, such as the Thelemite William Breeze and the industrial musician Genesis P-Orridge.[91] Cameron aided Breeze in co-editing a collection of Parsons' occult and libertarian writings, which were published as Freedom is a Two-Edged Sword in 1989.[92] Cameron was acquainted with the experimental film-maker Chick Strand and appeared in the latter's 1979 project Loose Ends, during which she narrated the story of an exorcism.[86] In 1989, an exhibition of her work titled The Pearl of Reprisal was held at the Los Angeles Municipal Art Gallery. It included a selection of her paintings and a screening of Inauguration of the Pleasure Dome and The Wormwood Star, while Cameron attended to provide a candle-lit reading of her poetry.[93]
Death
In the mid-1990s, Cameron was diagnosed with a
Personality
Cameron preferred to be known by her surname as a mononym.[96] According to historian of Thelema Martin P. Starr, Cameron's "very dominating personality could not brook rivals of any kind".[97] The fashion writer Tim Blanks noted that Cameron was "a charismatic woman" active in the mid-20th century "macho art world", and that it was not surprising how "alluring and dangerous" she must have seemed to Hopper and Stockwell.[98]
Stockwell described Cameron as "a very, very intense personality, but very fascinating".[99] Considering her to be "an out and out witch",[100] Hopper described her as having an "infectious personality" through her presence; she was someone "that you knew [was] different and [she] had a magnetic quality that you wanted to be closer to".[99] The photographer Charles Brittin, who knew Cameron on Los Angeles' artistic circuit, called her "a sweet person with a great personality, not the way some of her friends wanted to picture her to be".[101] Her friend Shirley Berman described her as having "many different crowds of friends, and I think she was a different personality with each crowd ... She wasn't an even personality at all, but she was always a very gracious person."[7]
Artistic style
[Cameron's] art and spiritual life were one. They were indivisible ... But that said, you can be a total sceptic or atheist, or know nothing of her spiritual practice, and still be deeply moved or blown away by her exquisitely rendered, and beautiful envisioned drawings and paintings. It's the work that remains. These sublime treasures that she seems to have captured and brought back from a netherworld for us all to view.
– Biographer Spencer Kansa[102]
The digital media theorist
Lunenfeld compared Cameron's black and white pen-and-ink drawings to those of the English artist Aubrey Beardsley, noting that she was capable of a "ferocious, paradoxical line work—simultaneously precise and seductively unrestrained—that functions as both figurative depiction and unabashed emotional talisman".[105] He believed that both "passion and craft" could be seen in her draughtsmanship, but that it also displayed "a guilelessness that is hard to relate to in our post post-ironic moment".[105] He also discussed her lost multi-coloured watercolour paintings that were featured in Harrington's The Wormwood Star, suggesting that they were akin to a storyboard for an unrealised film by the director Alejandro Jodorowsky.[105]
Cameron's biographer Spencer Kansa was of the opinion that Cameron exhibited parallels with the Australian artist and occultist Rosaleen Norton, both in terms of her physical appearance and the similarities between their artistic styles.[106] Harrington also saw similarities in the work of Cameron and the artists Leonora Carrington and Leonor Fini.[107] On the website of the Cameron–Parsons Foundation, Michael Duncan expressed the view that Cameron's work rivals that of "fellow surrealists" like Carrington, Fini, Remedios Varo, and Ithell Colquhoun, while also appearing "fascinatingly prescient" of the works by later artists Kiki Smith, Amy Cutler, Karen Kilimmck, and Hernan Bas.[108] In later years, Cameron would often be erroneously labelled a Beat artist because she inhabited many of the same social circles as prominent Beat poets and writers.[109] Rejecting this label, Kansa instead described Cameron as "a pre-Beat bohemian, whose heart lay in Romanticism".[109]
Legacy
Cameron's reputation as an artist grew after her death.
As seen in The Wormwood Star, Cameron burned a lot of her work and much of the remainder is owned by the Foundation. One of the few that is privately owned is called Blue Prophet which, when viewed in person, evidences "extraordinary power" [117]
Cameron's life was brought to wider attention through the publication of two biographies about Parsons: John Carter's Sex and Rockets and George Pendle's Strange Angel.[118] A dramatization of Parsons' life was depicted in the play Moonchild, performed at The Access Theatre in 2004. Cameron was portrayed by Heather Tom.[119] In 2011, Wormwood Star, a biography of Cameron authored by the Briton Spencer Kansa, was published,[120] though it was not authorized by the Cameron–Parsons Foundation.[121] Kansa had spent almost three years in the U.S. researching the book, interviewing many of those who knew Cameron, including several who died shortly after.[122] Kansa stated that most of those whom he interviewed "were immensely generous with their time and recollections" but that "one of Cameron's kookier friends" had begun making claims that Kansa was not a biographer but was really an agent of the Federal Bureau of Investigation.[122] Writing in the Los Angeles Review of Books, Steffie Nelson noted that Kansa did "his due diligence tracking down Cameron's childhood acquaintances and friends" but at the same time was critical of the lack of sources or footnotes.[121]
References
Citations
- ^ Carter 2004, p. 220.
- ^ Carter 2004, p. 131; Duncan 2008; Kaczynski 2010, p. 538; Kansa 2011, p. 9; Laden 2014.
- ^ Carter 2004, p. 131; Kaczynski 2010, p. 538; Kansa 2011, pp. 9–11.
- ^ Kansa 2011, pp. 11–12.
- ^ Kansa 2011, pp. 12, 15.
- ^ Kansa 2011, pp. 13–14.
- ^ a b c Laden 2014.
- ^ Kansa 2011, p. 17.
- ^ a b Kansa 2011, p. 18.
- ^ Carter 2004, p. 131; Kaczynski 2010, p. 538; Kansa 2011, pp. 18–22; Nelson 2014; Laden 2014.
- ^ Kansa 2011, pp. 22–23.
- ^ Duncan 2008; Kaczynski 2010, p. 538; Kansa 2011, p. 24.
- ^ Carter 2004, p. 131; Duncan 2008; Kaczynski 2010, p. 538; Kansa 2011, p. 27; Nelson 2014; Laden 2014.
- ^ Carter 2004, p. 130; Kansa 2011, pp. 28–29; Nelson 2014; Laden 2014.
- ^ Carter 2004, p. 130; Pendle 2005, pp. 259–260; Kansa 2011, pp. 35–37; Nelson 2014; Laden 2014.
- ^ Pendle 2005, pp. 263–264; Kansa 2011, p. 29; Laden 2014.
- ^ Carter 2004, p. 151; Kansa 2011, pp. 37–38.
- ^ Pendle 2005, pp. 267–269; Kansa 2011, pp. 38–39.
- ^ Kansa 2011, p. 39.
- ^ Starr 2003, p. 320; Carter 2004, p. 158; Pendle 2005, pp. 275, 277; Kansa 2011, p. 39; Laden 2014.
- ^ Carter 2004, p. 130; Duncan 2008; Kansa 2011, pp. 39–41.
- ^ Kansa 2011, pp. 43–45.
- ^ a b Kansa 2011, pp. 48–49.
- ^ Kansa 2011, p. 48.
- ^ Pendle 2005, p. 288; Duncan 2008; Kansa 2011, pp. 51–53; Nelson 2014; Laden 2014.
- ^ Pendle 2005, pp. 294, 297; Kansa 2011, p. 57.
- ^ Pendle 2005, pp. 294–295; Kansa 2011, pp. 57–63.
- ^ Kansa 2011, p. 61.
- ^ Pendle 2005, pp. 296–297; Kansa 2011, p. 64.
- ^ Pendle 2005, p. 299; Kansa 2011, p. 65.
- ^ Carter 2004, pp. 177–179; Pendle 2005, pp. 1–6; Duncan 2008; Kansa 2011, pp. 65–66; Laden 2014.
- ^ Kansa 2011, pp. 67–68.
- ^ Kansa 2011, p. 94.
- ^ a b Kansa 2011, p. 74.
- ^ Kansa 2011, pp. 74–75.
- ^ Kansa 2011, pp. 75–77.
- ^ Kansa 2011, pp. 77–79.
- ^ Kansa 2011, p. 79.
- ^ Kansa 2011, pp. 80–81.
- ^ Starr 2003, p. 328; Carter 2004, p. 184.
- ^ Starr 2003, p. 328.
- ^ Kansa 2011, p. 82; Nelson 2014; Laden 2014.
- ^ Kansa 2011, pp. 85–86.
- ^ Kansa 2011, pp. 67, 97.
- ^ Kansa 2011, pp. 90, 92.
- ^ Kansa 2011, pp. 88–89.
- ^ Kansa 2011, pp. 90–92.
- ^ Carter 2004, p. 188; Kansa 2011, pp. 82–84; Nelson 2014.
- ^ Kansa 2011, pp. 92, 94.
- ^ a b c d Kansa 2011, p. 253.
- ^ Kansa 2011, pp. 97–98.
- ^ Kansa 2011, p. 100.
- ^ Landis 1995, pp. 74–76; Carter 2004, p. 190; Duncan 2008; Kansa 2011, pp. 104–106; Laden 2014.
- ^ Kansa 2011, pp. 114–115.
- ^ Carter 2004, p. 190; Kansa 2011, pp. 118–121; Nelson 2014.
- ^ Carter 2004, p. 190; Duncan 2008; Kansa 2011, pp. 126, 130; Nelson 2014; Laden 2014.
- ^ Kansa 2011, p. 47; Laden 2014.
- ^ Carter 2004, p. 191; Duncan 2008; Kansa 2011, pp. 135–139; Nelson 2014; Laden 2014.
- ^ Kansa 2011, p. 131.
- ^ Kansa 2011, pp. 140–141.
- ^ Kansa 2011, pp. 121–122.
- ^ Kansa 2011, p. 141; Fredman 2010, p. 1.
- ^ Kansa 2011, p. 144; Nelson 2014.
- ^ Kansa 2011, pp. 143, 150.
- ^ Kansa 2011, pp. 152–154, 157; Nelson 2014.
- ^ Kansa 2011, pp. 157–158.
- ^ Kansa 2011, pp. 173–174; Laden 2014.
- ^ Carter 2004, p. 191; Kansa 2011, pp. 174–171; Nelson 2014; Laden 2014.
- ^ Kansa 2011, p. 207.
- ^ Kansa 2011, p. 174.
- ^ Kansa 2011, p. 177.
- ^ Landis 1995, pp. 100–101; Kansa 2011, pp. 183–187.
- ^ Kansa 2011, p. 190.
- ^ Landis 1995, p. 81.
- ^ Kansa 2011, pp. 191–192.
- ^ Kansa 2011, pp. 193–194.
- ^ Kansa 2011, p. 214.
- ^ Duncan 2008; Kansa 2011, p. 215; Laden 2014.
- ^ Duncan 2008; Kansa 2011, pp. 217–218; Laden 2014.
- ^ Kansa 2011, pp. 226–227.
- ^ Kansa 2011, p. 227.
- ^ Kansa 2011, pp. 223–224; Nelson 2014.
- ^ Kansa 2011, p. 227; Nelson 2014.
- ^ Kansa 2011, p. 238; Laden 2014.
- ^ Kansa 2011, p. 244.
- ^ a b Kansa 2011, pp. 233–234.
- ^ Kansa 2011, p. 236; Laden 2014.
- ^ Kansa 2011, p. 241.
- ^ a b c Kansa 2011, p. 247.
- ^ Kansa 2011, p. 242.
- ^ Kansa 2011, p. 239.
- ^ Duncan 2008; Kansa 2011, p. 249; Nelson 2014.
- ^ Carter 2004, p. 195; Duncan 2008; Kansa 2011, p. 249; Laden 2014.
- ^ Kansa 2011, pp. 250, 253.
- ^ Carter 2004, p. 195; Duncan 2008; Kansa 2011, p. 252; Laden 2014.
- ^ a b Lunenfeld 2015, p. 91.
- ^ Starr 2003, p. 320.
- ^ a b c Blanks 2013, p. 246.
- ^ a b Kansa 2011, p. 141.
- ^ Landis 1995, p. 72.
- ^ Kansa 2011, p. 178.
- ^ Stevens 2011, p. 25.
- ^ Laden 2014; Martinez 2015.
- ^ a b Frank 2014.
- ^ a b c Lunenfeld 2015, p. 92.
- ^ Kansa 2011, p. 137.
- ^ Kansa 2011, pp. 136, 137.
- ^ Duncan 2008.
- ^ a b Kansa 2011, p. 143.
- ^ Kansa 2011, p. 255; Laden 2014.
- ^ Carter 2004, p. 195; Duncan 2008; Kansa 2011, p. 255.
- ^ Kansa 2011, p. 256.
- ^ Duncan 2008; Kansa 2011, pp. 257–258; Laden 2014.
- ^ Nelson 2014; Laden 2014.
- ^ Frank 2014; Laden 2014.
- ^ Yaeger 2015; Chidester 2015; Martinez 2015.
- ^ Kenneth Anger unveils some of Cameron's work
- ^ Kansa 2011, p. 255.
- ^ Kansa 2011, p. 257.
- ^ Stevens 2011, p. 24; Blanks 2013, p. 246.
- ^ a b Nelson 2014.
- ^ a b Stevens 2011, p. 24.
Sources
- Blanks, Tim (March 2013). "Witch's Crew" (PDF). W Magazine. pp. 244–245.
- Carter, John (2004). Sex and Rockets: The Occult World of Jack Parsons (new ed.). Port Townsend: Feral House. ISBN 978-0-922915-97-2.
- Chidester, Brian (September 8, 2015). "Cameron: Cinderella of the Wastelands". The Village Voice. Retrieved April 12, 2016.
- Duncan, Michael (2008). "Cameron". Cameron Parsons Foundation. Archived from the original on June 5, 2008. Retrieved April 12, 2016.
- Frank, Priscilla (August 8, 2014). "Meet Cameron, The Countercultural Icon Who Bewitched Los Angeles". The Huffington Post. Retrieved April 12, 2016.
- Fredman, Stephen (2010). Contextual Practice: Assemblage and the Erotic in Postwar Poetry and Art. Stanford: Stanford University Press. ISBN 978-0-804763-58-5.
- ISBN 978-0-312-25243-4.
- Kansa, Spencer (2011). Wormwood Star: The Magickal Life of Marjorie Cameron. Oxford: Mandrake. ISBN 978-1-906958-08-4.
- Laden, Tanja M. (October 8, 2014). "Cameron's Connections to Scientology and Powerful Men Once Drew Headlines, But Now Her Art Is Getting Its Due". LA Weekly. Archived from the original on February 19, 2015.
- Landis, Bill (1995). Anger: The Unauthorized Biography of Kenneth Anger. New York: HarperCollins. ISBN 978-0-06-016700-4.
- Lunenfeld, Peter (January 2015). "Cameron: The Season of the Witch" (PDF). Artforum: 91–92.
- Martinez, Alanna (October 2, 2015). "Deitch Projects Presents the Uncensored Story of LA Artist/Occultist Marjorie Cameron". Observer. Retrieved April 12, 2016.
- Nelson, Steffie (October 8, 2014). "Cameron, Witch of the Art World". Los Angeles Review of Books. Archived from the original on April 14, 2015.
- Pendle, George (2005). Strange Angel: The Otherworldly Life of Rocket Scientist John Whiteside Parsons. London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson. ISBN 978-0-7538-2065-0.
- Starr, Martin P. (2003). The Unknown God: W.T. Smith and the Thelemites. Bollingbrook: Teitan Press. ISBN 978-0-933429-07-9.
- Stevens, Matthew Levi (August 2011). "Interview with Spencer Kansa". The Cauldron. 141: 24–27. ISSN 0964-5594.
- Yaeger, Lynn (September 10, 2015). "The Cameron Retrospective Might Be the Most Stunning Show This Fall". Vogue. Archived from the original on January 26, 2016. Retrieved April 12, 2016.
External links
- Cameron-Parsons Foundation
- Marjorie Cameron at IMDb
- The Wormwood Star (1955), a short film portrait of Cameron by Curtis Harrington.