Darrell Blackandblue’s the Name, Gay Leather Sex is the Game

Man About Town. Photo courtesy of Darrell

A Boy and His Laptop. Photo courtesy of Darrell

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Darrell at the Folsom Street Fair. At most fairs you win stuffed animals, here you win a dildo, which can also be stuffed... photo by Bob Schaffer

This past Spring, (June 21 to be exact), the Folsom Street East Fair came to Manhattan, where aside form the usual trappings of a NY street fair (sausages, t-shirts, cheap pillows), there was s/m practitioners of both sexes wandering around, and performances by a variety of drag queens, including a Sarah Palin lookalike. I’m told this was the largest event of its nature on the East Coast. One of the people who was there was Darrell Perry, a 48 year old leather loving gay African American male, known around town as Darrell Blackandblue (http://notesfromthedungeonboss.blogs.com/).

Born on Staten Island, he had the common sense to leave that Twilight Zone borough quickly, to go live in Brooklyn and Japan, finally moving to Manhattan where Midtown has been his home for 25 years now. Working mostly in media and photography, Darrell recently quit his last job to develop several online adult web ventures. He also devotes time to throwing gay S/M leather parties, and you can learn more about that at http://www.darrellsdungeon.com/.

Darrell is a member of several educational and Gay clubs around town devoted to the gay leather scene. He has been going to events since 1991, and started giving parties in 2000.

Darrell is planning to expand his party venues to include bars, nightclubs and the like. He is optimistic, that despite the economic downturns, and the years of repression under Mayor Benito Giuliani, the gay leather scene is having a resurgence.

Despite the dearth of affordable real estate to throw events, people are finding ways of meeting up and playing. Darrell feels the internet will play a large role in this regard, and that more and more businesses, instead of fighting the web, will embrace it, especially in regard to nightlife in general, and gay nightlife in particular, and gay leather nightlife to be even more specific.

Darrell got involved in the scene the way a lot of people discover their taste for it: someone tries something out on them, often without their knowledge of what’s really happening. Darrell can’t quite recall the original scene that sparked his interest, perhaps spanking or role play involving daddy/son issues, but he soon realized he was really into it. Slowly, he came to discover others who share his off the beaten track interests. Darrell feels everybody is into something that other people would probably find kinky, but that many don’t want to own up to their desires, or be thought “odd."

This reminds me of one of something E.M. Forster once said, that there isn’t anyone whose sexual tastes if known, wouldn’t horrify other people.

The loss of a lover in 1990 decided Darrell to give himself totally to the scene, and with the end of his job recently, Darrell wants to embed himself further in the gay leather scene.

Kristen Copham, NY Artist

Portrait by Kristen Copham of me. Photo by Bob Schaffer

The Artist and Her Faces. photo by Bob Schaffer

The Artist and Another of Her Subjects. Photo by Bob Schaffer

I sat down for a chat with artist Kristen Copham, who also owns a studio/gallery in the East Village, NY Studio Gallery (http://www.nystudiogallery.com).

Kristen is from Minnesota, and has made NY her home since 2004. Like many others, art brought her here, and a best friend, who moved to NY first. When Kristen would visit here, more and more aspects of the city intrigued her, until she thought, “Why not just move?”

Kristen lives on Suffolk Street, which is not the same street I can recall from the 1970’s, when the neighbors would toss smoke bombs into galleries, surely the ultimate art criticism (This is not a joke, I was in ABC No Rio on Rivington Street back then when an evening of performance was disrupted in just such a manner. Ahh, memories… The streets are safer, though I can’t say they are as much fun as they were, muggings aside).

Kristen is working on a project of 1000 Faces, which are just that: paintings, all the same small size, of faces. Kristen has always done figurative work, which is what attracted her work to me when I saw it in a gallery. I’m sick of abstract art. Anyone who makes use of the human figure has an immediate appeal to me.

Kristen tells that though she “loves abstract work, I’m terrible at it, but I’ve always been good with people, or animals.” The faces project came about because of her desire to work in a smaller format, so she bought some pieces of wood, and began with her roommate, which she says “was not very good. It took me awhile to get it right. First, she made 6 face paintings, then I said, I’ll do 100. Walking the streets, I was struck by the diversity of the faces, especially coming from an essentially Caucasian place like Minnesota. I finished the 100, and people kept asking ‘How many more? How many more?’ and soon I had about 600, so I just said ‘A 1000.’”

Along with faces, Kristen has a series of male nudes, influenced by artists like Sylvia Sleigh and Alice Neel. Kristen started with nude self portraits, then grew tired of that, and with the idea of female nudes in general, and liked the idea of switching the gender roles: women painting men naked, instead of the usual paradigm. Kristen likes to paint men who have never modeled, and most are artists.

“The paintings are also about the men I paint, so I’ll sit and talk with them about their work, and how they want to be represented. We both brainstorm. I don’t want the men to be just an object in a painting. I guess I’m approaching these in a more typical female manner, rather than saying ‘I’m the artist, sit like this, turn right.’ I try to collaborate more with my subjects, so the portraits are more natural and not so contrived.”

When Kristen first came to NY, she lived on 20^th Street, in an apartment she renovated. “I’ve always been wheeling and dealing a bit in real estate, since about 1994. I used to buy places, fix them up, and sell them. When I sold my place on 20^th, I decided to buy a building, because all the rules in co-ops annoyed me, like being chastised because I sublet my apartment, and I’d say ‘Why wouldn’t I sublet it? It was empty.’ I had had enough, so I looked for a small building I could fix up. This place was more about the real estate then the gallery.”

In fact, Kristen never planned to open a gallery. “When I first moved, my friends would say, ‘You going to open a gallery?’ and I’d say ‘Fuck no! I don’t want to run a gallery!’ But what happened, is that I had a studio in Dumbo, and when I started my face series, I’d ask people to come over so I could paint them, and they’d say ‘You’re in Brooklyn? I don’t want to go all the way to Brooklyn.’ Even though I was only one stop over the bridge, so I got a studio In the Whitehall building, on 25^th Street, and I’d leave the door open for airflow, and people would constantly drop by. So I got the idea to use part of it as a gallery, by showing work by my friends up front, so there’d be a buffer zone. Then it just got a away from me, people would ask, ‘How can I show my work?’ Then I had to get help to handle the gallery stuff, and look at me now, I went from ‘No way am I having a gallery’ to living in one.”

Kristen is making the building more multi-purpose, with artists-in-residence, and a rehearsal space in the basement for bands, including her own, “Elfi Snow,” and she has become interested in video as well because of her interest in music. She is the singer/songwriter/guitarist for the band, and in fact did a show recently in Minnesota for the National Hot Rod Association.

You can call the studio if you’d like to be painted by Kristen: 212.627.3276, or info@nystudiogallery.com

Gabrielle Penabaz: Renaissance Toots for the New Millenium

Gabrielle with one of her paintings. Photo by Bob Schaffer

Gabrielle with a painting by Madeline Von Foerster. Her work is well worth your time: http://madelinevonfoerster.com/ Photo by Bob Schaffer

I spoke recently with Gabrielle Penabaz (http://www.TheSaintEve.com), a woman of many talents. Film director, writer, video editor, v.j., singer, dancer, actress, party thrower, and lovely woman.

Gabrielle has lived in NY since 1983, arriving in the city “fleeing from Miami, Florida and the suburbs.” She came here originally to attend NYU’s film school, realized it was too expensive, and switched to Gallatin, a division of NYU where “you invent your own program.” Gabrielle has recently started making films again, and she enjoys directing because you “get to choreograph diverse elements,” something that brings her back to her early training as a dancer.

She also edits video for PS 122 and Montclair University, helping create compilations and the like for them. “It’s a bit like cooking, where you combine things to make a dish, and might add something a bit weird to make the dish taste better.” The idea of harmonizing disparate materials to make a satisfying whole appeals to her dancer’s instincts.

She started making music at NYU, because in the 80’s, there was no video program, and to make the simplest film, you had to use 8 or 16mm, and it could cost upwards of 20,000 or so to make a short film. But her songwriting inspired her to want visuals, so while writing for her last band, she choreographed dancers, and created films for the musical performances. Essentially, that’s what entangled her into finally admitting to being a multi-media artist.

Gabrielle is currently working on a play called “Sex Crimes Cabaret” (http://www.SexCrimesCabaret.com)

that features short films and video backgrounds. The show is about sex laws through history and people’s reaction at various epochs. It started with an interest in laws regarding consensual sex, like sodomy laws, or sexual positions, “no rape or violence”. Sodomy laws affect “straight couples, not just gay ones, and sex toy laws are fascinating. For example, in Texas, until very recently (Nov. 2008), if you owned more than 8 sex toys, it was 'intent to distribute' and a crime.”

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“I find it interesting that the law is phrased with drug language,” says Gabrielle. “One of the more fascinating cases with this law was a woman who ran a sex toy business, but she had to call her stuff ‘educational models’, and was arrested by narcotics officers posing as a married couple looking for marital aid information, and then she was fined 4000 dollars. So as part of this piece, I made a belt of dildos.”

“I also do one-on-one performance art piece called ‘Til Death Do You Part – MARRY YOURSELF!’ [http://www.EncouragingPriestess.com] where you marry yourself and I am your encouraging priestess. I did this recently at Figment on Governor’s Island, and before that at London’s Spill Festival for their ‘Visions of Excess’ evening, and also at last year’s Biennial in New Orleans. Technically, it’s an art piece, but it can also have a strong emotional impact like any wedding.”

If that isn’t enough for one lifetime, Gabrielle has been throwing parties since 1999. “I was hired by companies during the dotcom boom because they wanted cool factor, and I had an unusual band at the time, St. Eve, and I was also working at the nightclub Mother that had a lot of appeal for them. So I would create these VIP events with costumed bartenders, go-go dancers, artsy performances, and interesting drinks. I mostly throw underground events these days.”

Gabrielle is also associated with Collective Unconscious, who recently lost their downtown space. “They’re producing ‘Sex Crimes’ along with Pinchbottom Burlesque for the first two weeks in December at Walker Space (home of SohoRep), and we were recently awarded rehearsal space through LMCC’s Swing Space program. I’m busy, but it’s all coming together. So far, so good.”