|
I might write about how old I am, what I look like, and what I do for a living, but then, I couldn't be truthful. I
am a photographer, a filmmaker, an artist, a writer, a daughter, a sister, a cousin, a grandaughter, a wife, a parent. I am
a teacher, a student, a Wasp, a Roman Catholic, a Native American spiritualist, an island Voudoun, a German Jew, a Japanese
Buddhist. I am an American. Specifically, I live and work in Brooklyn, NY.
I am the oldest of eight children, and was born in South Bend, Indiana, where my dad was pursuing his doctorate in Organic
Chemistry, at Notre Dame. I know how to play football- my dad was a star quarterback for Fordham Prep and Fordham University
in the 1940s and played for Vince Lombardi. That's where he met my Mom. She was at the only school at Fordham that admitted
women in those days- the School of Education college. (My dad might have shown me how to throw the sideward lateral- but it
was my mom who taught me how to catch it.) They fell in love, and made eight of us. Mostly, i
grew up in New London Connecticut. I was valedictorian of my junior high class (GPA=99, not 100, much to my chagrin!), and
then, I went downhill academically in high school due to a religious daily warfare with the intolerant and aggressive nuns
who ran it. I became a poet and an artist, then a photographer and a filmmaker. i was a wordsmith since before I can remember.
The story goes that, before I could read, and as soon as I could crawl, I would approach the Encyclopedia and pull down the
volume of the story which I wanted to read. My mother was a biology major, my dad was a doctor.
With Peter Rabbit, we got huge scholarly translations and daily doses of world history, astronomy, the origins of life, Darwinism,
dinosaurs, and much more, from our infancy to our teens. We had a greenboard in our kitchen, on which my father would solve
complex math equations and chemistry puzzles during family meals. We were frequent visitors to the Museum of Natural History.
With the exception of the "Mickey Mouse Club" and "Flash Gordon", an occasional Disney flick and the evening
news with Walter Cronkite, we were not allowed to watch television. One of my great sins at the age of five was sneaking out
of the house during a nap to visit the girl next door, who was allowed to watch "Little Lulu" when her mother was
at work.
I became a filmmaker and photographer at the Rhode Island School of Design, where I had the good fortune to study with
the late Ed LaFarge and the late Harry Callahan. I got my BFA in Film from the Art Institute of Chicago, where I met Robert
Breer, Fred Camper, Sharon Couzin, P. Adams Sitney, Stan Brakhage, Ken Josephson, Joy Neimanas, Robert Heinekin,and George
Landow. I truly became a professional artist after studying painting in Paris, France in the atelier of the late French post-impressionist
Ferdinand Herbo. It was there that I understood how a visual artist is in reality a lifelong student of the phenomenon of
the passage of light. I found a mentor in the senior filmmaker Shirey Clarke on my return to New York, and we made a work
together which I think prefigures interactive moving image art in its structure, concept and editing. I became a college professor
at the Tisch School of the Arts. I also became a computer student there and after 15 years, that's where I earned my MPS. Somewhere
in the middle of that story, I fell in love with my husband, Phil Sloan, who wrote like a dream and had recently graduated
from Yale College. We made a wonderful child- Andy Sloan. Andy is Dartmouth College, '09, a film and history major and
a gifted radio announcer and actor.
In my late youth, my films became part of the collection of the Museum of Modern Art, NY, Film Archive collection. Many
were purchased and many are now represented by the MoMA Circulating Film Library. They continue to be shown and collected.
My films can be viewed in the MoMA study center (My Favorite Links, in this site's toolbar, Click MoMA Link) and at the
New York Public Library's Donnell Branch in midtown Manhattan, or at the NYU Bobst Library, Avery Fisher Media collection.
Early on, two Canadian film scholars and curators, Laurence Kardish and William Sloan, and the Danish-born fiim scholar and
curator Jytte Jensen became champions of my work. (My Favorite Links, in this site's toolbar, Click Bibliography Link.)
So what's my work? Basically, I rip paper. I make emulsions from the angry expression
which is ripping and paper, alone and together, and all this began as a feminist protest as a very young student at RISD.
(My Favorite Links, in this site's toolbar, Click Journalism link) The sound tracks often come from how that ripping paper
sounds. Since then, I create lyric, rhythmic poems of the cinema. (My Favorite Links, in this site's toolbar, Click
Avante-Garde Films Link) Initially, I was inspired to create by my own life experience and by my need to express my feelings
and a project a sense of both self, community and social justice. I was inspired to respect my voice and to continue my work
by the life and work of others who had come before me in that genre- Hans Richter, Norman MacLaren, Len Lye, Stan Brackage,
Robert Breer and Frederico Fellini, Shirley Clarke. All are brilliant light poets. My friend Mike Kuchar (of the notorious
Kuchar Brothers, both great avante-garde filmmakers, from the Bronx) has made a portrait of me on video, ripping paper. You
can see clips (My Favorite Links, in the toolbar, Click Kuchar Link) from it, or rent it from the MoMA Film Library. It is
not on You Tube- like the original of the Mona Lisa. However, unlike the original of the Mona Lisa, I have crossed the Atlantic
several times to work on a new film in Italy, a country in my genetic codec. (My Favorite Links, in this site's toolbar,
Click Family Album link) I have been included con latere in 2 Biennales in Venice. First, for my portrait of Spanish born
artist, New-York-based Angel Orensanz, (My Favorite Links, In this site's toolbar, Click Orensanz Foundation Link) second
for my own work. My latest film portrait is about a Venetian artist, P.G. Titus. (My Favorite Links, in this site's
toolbar, Click Venice project Link) My latest documentary is called "Howard Sloan at Home" and is an essay about
my father-in-law's battle with Parkinson's disease.(My Favorite Links, in this site's toolbar, Click Documentary
Videos.)
|
Taking a break from work... |
What a game!
Phil at a Dartmouth College ice hockey game. (Left.) (Hard to believe,
huh?) Andy is announcing for Dartmouth College on 99 Rock, WFRD radio. (Below, upper right corner of Press Box, second man
from the right.)
|
 |
|
|
Favorites
Here's a list of some of my favorite movies:
Intolerance, Metropolis, The Jazz Singer, All About
Eve, Midnight Cowboy, Manhattan, Breaking the Waves, Like Water for Chocolate, Othello, Fantasia, Window Water Baby, Mothlight,
Scorpio Rising, Gulls and Buoys, Rhythmus, Yojimbo, Ctizen Kane, 81/2, Juliet of the Spirits, A Touch
of Greatness, The Wild Bunch, Apocalypse Now, The Godfather (1 &2), Taxi Driver, These Mean Streets, Italian American,
Celine and Julie Go Boating, Wavelength, Meshes of an Afternoon, All My Babies, Witch's Cradle, The Cool World, Sherlock,
Jr., Our Hospitality, Modern Times, Psycho, North By Northwest, Rear Window, E.T., Schindler's List, anything by George
& Mike Kuchar, Bullfight,Twelve Angry men, Casablanca, anything by John Cassavetes, Days of Heaven
Here's a list of some of my favorite music:
Tallis, Bach, Mozart, Bob Dylan, The Beatles, Beethoven, Schumann,
Bang On A Can, Roy Hargrove, Keith Jarrett, Charles Mingus, Battlefield Band, Frank Sinatra, Nadia, Tracy Chapman, Puccini,
Dvorjak, Tchaikovslky
|
|
|
