RESUME FOR SCULPTURE

LINDA MARY MONTANO

Linda Mary Montano, trained in sculpture at The College of New Rochelle, BA; Villa Schifanoia, Florence, MA; University of Wisconsin, Madison, MFA, began performing 1970, and addressed concepts of silence and persona morphing, using aesthetic paradigms to induce a spiritual consciousness. She balanced this vision with a questioning humor. Always there has been a need to use art to practice and prepare for life and also a need to transform and transfer life traumas into art so that nothing is wasted and all is recycled. Endurance has been used as a raw material and way to mark time and teach awareness, via vow-taking; it comes from her Catholic training and two years in a convent. Performances, persona morphing, three books: Art in Everyday Life, Performance Artists Talking in the 80s, and Letters from Linda M. Montano, numerous videos, teaching and residencies at The Art/Life Institute are ways Montano explores her life as a "living sculpture."

www.lindamontano.com

DIANE ARMITAGE ON SITE SHOW FROM THE MAGAZINE, SANTA FE

In 1986, the New Museum in New YoRK

opened the exhibition

Choices: Making

an Art of Everyday Life

, curated by the

museum’s founder and director, the late

Marcia Tucker. This show included such

artists as Marina Abramovic and Ulay, James

Lee Byars, Spalding Gray, Tehching Hsieh,

and Linda Montano. It was at this show

that I first saw Montano’s compelling and

haunting video

Mitchell’s Death. For all its

focus on mortality, it proved to be my own

point of entry into a show that rigorously

investigated aesthetic counterpoints to a

wider art world of commercialism, media

overload, art’s co-option by entertainment

and fashion, and the art world’s seeming lack

of a moral compass.

It’s worth referencing the

Choices show

because most of Montano’s creative life as

a performance artist has been an attempt

to blur the boundaries between art and life,

and her retrospective at SITE Santa Fe—

curated by Janet Dees—loops back to her

first sustained performance, if you will, as a

would-be Catholic nun. Besides becoming

anorexic in the convent, this experience

set the tone for the artist’s inclination

toward a highly disciplined control of her

mind-body systems in order to reach a

heightened state of being, plus Montano’s

spiritual edge is part of her driving wheel.

By the time

Choices opened, Montano had

already begun, in 1984, a work with a multiyear

duration,

Seven Years of Living Art. This

piece was based on the seven energy centers,

or chakras, of the body, and each year the

artist would color-code aspects of her life—

such as her wardrobe—to match the seven

colors associated with the chakras: red for the

base of the spine, then yellow, orange, green,

blue, purple, and white at the top of the head.

In addition, the artist would stay a minimum

of three hours a day in a space matching the

color of the chakra in question, listen to one

certain pitch for a minimum of seven hours

a day, and, for one year, wear only clothes

that matched the color aligned with the

chakra under investigation. But Montano’s

art-life piece had a public component as well

and that’s where the New Museum comes

in again. Once a month, for seven years,

Montano sat in a room in the museum painted

to match the color of her clothes for that

year, and she met one-on-one with individuals

who desired to engage with her in art/life

discussions and counseling.

At SITE, the largest component of

Montano’s retrospective is devoted to

documentation from

Seven Years of Living Art.

Each year’s uniform hangs on the wall, and

on the floor, directly in front of the colorful

garment, is a bundle of clothes matched to

that year’s hue. Besides the clothes, which

poignantly carry a strong sense of the artist’s

presence as well as her absence, there is a

video that deconstructs the spiritual rationale

for this long and intricate performance. In it

we see the artist’s tattooed back marked with

circles denoting the chakras positioned up and

down her spine, but the most interesting part

is the live snakes that wind around her neck

and back and symbolically refer to the coiled

Tantric energy that is supposedly located at

the base of the spine.

Death is an eternal mystery and, on a

fundamentally deep level, the loss of someone

we love is never easily integrated into our

landscapes of memory. The power of loss

is palpable in Montano’s video

Mitchell’s

Death

, which is about the shotgun accident

that took the life of the artist’s ex-husband

Mitchell Payne, in 1977. This is the strongest

and most incantatory of Montano’s works.

In a voice-over monologue, the artist relates

the moment of learning about Payne’s

accident; traveling to Kansas where he

lived; dealing with her ex-husband’s family;

examining Payne’s body in the morgue;

and unveiling her confusion and grief. The

attempt to mirror the death and its impact

on Montano results in a decidedly profound

artwork. In the video, her face morphs from

something ambiguous and skull-like to a face

dotted with acupuncture needles and slowly

back to a soft-focus skull. The artist recites

her litany of painful loss in a one-note drone

that emphasizes the strangeness and horror

surrounding Payne’s death. If Montano were

to be remembered for only one work, this

would be it.

The late art critic and writer Thomas

McEvilley has written extensively on the

potency of artists determined to create

situations and gestures that have “dissolved

the traditional boundaries of art activity and

set new ones within the limits of the lifefield.”

Establishing fluid boundaries within the

“life-field” is at the heart of all performance

work, and what results in this mindexpanding

genre are images of a variable self

splitting open like a seed. In 1983, Montano

collaborated with well-known performance

artist Tehching Hsieh in a yearlong piece

where the artists were tied together by a tenfoot

rope but were forbidden to touch. Hsieh

commented about this piece after it was over

and said, “It’s more than art—you have to

be a human being and an artist. It’s like [the

movie]

Rashomon in that everyone’s point of

view and understanding of the same thing will

be different.” In thinking about performance

art, the work eventually comes to rest in the

mind of the viewer, which alters the distances

between what is art, what is life, and what

it means to be a witness to phenomena

that arise between the two forces.

 

Diane Armitage

Linda Montano,

Mitchell’s Death, video still, 1977

My technique for feeling life’s ecstasy has been negation, taking something away, discipline…. I am in a perpetual state of letting go of control.

 

Linda Montano: Always Creative

SITE S

anta Fe

1606 P

aseo de Peralta, Santa Fe

–Linda Montano

A DREAM ABOUT WOMENPRIESTS AND WOMEN POPES

ROMAN CATHOLIC WOMEN PRIESTS & WHEN I AM POPE  DREAM MANIFESTO: A STORY IN TWO CHAPTERS; LINDA MARY MONTANO 2013

CHAPTER ONE: ROMAN CATHOLIC WOMEN PRIESTS: A REAL DREAM

Once upon a time there were Catholic women who wanted to be priests. This is a real live story and a true fairy tale so listen closely. In 2002, seven of these CATHOLIC WOMEN who wanted to be priests were actually ordained in Germany by a real live Bishop in good standing with the Catholic church and a Bishop quote " in full apostolic succession". end quote. That means this bishop was the real thing and was doing something real, real scary, something the Pope and Vatican didn't like at all. Bad bad bad bad bad.

The Womenpriests and the Bishops and male priest who sponsored them got in real big big trouble and in 2007 the Vatican said quote " They would excommunicate anyone who attempts to confer a sacred order on a woman and excommunicate the woman who attempts to receive a sacred order".endquote

Guess what? That means that Bishops who ordained women who wanted to be Catholic priests and women who became priests were kicked out of the church. Boooooo Hooooooooooo this isn't fair, this isn't good, this is terrible!!

It is very dangerous to be a Catholic Womanpriest. Why do they do this to themselves? They want equality, they want to be included, they want justice, they want equality, they want to serve the people in ministry, they want to be priests and even maybe Popes some day like POPE JOAN was long ago. They feel called by the HOLY SPIRIT and they feel theologically qualified. What more do the men in the Catholic church want?

Some really smart and open minded Catholic Bishops have notorized documents when they ordained these women and placed films and photos with a NOTORY PUBLIC. Wow what brave and radical and correct and right thinking men they are. Thank you, thank you, thank you cool Bishops! And they are making it all legal but alas it isn't theologically legal.

And guess what, these Catholic Womenpriests will allow married women, heterosexual women, homosexual women, grandmothers, divorced women and women who have had marriage annulments to be Womenpriests!! How radical and inclusive is this! Brava brava and applause to all of you.

But oh no, the Vatican says in canon law number 1024 quote "A baptized man alone receives sacred ordination validly". End quote.

Opps, this is not good news for sure. And then they said, Quote "The ordination of a woman to the priesthood, even if conducted by a Catholic bishop in good standing, is without sacramental effect." End Quote

Boo hoo boo hoo. but i'm not going to cry for long because now I say yippee hooray because nothing is stopping these women and there are presently in 2013, over 145 ordained CATHOLIC WOMENPRIESTS who feel called to give service and help and miinistry to all in a new, caring, compassionate and loving way.

Join with me in saying yipppppee brava brava brava you brave women of love.

Now we will move to CHAPTER 2 to read a manifesto I have written which talks about things I will do when I am POPE. I know my hubris and arrogance is outstanding and incorrect but hey, I wanted to be a WOMANPRIEST once and became an artist instead and didn't get to do that so I became an artist instead and now i'm thinking, why not aim high and visualize becoming a woman Pope? Pope Joan did and so can I.

Listen closely to my Manifesto:

A NIGHT DREAM: THE WOMAN POPE MANIFESTO TITLED: WHEN I AM POPE THIS WILL HAPPEN

BY LINDA MARY MONTANO , 2013

1. ALL OF MY SISTER WOMENPRIESTS & NUNS WILL RECEIVE PAY, BENEFITS, VACATIONS AND TITLES EQUAL TO ALL MALE CLERGY.
 

2. CHOSEN AND WISE WOMEN PRIESTS AND MALE CLERGY ALONG WITH LAY THEOLOGIANS AND WISE ELDERS WILL HELP WRITE ECCLESIATICAL ENCYCLICALS.
 

3. THE "DEPOSIT OF FAITH", CANON LAWS AND SUPPOSEDLY INFALLIBLE RULES AND REGULATIONS OF THE CATHOLIC CHURCH WILL BE ADJUSTED AND REWRITTEN ACCORDING TO THE TIME, PLACE AND NEEDS OF CURRENT SITUATIONS AND WILL NOT BE RIGIDLY BELIEVED TO BE INFALLIBILE OR UNCHANGEABLE.

4. CONTRACEPTION WILL BE A CHOSEN OPTION AND NOT BE JUDGED TO BE A MORTAL SIN.

5. PRE-MARITAL SEX WILL BE ALLOWED AS NATURAL AND NOT BE JUDGED TO BE A MORTAL SIN.

6. MARRIED SEX WILL BE ALLOWED TO BE PRACTICED BOTH FOR PLEASURE AND FOR PROCREATION. SEX FOR PLEASURE WILL BE DEEMED NATURAL.

7. GAY RIGHTS/MARRIAGE WILL BE JUDGED TO BE NATURAL AND ALLOWED.

8. EQUAL VOTING POWER WILL BE GIVEN TO WOMEN FOR ALL ASPECTS OF CHURCH FUNCTIONING.

9. THERE WILL BE MARRIED CLERGY. THAT IS: WOMEN CLERGY WILL BE ALLOWED TO BE MARRIED WITH OTHER WOMEN OR MEN. AND MEN CLERGY WILL BE ALLOWED TO BE MARRIED TO OTHER WOMEN OR MEN.

10. CELIBATE CLERGY WILL BE OPTIONAL IF CELIBACY IS CHOSEN BY THE INDIVIDUAL. THIS CAN CHANGE AS THE NEEDS OF THE FEMALE AND MALE PRIESTS CHANGE.

11. MEDITATION MUST BE PRACTICED BY ALL CATHOLICS. CATHOLICS FROM ASIA WILL TEACH THEIR MEDITATION METHODS IN EVERY PARISH.
 

12. MEDITATION WILL BE EXPECTED OF ALL CLERGY AS WELL AS A BODY PRACTICE SUCH AS YOGA, JUDO, DANCING, RUNNING ETC. AND MY CLERGY WILL ALSO HAVE A PRIVATE ART PRACTICE SUCH AS SINGING, WRITING, ACTING ETC.

13. CLERGY CAN RETIRE WHEN NEEDED.

14. SEXUAL INFORMATION AND THE ART OF AUTHENTIC, TRANSPARENT NATURALNESS WILL BE DISCUSSED IN SEMINARY COURSES. SEX THERAPISTS WILL EXPLAIN THE PHYSIOLOGY AND PSYCHOLOGY OF SEX WHILE THE SEMINARIANS ARE IN TRAINING TO BE PRIESTS. THIS TRAINING WILL BE RENEWED EVERY 7 YEARS.

15. THERAPEUTIC MASSAGE WILL BE PRESCRIBED MONTHYLY FOR EACH PRIEST.

16. THE POPE, BISHOPS , ARCHBISHOPS, CARDINALS, MONSIGNORS AND PRIESTS WILL MEET WITH ALL SEXUAL ABUSE SURVIVORS EVERY YEAR FOR A 7 DAY HEALING CEREMONY. AT THESE MEETINGS, EACH SURVIVOR TELLS THE STORY OF THEIR ABUSE, YEAR AFTER YEAR AFTER YEAR. FINANCIAL PAYMENT WILL BE GIVEN FOR THERAPY FOR ALL SURVIVORS.

17. PARISH FINANCES WILL BE OVERSEEN BY A COMMITTEE OF 20 PARISHONERS ON A WEEKLY BASIS.

18. MASTURBATION WILL BE ALLOWED AND NOT JUDGED TO BE A MORTAL SIN BUT A HEALING THERAPY.

19. PARISH MONEY WILL BE GIVEN TO THE RIGHT CAUSES IN THE RIGHT AMOUNTS, TRANSPARENTLY.
 

20. WOMEN AND MALE SEMINARIANS WILL SPEND ONE WEEK OBSERVING CHILDBIRTH AT A BIRTHING CENTER, ONE WEEK OBSERVING EMBALMING IN A MORGUE, ONE WEEK WORKING AT A MCDONALDS AND ONE WEEK OBSERVING A COUNSELING SESSION OF A CLERGY ABUSE SURVIVOR WHO IS SUFFERING FROM PTSD.
 

21. IN EVERY PARISH OR COMMUNITY THERE WILL BE HOMES OF HOSPITALITY FOR UNWANTED NEWBORNS AND ELDERS. THESE TWO POPULATIONS WILL LIVE INTERDEPENDENTLY.
 

22. CHARISMATICS FROM INDIA, THE PHILIPINES AND BRAZIL WILL BE HOUSED IN EVERY PARISH

COMMUNITY AND WILL BE AVAILABLE FOR TEACHING AND HEALINGS ON A DAILY BASIS.
 

23. THE DIVINE FEMININE, FEMALE MYSTICS AND FEMALE DOCTORS OF THE CHURCH WILL BE TAUGHT IN EVERY PARISH COMMUNITY.

 

24. EVERY PARISH COMMUNITY WILL CREATE SUSTAINABLE ORGANIC VEGETABLE AND ANIMAL FARMS FOR MENTALLY AND PHYSICALLY CHALLENGED MEMBERS OF THE COMMUNITY SO THAT THEY CAN HAVE PROXIMITY TO NATURE AND HEALING.
 

25. FEMALE AND MALE CLERGY WILL FOCUS ON THE MYSTICAL NOT THE MONETARY BECAUSE THEY WILL HAVE ASSIANTANTS WHO WILL GUARANTEE ACCOUNTABILTY IN THE PARISHES WITH OVERSEERERS IN ALL ASPECTS OF THE CHURCH . THAT IS, ALL COMMITTEE AND CHURCH MEETINGS WILL HAVE REPRESENTATIVES FROM THE YOUNGEST TO ELDERS WITH EACH HAVING EQUAL TIME TO GIVE INPUT AND CORRECTION.

26. ALL FEMALE AND MALE CLERGY WHO WILL HAVE PUBLIC POSITIONS WILL BE VERSED IN SOCIAL ACCOUNTABILITY SKILLS SO THEY CAN FEEL A FREEDOM OF INTERCHANGE AND A HUMILITY IN INTERACTIONS AND NOT BE FEARED. TO BE A FUNCTIONING CLERGY IN MY PARISHES, ALL CLERGY WILL HAVE APPROPRIATE PSYCHOLOGICAL THERAPY.

27. CLERGY WILL BE BE EVALUATED ON INNER WARMTH AND OUTER COMPASSION AND IF THEY ARENT MANIFESTING POSITIVE HEALING INNER JOY, THEY WILL BE ASKED TO RETIRE OR GO ON RETREAT FOR 3 YEARS.

28.THE LAITY WILL BE ABLE TO CHOOSE TO GO TO CONFESSION WITH EACH OTHER IF THEY WISH OR CAN CHOOSE TO CONFESS WITH CLERGY. THE CHOICE IS GIVEN TO THE LAITY, NOT THE CHURCH.

29. IF THE CHURCH IS IN A COUNTRY OR A COMPROMISED SITUATION WHERE THERE IS NOT A FUNCTIONING CLERGY, CATHOLIC LAITY WILL BE ABLE TO ADMINISTER THE SACRAMENTS OF CONFESSION, BAPTISM AND THE SACRAMENT OF THE SICK.

30. TRANSUBSTANTIATION WILL BE THE FOCUS OF EVERY MASS AND 7 MINUTES WILL BE MANDATORY FOR THE TIME WHEN THE BREAD AND WINE ARE "RAISED UP" DURING MASS SO THAT THIS MIRACLE CAN BE FELT AND EXPERIENCED AND MEDITATED ON BY ALL PRESENT, ESPECIALLY THE OFFICIANT.

31. MY CLERGY WILL MEET WITH POLITICAL LEADERS ONLY IF THERE ARE NON VIOLENT COMMUNICATION FACILITATORS, THERAPISTS AND ACCUPUNCURISTS ATTENDING AND PARTICIPATING BY KEEPING EVERYONE EMOTIONALLY CENTERED AND RATIONAL AND KIND CONCERNING DECISIONS ABOUT JUSTICE, LIBERATION THEOLOGY AND THE POOR.

32. END OF LIFE ISSUES WILL BE A CASE BY CASE, ETHICAL AND HUMANE FAMILY AND MEDICAL AND INDIVIDUAL CHOICE NOT A FEARED CLERICAL RULE OR REGUALTION AS TO THE RIGHT WAY TO DIE.

33. MASS WILL BE A CELEBRATION OF LIFE WITH OPTIONS TO ATTEND THE CHURCH OF YOUR AESTHETIC CHOICE: THAT IS PARISHONERS MAY CELEBRATE IN STRICTLY NON-EXPRESSIVE, LATINITE RITUALIZED WAYS OR IN AN EXPRESSIVE AND THEOLOGICALLY ECSTATIC CHARISMATIC MANNER.

34. TEACHERS OF EASTERN THEOLOGIES IINCLUDING HINDU, ZEN BUDDHIST, JAIN AND TIBETAN WILL BE INCLUDED IN ALL TRAINING PROGRAMS FOR CATHOLIC CLERGY.

35. EACH CLERGY MEMBER WILL HAVE TO SPEND 3 YEARS IN A THIRD WORLD COUNTRY GIVING MEDICAL AND ECOLOGICAL ASSISTANCE TO THE PEOPLE OF THAT COUNTRY BEFORE SERVING IN A NON-THIRD WORLD PARISH. WHILE THERE, THEY WILL KEEP THEIR RELIGIOUS BELIEFS PRIVATE AND THEIR WORSHIP PERSONAL.

36. WOMEN POPES WILL HOLD UP THEIR BIRTH CHILDREN TO CO-BLESS THEIR PARISHONERS FROM THE BALCONY OF ST PETERS.
 

37. ST MARY MAGDALEN, BRING WISDOM AND COMPASSION TO THE HEARTS, MINDS AND SPIRITS OF ALL FEMALE AND MALE CATHOLIC CLERGY. AMEN

THERE IS ONLY ONE MIND PERFORMANCE

THERE IS ONLY ONE MIND PERFORMANCE

LINDA MARY MONTANO with LISA BARNARD KELLEY will present a performance titled: THERE IS ONLY ONE MIND.

While 2 looped videos of JILL BOLTE TAYLOR and FATHER BEDE GRIFFITH talking of their left brain strokes are playing, Montano and LISA BARNARD KELLEY  will walk slowly into the space from different sides of the room. "Technicians" in white lab coats will be sitting at a table and will wire their bodies at different sites and then they will both get into a mechanical lift, raise it 14 feet into the air and perform actions/live sounds which will be mixed with the wired body sounds. The "Technicians " will keep time and after 33 minutes, the video and accompaning sounds stop, and MONTANO/KELLEY will lower themselves down from the lift, then walk into the audience and offer water "blessings".

 

 

BACKSTORY: Montano has had a left brain stroke in the past and as a result has used this information to inform her research and performances.

NEEDED:

14 FOOT LIFT( OR HIGHER )

BODY SENSORS
2 WIRELESS MICS
SOUND TECHNICIANS TO PERFORM AND MONITOR THE BODY SENSORS

MIXER

SPEAKERS

ETC.