Nora Maccoby
LandE scape
CONTEMPORARY ART REVIEW
Trouble Funk now and then. The kids on my block were all into acid and riding the edge. One of the CIA dad’ s who always packed used to help his sons make small bombs and shoot birds. They were all skateboarders and our street was the best hill. Except for one suicide, everyone came out ok and is either a doctor or doing solar energy installation. world, which not all do. But my generation in DC was the streets were ours, there were a quarter of the amount of actual people around, the whole Minor Threat movement was my neighborhood and there was a stage where bands played and it was political punk straight edge mostly with some
I went to public elementary school and developed a deep patriotism and sense of citizenship. Then I went to Sidwell Friends and discovered Quakerism and the importance of privilege to be used to serve the common good- the necessity of activism / art / theater for justice via the use of peaceful creative means. I always was drawing faces. Pencil detailed faces and the bodies in color. I thought about a career as a cartoonist but for me, art was a way to be with myself and think things through and it was personal, like my own diary. I studied violin from the age of 5 with Sheila Johnson who was simultaneously creating BET with her husband Robert Johnson. I witnessed them build an empire with incredible odds against them and it took them 15 years but she became the first female Black Billionaire. She taught me so much, about straddling worlds and dealing with different cultures and classes and races. I learned to play any kind of music by ear. So this was great later on when i got into improv. She led us in a small orchestra called Young Strings in Action and we played monthly concerts at the Children’ s Hospital for the sick kids and we toured England and the East Coast and Jordan, when Queen Noor invited us to the ancient city of Jerash. We played under the temple of Artemis. I was 15. Around this time I got a super 8 camera and editing equipment. I began making films that merged documentary realism with fiction. I spent many weekends on the mall, in front of the White House, shooting super 8 of protestors on different sides of the issue. It was mostly Iran-Contra, pro and against, or abortion or Act Up, etc. My mom painted portraits of us a lot so I experienced being a subject as well as an author. In retrospect I really appreciate that it forced me to learn to sit still and be silent. Everyone in my family is an artist. My oldest sister Annie used to do etchings of villages, beautiful stuff. My brother Max