Dirty Woman, Dirty Girl
Interview: Anna Broome
by Heidi Hutchinson


At distance, she seems a delicate, kittenish creature. Until she laughs. Chin whipped back, Anna Broome belts a rippling roar across the room, her tiny frame convulsing wantonly. Faces turn, half-turn, some smile, some scowl in return.

I figure Anna for an artist. Her subject matter? “The female form,” she replies in a surprise, Southern accent. Given her brash demeanor, I’d have guessed NYC. Not Memphis, Tennessee.

At a nearby high-end Beauty Salon one of Anna’s Oils hovers above the hair dryers depicting a clumsy Gymnast fallen under the spell of Shakespeare’s MacBeth witches, Anna tells me. It’s part of a series she’s sold-out, nearly. Not surprising.

I’m impressed at how well she’s expressed her subject in the abstract and done so in a form I’ve never seen before, a new technique she stumbled on in search of texture.

Anna: “Someone left a pile of torn up DRYWALL outside our loft. I passed it and thought, ‘I bet I can dig my claws into that! I hauled it all inside and it cut like buttah. Now, ya won’t steal it will ya?”

Heidi: “Um…Not without giving you credit. What inspired you conceptually?”

Anna: “The relationships of women within the confines of sexual repression in society.”

Heidi: “The MacBeth witches are sexually repressed?!”

Anna: “They’re viewed as DEVIANTS. Their feminine powers are seen as fearsome, ugly.”

Heidi: “What have the Witches got against the Gymnast?”

Anna: “Envy. Frustration.”

When next we meet, Anna’s foot’s in a cast. She’s twisted her ankle. But I’m soon to learn that’s not all the pain she’s in, by far.

Anna’s apologizing for her raggedy nails, her paint-splattered skin. She’s spent her time ankled off her waitress gig in a painting “trance.” She works in low-light, prefering to feel rather than see her way through.

Anna: “Vision is deceptive. Touch is truer.”

She’s drawn to paint on a moment’s notice. Anna once took up her brush in an expensive evening gown. The dress was a wreck when the lights came back on.

Anna: “I just cain’t e-vah stay clean! I could get dirty in a wershin’ (washing) machine!”

Heidi: “When you paint, you mean?”

Anna: “Aw, I’ve always been that way. Before paint, it was mud, dirt, grass stains, kool aid…I just like bein’ sticky.”

Heidi: “You dirty girl you. You were a ‘Tom Boy’?”

Anna: “Hell, you couldn’t even tell I’s a girl ‘til they cleaned me up.”

Heidi: “How’d that go over? I picture Southern Belles with starched skirts and perfect bows.”

Anna: “They’re so clean, PURE, manicured. ...I was a total misfit.”

Heidi: “How so?”

Anna: “First of all, I’m Jewish. We lived in the PORK STATE. And they sent me to Catholic School.”

Heidi: “Oh, Christ!”

Anna: “I’ll say. I never knew what to do with myself at those ceremonies…all the smoke and ashes and bells…like some kind of magic show. ...I was s’possed to be serious. Not laugh, point and clap. Couldn’t help myself at that.”

Heidi: “I went to Catholic school, too. Made up juicy stories at Confession. Couldn’t get in that spooky confession booth without a script! ...Of course, eventually I was expelled. For something I didn’t do!”

Anna: “I thought they were gonna have an EXORCIST after me! The Nuns were so strict one of ‘em cut off a girl’s braid for not havin’ her homework done.”

Heidi: “What did do to try to fit in?”

Anna: “I practised communion rites on dolls. I’d cut out little white circles of Wonder Bread, chant, burn candles, I’d play the role of the Priest. I’d dip the bread in “Acetone”...that meant “Atonement.” I’d punish the dolls when they misbehaved.”

Heidi: “How?”

Anna: “I’d cover ‘em in honey and stick ‘em in red ant hills so they’d be stung. ...I was a strange little kid.”

Heidi: “That’s actually in the Bible, the Torah. A punishment used in Soddem and Gommorah on a little girl…think it was bee stings, though. Maybe your re-enactment?”

Anna: “I don’t know but I always thought the Biblical writers could come up with somethin’ better than a Burning Bush! My own Mama could raise more hell than that.”

Heidi: “Was she strict, too?”

Anna: “She had to be. She raised us alone. Had to be Mom and Dad. But, I tell you, that woman is scary. Three thousand miles away, I still panic when her number comes up on the phone.”

Heidi: “Why?”

Anna: “You can’t lie to her! ...Nothin’ makes her madder than if you try to. And she WILL catch you. Every damn time.”

Heidi: “What did she do for a living?”

Anna: “She was a Child Abuse Investigator. She wanted to be a writer but had to earn steady income after my Daddy left when she was pregnant with me. I have an older sister, too. She’s the complete opposite of me.”

Heidi: “How so?”

Anna: “She’s prim and proper. She’s the ideal Southern feminine. Pure, graceful and respectful. You please your man by showing your purity. Your man has to introduce you to everything you experience. You can’t go out on your own and get mussed up.”

Heidi: “Tell-tale dirt.”

Anna: “It’s all about sexual confinement.”

Heidi: “Debutants, yes, are INTRODUCED to Society.”

Anna: “Women are still judged by those standards, everywhere.”

Heidi: “Are you trying to redefine femininity with your (art) work?”

Anna: “I prefer to call it ‘the feminine.’ Art is the way to break the mold. My Aunt, Pat Fulmer, is known for her paintings of Goddesses in modern settings. She depicts the Virgin Mary with an apron on, as a modern housewife.”

Heidi: “Remember Hail Mary? ...Full of GRACE?”

Anna: (Holding up her ankle cast, laughing as always.) “Well, you can see how full of Grace I am!”

A Vagrant passes us, stopping briefly at our outside table. But when Anna holds up the cast he moves swiftly on.

Vagrant: “I’m outta here before she puts a foot up my ass!”

Anna: “Look at that, he’s still runnin’! I’m just hurt on everything…”

Heidi: “You seem pretty compassionate to me.”

Anna: “My Grandmother would make people clothes and food and put it on their doorstep anonymously. Now, SHE was compassionate.”

Heidi: “That’s alot to live up to. ...You’re from a family of strong women?”

Anna: “Hell, yes. We’re Holocaust survivers. Some of us. I know all my female ancestors’ stories. One of them died on the boat fleeing Nazi Germany. Imagine that. Dyin’ on your way to escape?”

Heidi: “Are they the Women in your paintings?”

Anna: “Some of them, yes. Some of them are more of a composite. I have a dialogue with them all. They get pissed at me, bitch at me…I want to show all aspects of the feminine, even the most horrific. I did one on “Media,” the lover of Zeus who murdered her children to regain his love, his interest.”

Heidi: “Are you ever so frustrated with the feminine role, with the judgment, you wish you were a man?”

Anna: “No, I wish I were more of a woman! And, I think I’m trying to discover my own inner-feminine. I DISSECT it, peel through the layers of it, reveal it. I even use a Doctor’s operating kit, a scalpel blade to cut the shapes. It’s cruel sometimes. A kind of self-mutilation.”

Heidi: “How do you feel about your own body?”

Anna: “I was always ashamed of it. I always felt dirty. I developed early. I always wore baggy clothes. I’ve only recently started getting comfortable enough to uncover.”

Heidi: “Have you ever done a portrait of a man?”

Anna: “One. He was my first portrait. My boyfriend of six years. There was something feminine about him, in his eyes, a tenderness and an austerity.”

Anna’s eyes are wet.

Anna: “He was a musician, a guitarist and singer. A great lyricist. He had INFORMATION. He was so supportive of my art. When I needed supplies he’d clean out his bank account. He’d take my paintings on the bus to show to galleries.”

Heidi: “When did you break up?”

Anna is barely holding back hard sobs.

Anna: ”...He died in my arms on June 2, few weeks ago.”

Heidi: “You don’t have to talk about it.”

Anna: “Oh yes, yes I do! It’s be wonderful if you could give him some tribute…J-e-r-e-n C-o-m-b-e-s.”

Heidi: “Do you need a glass of wine? ...How ‘bout a tissue?”

We’re both fumbling through our purses and a pair of sunglasses suddenly flies out of Anna’s spinning around on the table between us.

Anna: “Those were Jeren’s glasses! That’s all I saved from his belongings. I went back to our place a few times. I just sat there, paralyzed. I couldn’t pack anything up. It all has paint on it, anyhow.”

There are speckles of paint on the glasses.

Anna: “Hell, I can’t even call to have the utilities turned off. Other day I just locked the door with the key inside. I can’t keep going back there.”

For more of Anna Broome’s work go to: www.annabroome.com
Anna’s dress provided by: Skingraft

- HH